The Kenneth Anderson Omnibus

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Contents

1. Nine Man-Eaters And One Rogue

2. Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers
3. The Black Panther of Sivanipalli
4. The Call of the Man-Eater
5. The Tiger Roars
6. Tales from the Indian Jungle
7. Jungles Long Ago
8. Jungle Tales For Children
9. Tales of Man Singh
Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Dedication

To the memory of the jungles of southern India, their birds and

animals, particularly elephant, and panther, and their forest-
people Chensoos, Sholagas, Karumbas and Poojarees, I proudly
and gratefully dedicate this book, in return for twenty-five years
of unadulterated joy they have given me in making and keeping
their acquaintance.
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. The Man-Eater of Jowlagiri
2. The Spotted Devil of Gummalapur
3. The Striped Terror of Chamala Valley
4. The Hosdurga-Holalkere Man-Eater
5. The Rogue-Elephant of Panapatti
6. The Man-Eater of Segur
7. The Man-Eater of Yemmaydoddi
8. The Killer of Jalahalli
9. The Hermit of Devarayandurga
10. Byra, the Poojaree
11. The Tigers of Tagarthy
 Introduction

HE Man-Eating Tiger is an abnormality, for under normal

T circumstances the King of the Indian Jungles is a gentleman
and of noble nature. He kills only for food, never wantonly, and
his prey are the wild beasts of the forest, or, where temptation
offers, the village cattle that are sent to graze in the government
reserves.

Occasionally a tigress will teach her half-grown cub, or cubs,

the art of killing their prey in the way a tiger should kill—by
breaking the vertebrae of the neck. Under such special
circumstances three or four cattle may be killed at a time, to
provide practice for the youngsters, but such slaughter is never
performed wantonly by a single tiger for the sheer joy of slaying. A
tigress normally brings up two cubs at a time—although I have
personally seen four—and it is said that the male limits the species
by eating half the litter shortly after their birth.

The tiger’s skill in breaking the neck of its prey, in contrast to

the method of leopards and panthers, which strangle their prey by
seizing its throat and holding on, has often been debated by
hunters. In fact, when attacking, the tiger rises up besides its
victim, generally places a paw over its shoulder and seizes the
beast by the back of the neck or throat, according to its size,
pressing the head to the ground. The paw is then used as a lever to
cause the victim to topple over itself, while the tiger continues to
hold the head down. Thus, the weight of the animal’s own body is
the factor that breaks the neck rather than any twisting action by
the tiger, although I am personally of the opinion that the latter
does exist to a considerable extent. Because of the tiger’s ability to
open its jaws very widely, it is sometimes difficult to judge
whether the prey was seized by the back of its neck or by the
throat, the fang marks being so positioned that either could have
happened.
 The panther and leopard are for all practical purposes the same
animal although even here much argument has arisen from the
great contrast in size between the ‘Thendu’, or forest variety of
panther, which kills its prey by breaking the neck after the
manner of a tiger, for which it is sometimes mistaken, and the
smaller variety of leopard haunting the outskirts of villages,
which kills goats and dogs by strangling, and even descends to
feeding on rats and domestic fowls. The panther is a much less
powerful animal than the tiger, generally of a cowardly
disposition, but nevertheless one of the most picturesque
inhabitants of the forests of the Indian Peninsula, and of Asia and
Africa.

Man-eaters of both varieties have generally been created by the

interference of the human race. A tiger or panther is sometimes so
incapacitated by a rifle or gunshot wound as to be rendered
incapable, thereafter, of stalking and killing the wild animals of
the forest—or even cattle—that are its usual prey. By force of
circumstance, therefore, it descends to killing man, the weakest
and puniest of creatures, quite incapable of defending himself
when unarmed. The same incapacity may sometimes occur
through accidental injury, such as a porcupine quill in the foot;
and sometimes the habit of man-eating is passed on by a tigress to
her cubs. Occasionally the taste for human flesh is acquired by a
panther that has devoured corpses that have been thrown into the
forest, as happens when epidemic diseases attack villages in those
areas, though this is very uncommon. Equally rare are instances
where none of these circumstances appear to account for the
propensity.

A man-eating tiger, or panther, when it exists is a scourge and

terror to the neighbourhood. The villagers are defenceless and
appear to resign themselves to their fate. Victims are killed
regularly, both by day and night if the killer is a tiger, and by
night only if a panther, the former often repeatedly following a
particular circuit over the same area. While the death roll
increases, superstition and demoralisation play a very
considerable part in preventing the villagers from taking any
concerted, planned action against their adversary. Roads are
deserted, village traffic comes to a stop, forest operations, wood-
cutting and cattle-grazing cease completely, fields are left
uncultivated, and sometimes whole villages are abandoned for
safer areas. The greatest difficulty experienced in attempting to
shoot such animals is the extraordinary lack of cooperation
evinced by the surrounding villagers, actuated as they are by a
superstitious fear of retribution by the man-eater, whom they
believe will mysteriously come to learn of the part they have
attempted to play against it.

A ‘rogue’ elephant is generally the result of the periodic disease

of ‘musth’, from which all male elephants suffer for a period of
about 90 days. An oily discharge from an orifice behind the eye is
the outward evidence. They are then extremely aggressive and
dangerous, but afterwards they generally regain their normal
harmless composure. Sometimes it is the result of a particularly
ambitious young elephant coming into battle with the big tuskers
of a herd for the favour of a female, when he gets badly beaten up
and expelled by the larger beasts. He then becomes very morose
and surly, and takes his revenge on whatever he comes across—
again the easiest being man.

It must not be imagined, however, that the forests of India are

always stocked with man-eating tigers and leopards, or rogue
elephants. Generally they do not exist, and the jungles are then
safer to wander in than any busy street of a capital city, where the
possibility of being run over by motor traffic at any moment is
considerable. Further, the beauties of nature, of the flowers,
insects, birds and animals—the glories of an Indian jungle dawn,
and of the glowing red sunset, and of the silvery moonlit night
that bathes the swaying tops of feathery bamboos the mystery of
the dark nights, the sky set with a myriad stars—above all the
peaceful solitude and sense of nearness to Nature and to God, fill
the wanderer with an assurance that he has at last found a home,
from which he will not willingly be torn.

I hope I may be forgiven if, in some of these stories, I have

devoted considerable space to geographical and natural
descriptions and conditions, and have tried to mimic, in writing,
the calls of birds and beasts of the forest. I have done so
deliberately, in an attempt to recapture, for the benefit of some of
my readers who have been in India and have visited her glorious
forests, memories of those days and of those jungles from which I
am sure they are sorry to have been separated. I dread the day
when that separation must come to me.

In closing, I have to record my grateful thanks to my late father,

who taught me how to use a gun when I was seven; although he
was not a jungle-lover himself, he delighted in shooting duck,
partridge and small game. My thanks are due also to Byra, a wild
Poojaree whom I discovered living in a burrow on the banks of the
Chinar River in the district of Salem; more than twenty-five years
ago, he taught me most of what I now know about the jungle and
its fauna, and bred in me a deep love of his home in the wilds. I am
grateful, too, to Ranga, my faithful old ‘Shikari’, also of the Salem
District, who has accompanied me on many trips, has patiently
looked after me, guided me, helped me and been staunchly
faithful and fearless in the face of danger; Sowree, his assistant
and almost his equal in shikaring; and my old hunting friends,
Dick Bird and Pat Watson, who between them have killed more
tiger than any men I know, for their many tips and instructions in
my early days.

—Kenneth Anderson
 1

The Man-Eater of Jowlagiri

HOSE who have been to the tropics and to jungle places will
T not need to be told of the beauties of the moonlight over hill
and valley, that picks out in vivid relief the forest grasses and each
leaf of the giant trees, and throws into still greater mystery the
dark shadows below, where the rays of the moon cannot reach,
concealing perhaps a beast of prey, a watchful deer or a lurking
reptile, all individually and severally in search of food.

All appeared peaceful in the Jowlagiri Forest Range, yet there

was danger everywhere, and murder was afoot. For a trio of
poachers, who possessed between them two matchlocks of ancient
vintage, had decided to get themselves some meat. They had
cleverly constructed a hide on the sloping banks of a waterhole,
and had been sitting in it since sunset, intently watchful for the
deer which, sooner or later, must come to slake their thirst.

The hours wore on. The moon, at the full, had reached mid-
heaven and the scene was as bright as day. Suddenly, from the
thicket of evergreen saplings to their left, could be heard the sound
of violently rustling leaves and deep-throated grunts. What could
be there? Wild-pig undoubtedly! A succulent meal, and flesh in
addition that could be sold! The poachers waited, but the beasts,
whatever they were, did not break cover. Becoming impatient,
Muniappa, the marksman of the trio, decided to risk a shot.
Raising his matchlock, he waited till a dark shadow, deeper than
its surroundings, became more evident, and fired. There was a
snarling roar and a lashing of bushes, followed by a series of
coughing ‘whoofs’ and then silence.
 Not pigs, but a tiger! Fearfully and silently the three poachers
beat a hasty retreat to their village, there to spend the rest of the
night in anxiety as to the result of their act.

But morning revealed that all was apparently well, for a male
tiger just in his prime lay dead, the chance shot from the ancient
musket having sped straight to his heart. So Muniappa and his
friends were, for that day, the unsung and whispered heroes of the
village.

But the next night produced a different story. With sun set came
the urgent, angry call of a tigress seeking her dead mate. For it was
the mating season, and this tigress, which had only just succeeded
in finding her companion the night before, was decidedly annoyed
at his unaccountable absence, which she quite rightly connected
with the interference of human beings.

Night after night for a week she continued her uneasy

movements, calling by day from the depths of the forest and in
darkness roaring almost at the outskirts of the village itself.

Young Jack Leonard, who was keen to secure a trophy, and who
had been summoned to the village by an urgent letter, arrived on
the morning of the eighth day, and acquainted himself with the
situation. Being told that the tiger wandered everywhere, and
seeing her many pugmarks on the lonely path to the forest-
bungalow, he decided to try his luck that evening, concealing
himself by five o’clock behind an anthill that stood conveniently
beside the path.
Sketch map of localities referred to in the story of the man-eater of
Jowlagiri.

The minutes passed, and at 6.15 p.m. dusk was falling. Suddenly
there was a faint rustle of leaves and a loose stone rolled down the
bank a little to his right. Leonard strained his eyes for the first
sight of the tigress, but nothing happened. The minutes passed
again. And then, rapidly moving along the edge of the road
towards him, and on the same side as himself, he could just
discern the form of the tigress. Hastily transferring the stock of his
rifle to his left shoulder, and leaning as far out from his sheltering
bush as possible, so that he might see more of the animal, Leonard
fired at her chest what would have been a fatal shot had it carried
a little more to the right.

As it was, Leonard’s bullet ploughed deeply into the right

shoulder, causing the beast to roar loudly before crashing away
into the jungle. Bitterly disappointed, Leonard waited till morning
to follow the trail. There was abundance of blood everywhere, but
due to the rocky and difficult country, interspersed with densely
wooded ravines and close, impenetrable shrubbery, he failed to
catch up with his quarry.

Months passed, and the scene changes to Sulekunta, a village

deeper in the forest and about seven miles from Jowlagiri, where
there was a little temple occasionally visited by pilgrims from the
surrounding region. Three of these had finished their devotions
and were returning to their home: a man, his wife and son aged
sixteen. Passing under a wild tamarind tree, hardly a quarter mile
from the temple, the boy lingered to pick some of the half-ripe
acid fruit. The parents heard a low growl, followed by a piercing,
agonised scream, and looked back to see their son carried bodily in
the jaws of a tiger, as it leapt into a nullah bordering the lonely
path. The aged couple bravely turned back and shouted abuse at
the marauder as best they could, only to be answered by two more
shrieks from their only son, then all was silent again.

Thereafter, death followed death over a wide area, extending

from Jowlagiri in the extreme north to the cattlepen of Gundalam,
thirty miles to the south; and from the borders of Mysore State,
twenty miles to the west, to the main road to Denkanikota, for
about forty-five miles of its length. Some fifteen victims, including
three girls, one just married, had fallen a prey to this monster,
when I received an urgent summons from my friend, the sub-
collector of Hosur, to rid the area of the scourge.
 Journeying to Jowlagiri, where the sub-collector had told me the
trouble had begun, I pieced together the facts of the story,
deducing that this was no tiger but a tigress, and the one that had
been robbed of her mate by the poachers and later wounded by
Leonard’s plucky but unfortunate shot. From Jowlagiri I tramped
to Sulekunta in the hope of coming across the fresh pug marks of
the marauder, but I was unlucky, as no kills had occurred at that
place in recent days, and what tracks there were had been
obliterated by passing herds of cattle. Moving on to Gundalam,
twenty-three miles away at the southern limit of the affected
area, I decided to pitch camp, since it was at this cattle-pen that
the majority of kills had been reported, seven herdsmen being
accounted for in the last four months.

Three fat buffalo calves had been very thoughtfully provided as

bait by my friend the sub-collector; I proceeded to tie them out at
likely spots in the hope of securing a kill. The first I tethered a
mile down the river bordering Gundalam—at that time of the year
a mere trickle of water—at a point where the river was joined by a
tributary named Sige Halla, down which the tigress was reported
to keep her beat; the second I tied along the path to the
neighbouring village of Anchetty, four miles away; the remaining
calf I secured close to the watershed, whence both herdsmen and
cattle obtained their daily supply of drinking water.

Having myself attended to the securing and comfort of these

three baits, I spent the next two days in tramping the forest in
every direction, armed with my .405 Winchester, in the hope of
picking up fresh pug marks, or perhaps of seeing the man-eater
herself.

Early in the morning of the second day I located the footprints of

the tigress in the soft sand of the Gundalam river. She had
descended in the night, walked along the river past the watershed
— and my buffalo bait, which, as was evident by her foot-prints,
she had stopped to look at but had not even touched—and up and
across a neighbouring hill on her way to Anchetty. Here the
ground became too hard for further tracking.

The third morning found me searching again, and I had just

returned to camp, preparatory to a hot bath and early lunch,
when a group of men, accompanied by the headman of Anchetty,
arrived to inform me that the tigress had killed a man early that
morning at a hamlet scarcely a mile south of Anchetty.
Apparently a villager, hearing restless sounds from his penned
cattle, had gone out at dawn to investigate and had not returned.
Thereafter his brother and son had followed to find out the cause
of his absence, and at the outskirts of the cattle-pen had found the
man’s blanket and staff, and, indistinct in the hard earth, the
claw marks of the tigress’s hindfeet as she reared to attack her
victim. Being too alarmed to follow, they had fled to the hamlet
and thence to Anchetty, where, gathering strength in numbers
and accompanied by the headman, they had hastened to find me.

Foregoing the bath and swallowing a quick lunch, we hastened

to Anchetty and the hamlet. From the spot where the tigress had
attacked and—as was evident by the fact that no sound had been
made by the unfortunate man—had killed her victim, tracking
became arduous and slow, owing to the hard and stony nature of
the ground. In this case, the profusion of thorny bushes among the
shrubbery assisted us; for, on casting around, we found shreds of
the man’s loincloth impaled on the thorns as the tigress carried
him away. Had the circumstances not been so tragic, it was
instructive to learn how the sagacious animal had detoured to
avoid such thorns and the obstruction they would have offered.

Some 300 yards away she had dropped her burden beneath a
thicket at the foot of a small fig-tree, probably intending to start
her meal. Then she had changed her mind, or perhaps been
disturbed, for she had picked her victim up again and continued
her retreat towards a deep nullah that ran southwards towards the
main Cauvery River, some thirty miles away.
 Thereafter, tracking became easier, for the tigress had changed
her hold from the man’s neck and throat; this had accounted for
the lack of blood-spoor. Now she held him by the small of his back.
Drops of blood, and smears across the leaves of bushes and
thickets, now made it comparatively easy for us to follow the
trail, and in another hundred yards we had found the man’s
loincloth, which had completely unwound itself and was hanging
from a protruding sprig of ‘wait-a-bit’ thorn.

Continuing, we reached the nullah where, in the soft dry sand,

the pugs of the tigress were clearly imprinted, with a slight drag-
mark to one side, evidently caused by one of the man’s feet
trailing downwards as he was carried.

As there was no need of a tracker, and numbers would create

disturbance, apart from needless risk, I crept cautiously forward
alone, after motioning to the rest to remain where they were.
Progress was of necessity very slow, for I had carefully to scan the
heavy undergrowth on both banks of the nullah, where the tigress
might have been lurking, waiting to put an end to her pursuer.
Thus I had traversed two bends in the nullah when I sighted a low
outcrop of rock jutting into the nullah-bed itself. Keeping as far as
possible to the opposite side of the rock, I increased the stealth of
my approach. Closer scrutiny revealed a dark object on the far side
of the rock, and this duly proved to be the body of the unfortunate
victim.

The tigress had already made a fair meal, having consumed

about half her prey in the process, severing one leg from the thigh
and one arm. Having assured myself that she was nowhere in the
vicinity, I returned to the men, whom I summoned to the spot to
help construct some sort of place where I might sit up and await
the return of the assassin to its gruesome meal, which I was
confident would be before sunset that day.
 A more unsuitable spot for sitting-up could hardly be imagined.
There was a complete absence of trees on which a hide or machan
could be constructed, and it soon became evident that there were
only two possibilities. One was to sit close to the opposite bank of
the nullah, from where the human victim was clearly visible. The
other was to ascend the sloping outcrop of rock to a point some ten
feet above the bed of the nullah, where a natural ledge was formed
about four feet from its upper edge. The first plan I rejected, as
being too dangerous in the case of a man-eater, and this left me
with the prospect of sitting upon the rockledge, from where I could
not only view the cadaver but the whole length of the nullah up
to its bend in the direction from which we had come, and for
about twenty yards in the other direction, where it swung
abruptly to the right.

Working silently and quickly, at a spot some distance up the

nullah, whence the sound of lopping would not be heard, the men
cut a few thorny branches of the same variety as grew in the
immediate vicinity of the rock, so as not to cause a contrasting
background. These they deftly and cunningly arranged below the
ledge, so that I would not be visible in any direction from the
nullah itself. Fortunately I had had the forethought to bring my
blanket, water-bottle and torch, although there would not be
much use for the last of these during the major portion of the
night, as the moon was nearing full and would rise comparatively
early. By 3 p.m. I was in my place and the men left me, having
been instructed to return next morning with a flask of hot tea, and
sandwiches for a quick snack.

The afternoon wore slowly on, the heat from the blazing sun
beating directly on the exposed rock and bathing me in sweat.
Looking down the nullah in both directions, all was still and
nothing disturbed the rays of shimmering heat that arose from the
baked earth. Absence of vultures could be accounted for by the
fact that, in the position the tigress had left it beneath the
sharply-sloping rock, the body was hidden from the sky. About 5
p.m. a crow spotted it, and by its persistent cawing soon attracted
its mate. But the two birds were too nervous of the human scent
actually to begin picking the kill. Time wore on, and the sun set as
a fiery ball beneath the distant rim of forest-clad hills. The crows
flapped away, one after the other, to roost in readiness on some
distant tree in expectation of the morrow when, overcome by
hunger, they would be more equal to braving the feared smell of
human beings. The cheering call of the jungle-cock broke forth in
all directions as a farewell to the dying day, and the strident ‘ ma-
ow ’ of a peacock sounded from down the dry bed of the stream. I
welcomed the sound, for I knew that in the whole forest no more
alert watchman than a peacock could be found and that he would
warn me immediately of the tigress’s approach, should he see her.
Now was the expected time, and with every sense intently alert I
awaited the return of the man-killer. But nothing happened, the
peacock flapped heavily away and dusk rapidly followed the
vanquished day.

Fortunately the early moon had already risen and her silvery
sheen soon restored a little of my former range of vision. The birds
of the day had gone to roost by now, and their places had been
taken by the birds of the night. The persistent ‘chuck-chuck-
chuckoo’ of nightjars resounded along the nullah, as these early
harbingers of the night sought their insect prey along the cooling
banks. Time passed again, and then a deathly silence fell upon the
scene. Not even the chirrup of a cricket disturbed the stillness, and
my friends, the nightjars, had apparently gone elsewhere in their
search for food. Glancing downwards at the human remains, it
seemed that one arm reached upwards to me in supplication or
called perhaps for vengeance. Fortunately the head was turned
away, so that I could not see the frightful contortion of the
features, which I had noticed earlier that afternoon.

All at once the strident belling of an alarmed sambar broke the

silence and was persistently followed by a succession of similar
calls from a spot I judged to be about half a mile away. These were
followed by the sharp cry of spotted-deer, and echoed up the
nullah by a restless brainfever bird in his weird call of ‘ brain-
fever, brain-fever’ , repeated in rising crescendo. I breathed a sigh
of relief and braced my nerves and muscles for final action. My
friends, the night-watchmen of the jungle, had faithfully
accomplished their task and I knew the tigress was approaching
and had been seen.

The calls then gradually died away. This meant that the tigress
had passed out of the range of the callers and was now close by. I
strained my eyes on the bend to the right, twenty yards down the
nullah, around which, at any moment, I expected the man-eater
to appear. But nothing happened. Thirty minutes passed, then
forty-five, by the hands of my wristwatch, clearly visible in the
moonlight. Strange, I thought; the tigress should have appeared
long ago. She would not take forty-five minutes to cover half a
mile.

And then a horrible feeling of imminent danger came over me.

Many times before had that obscure sixth sense, which we all
possess but few develop, stood me in good stead in my many
wanderings in the forests of India and Burma, and on the African
belt. I had not the slightest doubt that somehow, in spite of all my
precautions, complete screening and absolute stillness, the tigress
had discovered my presence and was at that moment probably
stalking me preparatory to a final spring.

In moments of danger, we who know the jungle think quickly. It

is not braveness that goads the mind to such quick thinking, for I
confess that at this moment I was very afraid and could feel beads
of cold sweat trickling down my face. I knew the tigress could not
be on the nullah itself, or below me, or I would have seen her long
before. She might have been on the opposite bank, hidden in the
dense undergrowth and watching my position, but somehow I felt
that her presence there would not account for the acutely-growing
sense of danger that increasingly beset me. She could only be
above and behind me. Suddenly it was borne home to me that the
four-foot wall of rock behind me prevented me from looking
backwards unless I raised myself to a half-crouching, half-kneeling
position, which would make a steady shot almost impossible,
apart from completely giving away my position to any watcher on
the opposite bank, or on the nullah-bed itself. Momentarily, I
cursed myself for this lack of forethought, which now threatened
to become my undoing. As I hesitated for another second, a thin
trickle of sand slid down from above, probably dislodged by the
killer, now undoubtedly very close above me, and gathering
herself for a final spring.

I hesitated no longer; I forced my numbed legs to raise me to a

half-crouching position, simultaneously sling the cocked .405
around, till the end of the muzzle was in line with my face. Then I
raised myself a fraction higher, till both my eyes and the muzzle,
came above the ledge.

A fearful sight revealed itself. There was the tigress, hardly

eight feet away and extended on her belly, in the act of creeping
down the sloping rock towards me. As our eyes met in surprise, we
acted simultaneously, the tigress to spring with a nerve-shattering
roar, while I ducked down again, at the same moment contracting
my trigger finger.

The heavy blast of the rifle, level with and only a few inches
from my ears, mingled with that demoniacal roar to create a
sound which often till this day haunts me in my dreams and
causes me to awaken, shivering with fear.

The brute had not anticipated the presence of the ledge behind
which I sheltered, while the blast and blinding flash of the rifle
full in her face evidently disconcerted her, deflecting her aim and
deviating her purpose from slaughter to escape. She leapt right
over my head, and in passing her hind foot caught the muzzle of
the rifle a raking blow, so that it was torn from my grasp and went
slithering, butt first, down the sloping rock, to fall dully on the
soft sand below, where it lay beside the half-eaten corpse. Quicker
than the rifle, the tigress herself reached the nullah-bed, and in
two bounds and another coughing roar was lost to view in the
thickets of the opposite bank.

Shocked and hardly aware of what had happened, I realised I

was unarmed and helpless, and that should the tigress return on
her tracks, there was just nothing I could do. At the same time, to
descend after the rifle would undoubtedly single me out for
attack, if the animal were lying wounded in the bushes of the
opposite bank. But anything seemed preferable to indecision and
helplessness, and I dived down the slope to retrieve the rifle and
scramble back, expecting at each second to hear the awful roar of
the attacking killer. But nothing happened, and in less time than
it takes to tell I was back at the ledge.

A quick examination revealed that no harm had come to the

weapon in its fall, the stock having absorbed the shock. Replacing
the spent cartridge, I fell to wondering whether I had hit the
tigress at all, or if I had missed her at ridiculously close range.
Then I noticed something black and white on the ledge behind me
and barely two feet away. Picking it up, I found it was the major
portion of the tigress’ ear, which had been torn off by my bullet at
that close range. It was still warm to my touch, and being mostly
of skin and hair, hardly bled along its torn edge.

To say that I was disappointed and chagrined could not describe

one-tenth of my emotions. I had failed to kill the man-eater at a
point-blank range, failed even to wound her in the true sense. The
tearing-off of her ear would hardly inconvenience her, beyond
causing slight local pain for a few days. On the other hand, my
foolish miss would teach her never to return to a kill the second
time. This would make her all the more cunning, all the more
dangerous and all the more destructive, because now she would
have to eat when she killed, and then kill again when she felt
hungry, increasing her killings beyond what would have been
normally necessary. She might even alter her sphere of activities
and remove herself to some other part of the country, where the
people would not be aware of the arrival of a man-eater and so fall
still easier prey. I cursed myself throughout that night, hoping
against hope that the tigress might show up again, but all to no
purpose. Morning, and the return of my men, found me chilled to
the marrow, disconsolate and disappointed beyond expression.
The hot tea and sandwiches they brought, after my long fast since
the previous forenoon, followed by a pipeful of strong tobacco,
somewhat restored my spirits and caused me to take a slightly less
critical view of the situation which, after all, might have been far
worse. Had it not been for my sixth sense, I would undoubtedly
have been lying a partially devoured corpse beside that of the
previous day’s unfortunate victim. I had something to be really
thankful for.

Approaching the spot into which the tigress had leapt, we cast
about for blood-spoor, but, as I had expected, found none, beyond
a very occasional smear from the damaged ear against the leaves
of bushes, as the tigress had retreated from what had turned out
for her a very surprising situation. Even these we eventually lost
some distance away, so that it was an unhappy party of persons
that returned to the hamlet and Anchetty, and eventually
Gundalam, to report complete failure.

I remained at Gundalam for a further ten days, persistently

tying out my buffalo baits each day, although I had little hope of
success. Whole mornings and afternoons I devoted to scouring the
forest in search of tracks, and nights were spent in sitting over
waterholes, game-trails and along the bed of the Gundalam River
in the hope of the tigress showing up, but all to no avail. Parties of
men went out in the daytime in all directions to secure news of
further kills, but nothing had happened. Apparently the tigress
had deserted her haunts and gone off to healthier localities.
 On the eleventh day I left Gundalam, tramping to Anchetty and
Denkanikota. From there I travelled to Hosur, where I told my
friend the sub-collector of all that had happened and extracted
from him a promise that he would tell me immediately of further
kills, should they occur, as I now felt myself responsible for the
welfare of the people of the locality. Then, leaving Hosur, I
returned to my home at Bangalore.

Five months passed, during which time I received three letters

from the sub-collector, telling of vague rumours of human tiger-
kills from distant places, two being from across the Cauvery River
in the Coimbatore District, one from Mysore State territory, and
the fourth from a place still further away.

Then suddenly came the bad news I feared, but had hoped
would not eventuate. A tiger had struck again at Gundalam,
killing her eighth victim there, and the next evening had
snatched, from the very door of the little temple at Sulekunta, the
old priest who had attended to the place for the last forty years.
The letter concluded with the request to come at once.

Such urgent invitation was unnecessary, for I had been holding

myself in readiness for the worst; within two hours I was motoring
to Jowlagiri.

Arriving there I was fortunate in being able to talk to one of the

party of pilgrims who had almost been eyewitnesses to the death
of the old priest of the temple at Sulekunta. Apparently a party of
men had been on pilgrimage and, as they approached the temple
itself, were horrified to hear the low growl of a tiger, which then
leapt into the forest from the roots of a giant peepul tree that grew
some thirty yards away. Bolting for shelter into the temple itself,
they were surprised to find it tenantless, and looking out were
aghast to see the body of the old priest lying within the folds of the
gnarled roots of the old peepul tree that directly faced them. After
some time, and very timidly, they approached in a group, to find
that the old man had apparently been attacked in, or very near,
the temple, and then been carried to this spot to be devoured. The
tiger had already begun its meal, consuming part of the skinny
chest, when it had been disturbed by the pilgrim party.

I particularly inquired as to whether my informant, or his

companions, had noticed anything wrong with the tiger’s ears, but
obviously they had all been too frightened to observe any defects.

I hurried to Sulekunta with my party of three and arrived near

dusk; I must confess that the last two miles of the journey had
been very uncomfortable, traversing a valley between two steeply
sloping hills that were densely clothed with bamboo. But we heard
and saw nothing, beyond the sudden trumpeting of a solitary
elephant, which had been inhabiting these parts for some time
and had been a considerable annoyance to pilgrims, whom he
apparently delighted to chase if they were in small parties. But
that is another story.

There was no time to make a proper camp, so we decided to

sleep in the deserted front portion of the temple itself, a
proceeding which I, and very decidedly my followers, would have
declined to do under normal circumstances. But nightfall and the
proximity of a man-eater are apt to overcome all scruples and
principles. I stood guard with the loaded rifle, while my three men
frenziedly gathered brushwood and rotting logs that lay in plenty
nearby, to build a fire for our warmth and protection, for on this
occasion there was no friendly moon and it would soon be dark.
Under such circumstances, attempting to situp for the man-eater,
in the hope of its passing near the temple, would have been both
highly dangerous and futile.

Soon we had a bright fire blazing, on the inner side of which we

sat, away from the pitch-black jungle night, which could easily
have sheltered the murderer, all unknown to us, within a distance
of two feet. Listening intently, we occasionally heard the deep
belling boom of sambar, and I could discern the harsher note of a
stag, but these did not follow in persistent repetition, showing
that the animals had not been unduly alarmed by any such major
foe as the king of the Indian jungle. After midnight we arranged to
keep watch in twos, three hours at a time, and I elected, with one
of my companions, to take first turn. The other two were soon
asleep. Nothing untoward happened, however, beyond the fact
that the solitary tusker, who had approached near enough to catch
a sudden sight of the fire, trumpeted once again and crashed away.
A kakar, or barking-deer, uttered its sharp cry around 2 a.m., but
as this was not continued, I decided it had been disturbed by a
wandering leopard. Three o’clock came, I awoke the two sleeping
men, and in turn fell into a dreamless sleep, to awaken to the
early and spirited cry of a grey jungle cock, saluting the rising sun.

Hot tea, made with water from the well nearby, and some food
gave us new life and heart, after which I walked across to the
giant peepul-tree and inspected the remains of the old priest. The
vultures by day, and hyenas and jackals by night, had made a
good job of him, for nothing remained but a few cleanly-picked
bones, at the sight of which I fell to reminiscing about the old man
who had tended this temple for the past forty years, looking daily
upon the same view as the one I now saw, hearing the same night-
sounds of sambar, kakar and elephant as I had heard that night,
and was now but a few bones, folded in the crevices of the hoary
peepul-tree.

For the next hour we cast around in the hope of finding pug
marks and perhaps identifying the slayer, but although we saw a
few old trails, I could not with any certainty classify them as
having been made by my tigress.

By 9 a.m. we left on the long 23-mile trek to Gundalam, where

we arrived just after 5 p.m. Here, upon making inquiries about the
recent killing, I gleaned the first definite information about the
slayer from a herdsman who had been attending to his cattle at
the same watershed where I had tied my buffalo bait on my last
visit. This man stated that he had had a companion with whom he
had been talking, and who had then walked across to a nearby
bush to answer a call of nature. He had just squatted down when,
beyond the bush, the devilish head of a tiger arose, with only one
ear, soon to be followed by an evil, striped body. The man had
shrieked once when the fangs sank into the face and throat, and
the next instant tiger and victim had disappeared into the jungle.

Here at last was the information I had been dreading, but

somehow wanting, to hear. So, after all, it was now confirmed
that the killer was none other than my old enemy, the tigress,
who had returned at last to the scene of her former depredations,
and for whose return and now vastly increased cunning I was
myself responsible.

Everywhere I had heard reports that no cattle or buffaloes had

been killed by this beast, so I did not waste time, as on the
previous occasion, in setting live baits, realizing that I had an
adversary to deal with whom I could only hope to vanquish in a
chance encounter, face-to-face.

For the next two days I again searched the surrounding jungle,
hoping by luck to meet the killer, but with fear and dread of being
attacked from behind at any moment. Pug marks I came across in
plenty, especially on the soft sands of the Gundalam River, where
the familiar tracks of the Jowlagiri tigress were plainly in view,
adding confirmation to the thought that by my poor shot, some
five months ago, I had been responsible for several more deaths.

At midday on the third day, a party of men arrived in a lather,

having covered the thirty miles from Jowlagiri to tell me of a
further kill—this time the watchman of the Jowlagiri Forest
Bungalow—who had been killed and half-eaten within a hundred
yards of the bungalow itself, the previous afternoon.
 Hoping that the tigress might retrace her steps towards
Sulekunta and Gundalam, as she was rumoured never to stay in
the same place for more than a day after making a human kill, I
left with my men at once, augmented by the party from Jowlagiri,
who, although they had practically run the thirty miles to
Gundalam, preferred the return tramp of twenty-five miles to
Sulekunta protected by my rifle rather than return by themselves.

Again we reached the temple of Sulekunta as daylight was

fading and, as the nights were still dark, repeated our camp-fire
procedure within the temple itself. Our party had now been
increased to twelve, including myself, a number which, although
it made us feel safer, was far too many for my personal comfort.

This time, however, we were not to spend a peaceful night. The

sambar and kakar were restless from nightfall, and at 8.30 p.m. we
heard a tiger calling from a spot I judged to be half a mile away.
This was repeated an hour later from quite close, and I could then
easily distinguish the intonations of a tigress calling for a mate.
The tigress had also seen the campfire and become aware of the
proximity of humans and, obviously hoping for a meal, she twice
circled the temple, her repeated mating calls being interspersed by
distinctly audible grunts of anticipation.

All this gave me an idea by which I might possibly succeed in

keeping her in the vicinity till daylight, at which time only could I
hope to accomplish anything. Twice I gave the answering call of a
male tiger, and received at once the urgent summons of this
imperious female. Indeed, she came to the edge of the clearing and
called solidly as almost to paralyse us all. I was careful, however,
not to call while she was in the immediate vicinity, which might
have aroused her suspicions. At the same time I instructed the
men to talk rather loudly, and not over-stoke the already blazing
fire, instructions which were doubtlessly most unwelcome. I
hoped by these means, between mating urge and appetite, to keep
the tigress in the vicinity till daylight.
 She called again, shortly before dawn and, congratulating
myself on my ruse, as soon as it became light enough to see I
hastened down the path towards Jowlagiri where, but a quarter a
mile away, stood the tamarind tree beneath which the boy had
been killed over a year ago, and which I had already mentally
noted as an ideal sitting-up place, requiring no preparation.

Reaching the tree in safety, I clambered up some twelve feet to a

crotch, which was reasonably comfortable and provided a clear
view of the path at both ends. Then, expanding my lungs, I called
lustily in imitation of a male tiger. Nothing but silence answered
me, and I began to wonder if after all the tigress had moved on at
dawn. A new anxiety also gripped me. Perhaps she was near the
temple, waiting for one of the men she had marked down the
night before to come out of the building.

Before departing I had very strictly enjoined my companions

not, on any account, to leave the temple, but I felt anxious lest
any of them disobey me, perhaps in answer to a call of nature, or
to get water from the well that was temptingly near.

I called a second time. Still no answer. After a short interval,

and expanding my lungs to bursting-point, I called again. This
time I was successful, for my voice penetrated the intervening
forest and was picked up by the tigress, who immediately
answered from the direction of the temple. I had been right in my
surmise; the wily animal had gone there to look for a meal.

After a few minutes I called a fourth time and was again

answered by the tigress; I was overjoyed to find that she was
coming in my direction in search of the mate she thought was
waiting.

I called twice more, my last call being answered from barely a

hundred yards. Levelling the rifle, I glanced along the sights to a
spot on the path about twenty-five yards away. I judged she would
take less than thirty seconds to cover the intervening distance. I
began to count, and as I reached twenty-seven the tigress strode
into full view, inquiringly looking for her mate. From my
commanding height in the tree her missing ear was clearly visible,
and I knew that at last, after many tiring efforts, the killer was
within my power. This time there would be no slip. To halt her
onward movement, I moaned in a low tone. She stopped abruptly
and looked upwards in surprise. The next second the .405 bullet
crashed squarely between the eyes, and she sank forward in a
lurching movement and lay twitching in the dust. I placed a
second shot into the crown of her skull, although there was no
need to have done so; actually this second shot did considerable
damage to the head and gave much unnecessary extra work to the
taxidermist.

The dreaded killer of Jowlagiri had come to a tame and

ignominious end, unworthy of her career, and although she had
been a murderer, silent, savage and cruel, a pang of conscience
troubled me as to my unsporting ruse in encompassing her end.

There is not much more to tell. My eleven followers were elated

at the sight of the dead marauder. Soon a stout sapling was cut, to
which her feet were lashed by strong creeper vines, and we
commenced the seven mile walk to Jowlagiri, staggering beneath
the burden. Because of the man-eater’s presence, no humans were
afoot until we practically entered the village itself. Then word
went round and throngs surrounded us. I allowed the people a
short hour in which to feast their eyes on their onetime foe, while
I retired to a tree some distance away, where hot tea soon
refreshed me, followed by some food, and two comforting pipes of
tobacco. Then I returned to the village, where willing hands
helped me to lash the tigress across the rear seat of my two-seater
Studebaker, to begin my homeward journey with the comforting
thought that I had lived down my error and avenged the deaths of
many humans.
 2

The Spotted Devil of Gummalapur

HE leopard is common to practically all tropical jungles, and,

T unlike the tiger, indigenous to the forests of India; for whereas
it has been established that the tiger is a comparatively recent
newcomer from regions in the colder north, records and remains
have shown that the leopard—or panther, as it is better known in
India—has lived in the peninsula from the earliest times.

Because of its smaller size, and decidedly lesser strength,

together with its innate fear of mankind, the panther is often
treated with some derision, sometimes coupled with truly
astonishing carelessness, two factors that have resulted in the
maulings and occasional deaths of otherwise intrepid but cautious
tiger-hunters. Even when attacking a human being the panther
rarely kills, but confines itself to a series of quick bites and quicker
raking scratches with its small but sharp claws; on the other hand,
few persons live to tell that they have been attacked by a tiger.

This general rule has one fearful exception, however, and that is
the panther that has turned man-eater. Although examples of
such animals are comparatively rare, when they do occur they
depict the panther as an engine of destruction quite equal to his
far larger cousin, the tiger. Because of his smaller size he can
conceal himself in places impossible to a tiger, his need for water
is far less, and in veritable demoniac cunning and daring, coupled
with the uncanny sense of self-preservation and stealthy
disappearance when danger threatens, he has no equal.

Such an animal was the man-eating leopard of Gummalapur.

This leopard had established a record of some forty-two human
killings and a reputation for veritable cunning that almost
exceeded human intelligence. Some fearful stories of diabolical
craftiness had been attributed to him, but certain it was that the
panther was held in awe throughout an area of some 250 square
miles over which it held undisputable sway.

Before sundown the door of each hut in every one of the villages
within this area was fastened shut, some being reinforced by piles
of boxes or large stones, kept for the purpose. Not until the sun
was well up in the heavens next morning did the timid
inhabitants venture to expose themselves. This state of affairs
rapidly told on the sanitary condition of the houses, the majority
of which were not equipped with latrines of any sort, the adjacent
waste land being used for the purpose.

Finding that its human meals were increasingly difficult to

obtain, the panther became correspondingly bolder, and in two
instances burrowed its way in through the thatched walls of the
smaller huts, dragging its screaming victim out the same way,
while the whole village lay awake, trembling behind closed doors,
listening to the shrieks of the victim as he was carried away. In
one case the panther, frustrated from burrowing its way in
through the walls, which had been boarded up with rough planks,
resorted to the novel method of entering through the thatched
roof. In this instance it found itself unable to carry its prey back
through the hole it had made, so in a paroxysm of fury had killed
all four inhabitants of the hut—a man, his wife and two children
—before clawing its way back to the darkness outside and to
safety.

Only during the day did the villagers enjoy any respite. Even
then they moved about in large, armed groups, but so far no
instance had occurred of the leopard attacking in daylight,
although it had been very frequently seen at dawn within the
precincts of a village.
 Such was the position when I arrived at Gummalapur, in
response to an invitation from Jepson, the district magistrate, to
rid his area of this scourge. Preliminary conversation with some of
the inhabitants revealed that they appeared dejected beyond
hope, and with true eastern fatalism had decided to resign
themselves to the fact that this shaitan, from whom they believed
deliverance to be impossible, had come to stay, till each one of
them had been devoured or had fled the district as the only
alternative.

It was soon apparent that I would get little or no cooperation

from the villagers, many of whom openly stated that if they dared
to assist me the shaitan would come to hear of it and would
hasten their end. Indeed, they spoke in whispers as if afraid that
loud talking would be overheard by the panther, who would single
them out for revenge.

That night, I sat in a chair in the midst of the village, with my

back to the only house that possessed a twelve-foot wall, having
taken the precaution to cover the roof with a deep layer of thorns
and brambles, in case I should be attacked from behind by the
leopard leaping down on me. It was a moonless night, but the
clear sky promised to provide sufficient illumination from its
myriad stars to enable me to see the panther should it approach.

The evening, at six o’clock, found the inhabitants behind

locked doors, while I sat alone on my chair, with my rifle across
my lap, loaded and cocked, a flask of hot tea nearby, a blanket, a
water-bottle, some biscuits, a torch at hand, and of course my
pipe, tobacco and matches as my only consolation during the long
vigil till daylight returned.

With the going down of the sun a period of acute anxiety began,
for the stars were as yet not brilliant enough to light the scene
even dimly. Moreover, immediately to westward of the village lay
two abrupt hills which hastened the dusky uncertainty that might
otherwise have been lessened by some reflection from the recently
set sun.

I gripped my rifle and stared around me, my eyes darting in all

directions and from end to end of the deserted village street. At
that moment I would have welcomed the jungle, where by their
cries of alarm I could rely on the animals and birds to warn me of
the approach of the panther. Here all was deathly silent, and the
whole village might have been entirely deserted, for not a sound
escaped from the many inhabitants whom I knew lay listening
behind closed doors, and listening for the scream that would
herald my death and another victim for the panther.

Time passed, and one by one the stars became visible, till by
7.15 p.m. they shed a sufficiently diffused glow to enable me to see
along the whole village street, although somewhat indistinctly.
My confidence returned, and I began to think of some way to draw
the leopard towards me, should he be in the vicinity. I forced
myself to cough loudly at intervals and then began to talk to
myself, hoping that my voice would be heard by the panther and
bring him to me quickly.

I do not know if any of my readers have ever tried talking to

themselves loudly for any reason, whether to attract a man-eating
leopard or not. I suppose they must be few, for I realise what
reputation the man who talks to himself acquires. I am sure I
acquired that reputation with the villagers, who from behind their
closed doors listened to me that night as I talked to myself. But
believe me, it is no easy task to talk loudly to yourself for hours on
end, while watching intently for the stealthy approach of a killer.

By 9 p.m. I got tired of it, and considered taking a walk around

the streets of the village. After some deliberation I did this, still
talking to myself as I moved cautiously up one lane and down the
next, frequently glancing back over my shoulder. I soon realised,
however, that I was exposing myself to extreme danger, as the
panther might pounce on me from any corner, from behind any
pile of garbage, or from the rooftops of any of the huts. Ceasing my
talking abruptly, I returned to my chair, thankful to get back
alive.

Time dragged by very slowly and monotonously, the hours

seeming to pass on leaden wheels. Midnight came and I found
myself feeling cold, due to a sharp breeze that had set in from the
direction of the adjacent forest, which began beyond the two
hillocks. I drew the blanket closely around me, while consuming
tobacco far in excess of what was good for me. By 2 a.m. I found I
was growing sleepy. Hot tea and some biscuits, followed by icy
water from the bottle dashed into my face, and a quick raising and
lowering of my body from the chair half-a-dozen times, revived me
a little, and I fell to talking to myself again, as a means of keeping
awake thereafter.

At 3.30 a.m. came an event which caused me untold discomfort

for the next two hours. With the sharp wind banks of heavy cloud
were carried along, and these soon covered the heavens and
obscured the stars, making the darkness intense, and it would
have been quite impossible to see the panther a yard away. I had
undoubtedly placed myself in an awkward position, and entirely
at the mercy of the beast, should it choose to attack me now. I fell
to flashing my torch every half-minute from end to end of the
street, a proceeding which was very necessary if I hoped to remain
alive with the panther anywhere near, although I felt I was
ruining my chances of shooting the beast, as the bright torch-
beams would probably scare it away. Still, there was the
possibility that it might not be frightened by the light, had that I
might be able to see it and bring off a lucky shot, a circumstance
that did not materialise, as morning found me still shining the
torch after a night-long and futile vigil.

I snatched a few hours’ sleep and at noon fell to questioning the

villagers again. Having found me still alive that morning—quite
obviously contrary to their expectations—and possibly crediting
me with the power to communicate with spirits because they had
heard me walking around their village talking, they were
considerably more communicative and gave me a few more
particulars about the beast. Apparently the leopard wandered
about its domain a great deal, killing erratically and at places
widely distant from one another, and as I had already found out,
never in succession at the same village. As no human had been
killed at Gummalapur within the past three weeks, it seemed that
there was much to be said in favour of staying where I was, rather
than moving around in a haphazard fashion, hoping to come up
with the panther. Another factor against wandering about was
that this beast was rarely visible in the daytime, and there was
therefore practically no chance of my meeting it, as might have
been the case with a man-eating tiger. It was reported that the
animal had been wounded in its right forefoot, since it had the
habit of placing the pad sidewards, a fact which I was later able to
confirm when I actually came across the tracks of the animal.

After lunch, I conceived a fresh plan for that night, which

would certainly save me from the great personal discomforts I had
experienced the night before. This was to leave a door of one of
the huts ajar, and to rig up inside it a very life-like dummy of a
human being; meanwhile, I would remain in a corner of the same
hut behind a barricade of boxes. This would provide an
opportunity to slay the beast as he became visible in the partially-
opened doorway, or even as he attacked the dummy, while I
myself would be comparatively safe and warm behind my
barricade.

I explained the plan to the villagers, who, to my surprise,

entered into it with some enthusiasm. A hut was placed at my
disposal immediately next to that through the roof of which the
leopard had once entered and killed the four inmates. A very life-
like dummy was rigged up, made of straw, an old pillow, a jacket,
and a saree. This was placed within the doorway of the hut in a
sitting position, the door itself being kept half-open. I sat myself
behind a low parapet of boxes, placed diagonally across the
opposite end of the small hut, the floor of which measured about
12 feet by 10 feet. At this short range, I was confident of
accounting for the panther as soon as it made itself visible in the
doorway. Furthermore, should it attempt to enter by the roof, or
through the thatched walls, I would have ample time to deal with
it. To make matters even more realistic, I instructed the
inhabitants of both the adjacent huts, especially the women folk,
to endeavour to talk in low tones as far into the night as was
possible, in order to attract the killer to that vicinity.

An objection was immediately raised, that the leopard might be

led to enter one of their huts, instead of attacking the dummy in
the doorway of the hut in which I was sitting. This fear was only
overcome by promising to come to their aid should they hear the
animal attempting an entry. The signal was to be a normal call for
help, with which experience had shown the panther to be
perfectly familiar, and of which he took no notice. This plan also
assured me that the inhabitants would themselves keep awake
and continue their low conversation in snatches, in accordance
with my instructions.

Everything was in position by 6 p.m., at which time all doors in

the village were secured, except that of the hut where I sat. The
usual uncertain dusk was followed by bright starlight that threw
the open doorway and the crouched figure of the draped dummy
into clear relief. Now and again I could hear the low hum of
conversation from the two neighbouring huts.

The hours dragged by in dreadful monotony. Suddenly the

silence was disturbed by a rustle in the thatched roof which
brought me to full alertness. But it was only a rat, which
scampered across and then dropped with a thud to the floor
nearby, from where it ran along the tops of the boxes before me,
becoming clearly visible as it passed across the comparatively
light patch of the open doorway. As the early hours of the morning
approached, I noticed that the conversation from my neighbours
died down and finally ceased, showing that they had fallen asleep,
regardless of man-eating panther, or anything else that might
threaten them.

I kept awake, occasionally smoking my pipe, or sipping hot tea

from the flask, but nothing happened beyond the noises made by
the tireless rats, which chased each other about and around the
room, and even across me, till daylight finally dawned, and I lay
back to fall asleep after another tiring vigil.

The following night, for want of a better plan, and feeling that
sooner or later the man-eater would appear, I decided to repeat the
performance with the dummy, and I met with an adventure which
will remain indelibly impressed on my memory till my dying day.

I was in position again by six o’clock, and the first part of the
night was but a repetition of the night before. The usual noise of
scurrying rats, broken now and again by the low-voiced speakers
in the neighbouring huts, were the only sounds to mar the stillness
of the night. Shortly after 1 a.m. a sharp wind sprang up, and I
could hear the breeze rustling through the thatched roof. This
rapidly increased in strength, till it was blowing quite a gale. The
rectangular patch of light from the partly open doorway
practically disappeared as the sky became overcast with storm
clouds, and soon the steady rhythmic patter of raindrops, which
increased to a regular downpour, made me feel that the leopard,
who like all his family are not overfond of water, would not
venture out on this stormy night, and that I would draw a blank
once more.

By now the murmuring voices from the neighbouring huts had

ceased or become inaudible, drowned in the swish of the rain. I
strained my eyes to see the scarcely perceptible doorway, while
the crouched figure of the dummy could not be seen at all, and
while I looked I evidently fell asleep, tired out by my vigil of the
two previous nights.

How long I slept I cannot tell, but it must have been for some
considerable time. I awoke abruptly with a start, and a feeling
that all was not well. The ordinary person in awaking takes some
time to collect his faculties, but my jungle training and long years
spent in dangerous places enabled me to remember where I was
and in what circumstances, as soon as I awoke.

The rain had ceased and the sky had cleared a little, for the
oblong patch of open doorway was more visible now, with the
crouched figure of the dummy seated at its base. Then, as I
watched, a strange thing happened. The dummy seemed to move,
and as I looked more intently it suddenly disappeared to the
accompaniment of a snarling growl. I realised that the panther
had come, seen the crouched figure of the dummy in the doorway
which it had mistaken for a human being, and then proceeded to
stalk it, creeping in at the opening on its belly, and so low to the
ground that its form had not been outlined in the faint light as I
had hoped. The growl I had heard was at the panther’s realisation
that the thing it had attacked was not human after all.

Switching on my torch and springing to my feet, I hurdled the

barricade of boxes and sprang to the open door way, to dash
outside and almost trip over the dummy which lay across my
path. I shone the beam of torchlight in both directions, but
nothing could be seen. Hoping that the panther might still be
lurking nearby and shining my torch-beam into every corner, I
walked slowly down the village street, cautiously negotiated the
bend at its end and walked back up the next street, in fear and
trembling of a sudden attack. But although the light lit up every
corner, every rooftop and every likely hiding-place in the street,
there was no sign of my enemy anywhere. Then only did I realise
the true significance of the reputation this animal had acquired of
possessing diabolical cunning. Just as my own sixth sense had
wakened me from sleep at a time of danger, a similar sixth sense
had warned the leopard that here was no ordinary human being,
but one that was bent upon its destruction. Perhaps it was the
bright beam of torchlight that had unnerved it at the last moment;
but, whatever the cause, the man-eater had silently, completely
and effectively disappeared, for although I searched for it through
all the streets of Gummalapur that night, it had vanished as
mysteriously as it had come.

Disappointment, and annoyance with myself at having fallen

asleep, were overcome with a grim determination to get even with
this beast at any cost.

Next morning the tracks of the leopard were clearly visible at

the spot it had entered the village and crossed a muddy drain,
where for the first time I saw the pug-marks of the slayer and the
peculiar indentation of its right forefoot, the paw of which was
not visible as a pug-mark, but remained a blur, due to this
animal’s habit of placing it on edge. Thus it was clear to me that
the panther had at some time received an injury to its foot which
had turned it into a man-eater. Later I was able to view the
injured foot for myself, and I was probably wrong in my
deductions as to the cause of its man-eating propensities; for I
came to learn that the animal had acquired the habit of eating the
corpses which the people of that area, after a cholera epidemic
within the last year, had by custom carried into the forest and left
to the vultures. These easily procured meals had given the panther
a taste for human flesh, and the injury to its foot, which made
normal hunting and swift movement difficult, had been the
concluding factor in turning it into that worst of all menaces to an
Indian village—a man-eating panther.

I also realised that, granting the panther was equipped with an

almost-human power of deduction, it would not appear in
Gummalapur again for a long time after the fright I had given it
the night before in following it with my torchlight.
 It was therefore obvious that I would have to change my scene
of operations, and so, after considerable thought, I decided to
move on to the village of Devarabetta, diagonally across an
intervening range of forest hills, and some eighteen miles away,
where the panther had already secured five victims, though it had
not been visited for a month.

Therefore, I set out before 10 a.m. that very day, after an early
lunch. The going was difficult, as the path led across two hills.
Along the valley that lay between them ran a small jungle stream,
and beside it I noted the fresh pugs of a big male tiger that had
followed the watercourse for some 200 yards before crossing to the
other side. It had evidently passed early that morning, as was
apparent from the minute trickles of moisture that had seeped into
the pug marks through the river sand, but had not had time to
evaporate in the morning sun. Holding steadfastly to the job in
hand, however, I did not follow the tiger and arrived at
Devarabetta just after 5 p.m.

The inhabitants were preparing to shut themselves into their

huts when I appeared, and scarcely had the time or inclination to
talk to me. However, I gathered that they agreed that a visit from
the man-eater was likely any day, for a full month had elapsed
since his last visit and he had never been known to stay away for
so long.

Time being short, I hastily looked around for the hut with the
highest wall, before which I seated myself as on my first night at
Gummalapur, having hastily arranged some dried thorny bushes
across its roof as protection against attack from my rear and
above. These thorns had been brought from the hedge of a field
bordering the village itself, and I had had to escort the men who
carried them with my rifle, so afraid they were of the man-eater’s
early appearance.
 Devarabetta was a far smaller village than Gummalapur, and
situated much closer to the forest, a fact which I welcomed for the
reason that I would be able to obtain information as to the
movements of carnivora by the warning notes that the beasts and
birds of the jungle would utter, provided I was within hearing.

The night fell with surprising rapidity, though this time a thin
sickle of new-moon was showing in the sky. The occasional call of
a roosting jungle-cock, and the plaintive call of pea-fowl,
answering one another from the nearby forest, told me that all
was still well. And then it was night, the faint starlight rendering
hardly visible, and as if in a dream, the tortuously winding and
filthy lane that formed the main street of Devarabetta. At 8.30
p.m. a sambar hind belled from the forest, following her original
sharp note with a series of warning cries in steady succession.
Undoubtedly a beast of prey was afoot and had been seen by the
watchful deer, who was telling the other jungle-folk to look out
for their lives. Was it the panther or one of the larger carnivora?
Time alone would tell, but at least I had been warned.

The hind ceased her belling, and some fifteen minutes later,
from the direction in which she had first sounded her alarm, I
heard the low moan of a tiger, to be repeated twice in succession,
before all became silent again. It was not a mating call that I had
heard, but the call of the King of the Jungle in his normal search
for food, reminding the inhabitants of the forest that their master
was on the move in search of prey, and that one of them must die
that night to appease his voracious appetite.

Time passed, and then down the lane I caught sight of some
movement. Raising my cocked rifle, I covered the object, which
slowly approached me, walking in the middle of the street. Was
this the panther after all, and would it walk thus openly, and in
the middle of the lane, without any attempt at concealment? It
was now about thirty yards away and still it came on boldly,
without any attempt to take cover or to creep along the edges of
objects in the usual manner of a leopard when stalking its prey.
Moreover, it seemed a frail and slender animal, as I could see it
fairly clearly now. Twenty yards and I pressed the button of my
torch, which this night I had clamped to my rifle.

As the powerful beam threw across the intervening space it

lighted a village cur, commonly known to us in India as a ‘pariah
dog’. Starving and lonely, it had sought out human company; it
stared blankly into the bright beam of light, feebly wagging a
skinny tail in unmistakable signs of friendliness.

Welcoming a companion, if only a lonely cur, I switched off the

light and called it to my side by a series of flicks of thumb and
finger. It approached cringingly, still wagging its ridiculous tail. I
fed it with some biscuits and a sandwich, and in the dull light of
the star-lit sky its eyes looked back at me in dumb gratitude for the
little food I had given it, perhaps the first to enter its stomach for
the past two days. Then it curled up at my feet and fell asleep.

Time passed and midnight came. A great horned owl hooted

dismally from the edge of the forest, its prolonged mysterious cry
of ‘Whooo-whooo’ seeming to sound a death-knell, or a precursor
to that haunting part of the night when the souls of those not at
rest return to the scenes of their earthly activities, to live over and
over again the deeds that bind them to the earth.

One o’clock, two and then three o’clock passed in dragging

monotony, while I strained my tired and aching eyes and ears for
movement or sound. Fortunately it had remained a cloudless night
and visibility was comparatively good by the radiance of the
myriad stars that spangled the heavens in glorious array, a sight
that cannot be seen in any of our dusty towns or cities.

And then, abruptly, the alarmed cry of a plover, or ‘Did you-do-

it’ bird, as it is known in India, sounded from the nearby muddy
tank on the immediate outskirts of the village. ‘Did-you-do-it,
Did-you-do-it, Did-you-do-it, Did you- do-it’ , it called in rapid
regularity. No doubt the bird was excited and had been disturbed,
or it had seen something. The cur at my feet stirred, raised its
head, then sank down again, as if without a care in the world. The
minutes passed, and then suddenly the dog became fully awake.
Its ears, that had been drooping in dejection, were standing on
end, it trembled violently against my legs, while a low prolonged
growl came from its throat. I noticed that it was looking down the
lane that led into the village from the vicinity of the tank.

I stared intently in that direction. For a long time I could see

nothing, and then it seemed that a shadow moved at a corner of a
building some distance away and on the same side of the lane. I
focussed my eyes on this spot, and after a few seconds again
noticed a furtive movement, but this time a little closer.

Placing my left thumb on the switch which would actuate the

torch, I waited in breathless silence. A few minutes passed, five or
ten at the most, and then I saw an elongated body spring swiftly
and noiselessly on to the roof of a hut some twenty yards away. As
it happened, all the huts adjoined each other at this spot, and I
guessed the panther had decided to walk along the roofs of these
adjoining huts and spring upon me from the rear, rather than
continue stalking me in full view.

I got to my feet quickly and placed my back against the wall. In

this position the eave of the roof above my head passed over me
and on to the road where I had been sitting, for about eighteen
inches. The rifle I kept ready, finger on trigger, with my left thumb
on the torch switch, pressed to my side and pointing upwards.

A few seconds later I heard a faint rustling as the leopard

endeavoured to negotiate the thorns which I had taken the
precaution of placing on the roof. He evidently failed in this, for
there was silence again. Now I had no means of knowing where he
was.
 The next fifteen minutes passed in terrible anxiety, with me
glancing in all directions in the attempt to locate the leopard
before he sprang, while thanking Providence that the night
remained clear. And then the cur, that had been restless and
whining at my feet, shot out into the middle of the street, faced
the corner of the hut against which I was sheltering and began to
bark lustily.

This warning saved my life, for within five seconds the panther
charged around the corner and sprang at me. I had just time to
press the torch switch and fire from my hip, full into the blazing
eyes that showed above the wide-opened, snarling mouth. The
.405 bullet struck squarely, but the impetus of the charge carried
the animal on to me. I jumped nimbly to one side, and as the
panther crashed against the wall of the hut, emptied two more
rounds from the magazine into the evil, spotted body.

It collapsed and was still, except for the spasmodic jerking of the
still-opened jaws and long, extended tail. And then my friend the
cur, staunch in faithfulness to his new-found master, rushed in
and fixed his feeble teeth in the throat of the dead monster.

And so passed the ‘Spotted Devil of Gummalapur’, a panther of

whose malignant craftiness I had never heard the like before and
hope never to have to meet again. When skinning the animal next
morning, I found that the injury to the right paw had not been
caused, as I had surmised, by a previous bullet wound, but by two
porcupine quills that had penetrated between the toes within an
inch of each other and then broken off short. This must have
happened quite a while before, as a gristly formation between the
bones inside the foot had covered the quills. No doubt it had hurt
the animal to place his paw on the ground in the normal way, and
he had acquired the habit of walking on its edge.

I took the cur home, washed and fed it, and named it ‘Nipper’.
Nipper has been with me many years since then, and never have I
had reason to regret giving him the few biscuits and sandwich that
won his staunch little heart, and caused him to repay that small
debt within a couple of hours, by saving my life.
 3

The Striped Terror of Chamala Valley

HE Chamala Valley is part of the north-eastern tip of the

T District of Chittoor in the Presidency of Madras, where it
adjoins the District of Cuddapah immediately to the north. It is a
comparatively small valley, its main portion extending
northwards for some seven miles by five wide, with two branches
at its extremity, like the letter ‘Y’, running respectively north-
west and north-east, somewhat narrower than the main valley
and each about four miles long. The branches terminate below the
bluff crags of a towering escarpment that forms the southern
boundary of Cuddapah.

A beautiful stream, called the Kalyani River, flows down the

north-eastern valley, having its twin sources just below the
escarpment, in magnificently wooded forest glens named
Gundalpenta and Umbalmeru, where pools of translucent, ice-
cold water are always to be found even in the hottest part of
summer. The Kalyani then flows south ward through the main
valley and eventually enters a cultivated area at the hamlet of
Nagapatla, with an ancient lake at which the kings of
Chandragiri, and afterwards the all-conquering Mohammedan
hero, Tippoo Sultan, attempted to construct a dam to feed water
to the parched countryside in the terribly hot months of summer.
A heavily thatched, but snug forest bungalow has been
constructed by the Forest Department on the southern side of the
lake, bordering the ancient aquaduct. The sleepy village of
Arepalli Rangampet lies about a mile and a half distant, and is of
almost recent origin.

The Chamala Valley is entirely forested and in the days of

British rule was a game preserve. Westward lies the Bakhrapet
Forest Block, and eastward the Tirupati Forest Range, which
culminates in the great pilgrim shrines of Tirupati, famous
throughout India. Southward is the ancient town of Chandragiri,
with its age-old fort, a mute tribute to the glory of its former kings.

A metre-gauge railway line passes close to Chandragiri, on its

way to Tirupati and Renigunta, where it joins the arterial broad-
gauge line from Madras to Bombay. A narrow cart-road leads from
Chandragiri railway station for about three and a half miles to
Rangampet; then it turns north wards for a mile and a half to
Nagapatla, whence it continues still further north and becomes a
Forest Departmental path for all the seven miles of the Chamala
Valley till it reaches a spot named Pulibonu, which means Tiger’s
Cage, where it abruptly ends. Two flat, square, cemented
campsites, and a well to provide a continuous supply of drinking
water, have been constructed at this spot by the Forest
Department.

The valley and its branches are beautiful, and when I first
visited them, eighteen years ago, were a paradise for game. Large
herds of chital, or spotted deer, roamed the main valley, some of
the stags carrying heads the like of which I have nowhere seen in
Southern India. The slopes of the foothills running into the
Bakhrapet range on the west, and the Tirupati range on the east,
as well as along the foot of the whole northern escarpment, were
the home of magnificently proportioned and antlered sambar. The
black or sloth bear could be found everywhere, but was especially
numerous and dangerous in the dense forest below the
escarpment. Kakar, or the ‘muntjac’ or barking deer, as it is
known, also abounded. The main valley and its north-eastern
appendage were the regular beat of tiger, which came from the
Bakhrapet range, passed up the valleys, crossed the escarpment
and into the Cuddapah Forests, thence to the Mamandur range
and onwards to Settigunta. Panther were everywhere, and the
area abounded in pea-fowl, spurfowl and grey jungle fowl, the
latter especially being very numerous. This was the only forest in
Southern India where I have found jungle fowl crowing even at
midday, and regularly at 2 a.m., and at about 4.30 a.m., apart, of
course, from their usual chorus at sunrise and sunset.

Into this peaceful area one day, early in 1937, came the striped
terror of which I shall tell you. He was a tiger of normal size, and
his tracks indicated no deformity that might have accounted for
his partiality for human flesh. He suddenly appeared, no one knew
from where, nor had any rumour been heard of the activities of a
man-eating tiger in any of the adjoining forest areas, far or near.
Strange as was his sudden and unheralded coming, it was soon
well-known that a man-eater had entered the valley, for he killed,
and wholly ate, a bamboo-cutter near the pools of Gundalpenta.
Within three days thereafter, he practically entirely devoured a
traveller on the Nagapatla-Pulibonu forest track, close to the
fourth milestone.

Thereafter his killings became sporadic and irregular, extending

throughout the length and breadth of the three valleys, where in
all he killed and devoured, or partly devoured, seven people in the
space of about six months.

One day the Forest Range Officer from Bakhrapet, in whose area
the Chamala Valley is included, was on his way to take up
residence in the Forest Bungalow at Nagapatla, during his rounds
of inspection. He travelled by bullockcart, in which he was also
bringing provisions, personal effects and other necessities for the
period of a fortnight he would stay at Nagapatla.

It was 5 p.m., and the cart was hardly two miles from its
destination, when a tiger walked on to the road in front of the
vehicle. I should have told you that this road, leading from
Bakhrapet to Nagapatla, ran through the reserved forest for
practically its whole length, the last two miles being across the
beginning of the Chamala Valley itself.
 Seeing the tiger on the road before him, the cart-driver brought
his vehicle to a stop and called out to the range officer and the
forest guard who were with him. As the cart was a covered one
and they were inside, neither had seen that there was a tiger on
the road.

The three men commenced to shout, when the tiger, walking

along the clearing that bordered the road, passed the cart and so
came into view of the two men inside. At this juncture the forest
guard, for no understandable reason, jumped out of the cart and
commenced waving his hands and shouting, to frighten the beast
away. However, he sealed his own fate, for with a succession of
short roars the animal charged, seized him in its jaws, and
bounded back into the concealing forest. The action had been so
unexpected and abrupt that the range officer had no opportunity
to do a thing, although what he could have done in any event was
problematical, as he himself was unarmed.

The cart was then driven to Nagapatla in great haste, but it was
not until the following morning that a large group could be
assembled, armed with matchlocks, hatchets and staves, to
attempt to find the unfortunate forest guard, or rather what was
left of him.

The remains were eventually located in a ravine, less than a

furlong from the road; only the head, hands and feet, and his
bloodstained and mangled khaki uniform and green turban, were
left to tell the tale, the latter lying where it had fallen when the
tiger jumped with its victim across the clearing that bordered the
road.

This tragedy received a great deal of official attention, and was

published by the Press throughout the country. A reward was
offered by the government for the destruction of the man-eater,
and several venturesome hunters, both local and from the city of
Madras, arrived at the valley to destroy the creature. But after its
last killing, and as if it had become aware that it had attracted too
much attention, the terror completely disappeared for a while, nor
could any trace of it be found anywhere in the valley. The
assumption was that it had escaped, either by traversing the
escarpment northwards into the Cuddapah District, or had
wandered into the Bakhrapet or Tirupati blocks. The whole
locality was on the alert, but nothing was heard of the animal for
the next two months.

Sketch map of localities referred to in the story of the Striped

Terror of Chamala Valley.

Then one day a railway ganger, patrolling the broadgauge

railway track near the station of Mamandur, which stands on the
Madras-Bombay arterial line, and is situated in a wide, densely-
forested plateau, encircled with hills, some eighteen miles north-
east of the Chamala Valley, failed to report at the terminal point
of his patrol. No particular notice of his absence was taken for a
day or two, as sudden absenteeism on trivial grounds is a common
occurrence in the East; but when after that the man still failed to
put in an appearance, the matter was regarded more seriously,
and a squad was sent out to try to find him.

Walking along the railway, the first clue to the missing man’s
fate was the large hammer he had been using, which was found
lying beside the track. Gangers are issued with such hammers to
keep in place the wooden blocks used to wedge the rails against
their supports, known as chairs. On the hard, sun-baked earth, no
signs of any struggle was evident, but not far away were a few
drops of blood that led down an embankment and into the
neighbouring forest. Following this trail, the party came across an
odd chapli (or country-made slipper) as worn by the missing
ganger, together with traces of blood that had been smeared
against the leaves of bushes. A little further on they crossed a strip
of dry, soft sand, traversing which they clearly found the pug
marks of a tiger.

This established that the missing man had been taken by a tiger.
The fame of the man-eater of the Chamala Valley had spread far
and wide during the past months, and naturally it was concluded
that this animal was responsible for the latest tragedy.
Incidentally, the remains of the ganger were never found.

Thereafter, two kills occurred during the succeeding months.

The first at Settigunta, n miles north-west of Mamandur, and the
second at Umbalmeru, which, as you will remember, was one of
the twin sources of the Kalyani River before it entered the
Chamala Valley.

At this time, I was on a business visit to Madras and had had

occasion to visit the chief conservator of forests with regard to a
complaint I had earlier lodged against the activities of local
poachers in the Salem District. While talking to the chief
conservator, he mentioned the activities of the tiger—of which I
had read a great deal in the Press—and suggested I make an
attempt to bag the animal.

Fortunately, I had not availed myself of privilege leave during

the past year, and as I had some months to my credit, I decided to
spend one of them in making such an effort. Returning to
Bangalore, I spent the next few days in getting together all the
many necessities for such an undertaking and ten days later I was
at the Nagapatla Forest Bungalow, which I had decided to make
my headquarters in conducting the campaign against the man-
eater of Chamala.

The first thing to do was to make exhaustive local inquiries,

visit the spots in the Chamala Valley where the kills had occurred,
and try to establish some sequence in the localities where the
various incidents had taken place, so as to arrive, if possible, at a
knowledge of the beat the tiger followed. This I entirely failed to
do; it became obvious that this particular animal was a wanderer,
who visited the valley there for some time, snatched a human
victim wherever opportunity offered, and climbed over the
escarpment in the direction of Mamandur or into the Cuddapah
District.

Not without considerable difficulty, I purchased four young

buffaloes. These I tied up at widely separated points; one at
Gundalpenta, another at Umbalmeru, a third at a waterhole
called Narasimha Cheruvu, close to the fourth milestone of the
Nagapatla-Pulibonu forest road, and the last at a rocky stream
named Ragimankonar, a tributary of the Kalyani River, as it
issued from the rocky hills of the Tirupati block about two miles
east of the road.

On the second day the bait at Narasimha Cheruvu was killed,

but examination showed this to be the work of a large ‘Thendu’,
or forest panther, and not of a tiger, as I had hoped. As baits are
costly and I could not afford to lose them to interfering panthers, I
sat up for this animal by the waterhole, and was lucky enough to
bag him by 6.45 p.m., while it was still daylight, when he returned
to the kill.

I then bought another bait, to replace the one the panther had
killed, and secured it to the same spot at Narasimha Cheruvu.

The next week was spent in idleness at the forest bungalow,

except for long walks throughout the forest every morning and
evening in all directions in the hope of accidentally meeting the
tiger. On the morning of the ninth day, when driving early in my
Studebaker in the direction of Pulibonu, from where I intended
starting out on another stroll through the jungles, I came across
the pug-marks of a tiger which had joined the road at the sixth
milestone and had walked down the middle of it to beyond
Pulibonu. No distinguishing peculiarities about the man-eater’s
tracks had been so far observed, so that it was impossible to tell
whether the animal that had made these fresh tracks was the
slayer I was seeking, or just a casual wandering tiger. These pugs
were, in places, very clear in the soft roadside sand, and I was able
to examine them minutely; but beyond enabling me to say that
they had been made by a male tiger of average size, no other
peculiarity or distinguishing mark of any sort presented itself.

Leaving the car at Pulibonu, I walked up the north-eastern

valley, the forest track crossing and re-crossing the Kalyani River,
where I saw that the tiger had preceded me for some distance. I
visited both Gundalpenta and Umbalmeru that day, in high hope
that one or other of my baits had been taken, but found both of
them alive, placidly chewing at the large piles of hay I had left
them so that they might be as comfortable and as contented as
possible.

After lunch that afternoon I returned and attempted to follow

the tiger’s tracks from the place I had last observed them. But I
only partly succeeded, losing the tracks in some heavy bamboo
that clothed both banks of the river along its higher reaches. It
was fairly late that evening when I turned back towards Pulibonu.
Proceeding a half-mile, and still within the heavy bamboo belt, I
came upon a sloth bear which had made an unusually early
appearance, as these creatures do not begin their wanderings till
after sun down. He was standing up against a large white anthill,
with his nose and a part of his head inside the hole he had made,
drawing the white ants into his ready mouth with powerful
inhalations. He looked for all the world like a very black, hairy
man, standing against the anthill, while the noises he was making
in his efforts were extraordinary, resembling the buzzing of a
million bees, interspersed with loud, impatient snufflings and
shufflings, as of a giant bloodhound on the trail.

I drew quite close to the bear, yet he did not see me, so engrossed
he was in his congenial task. I could have come still closer, but
this would have meant that, when eventually he did become
aware of my presence, he would probably attack, and I would
have to shoot him. This I did not want to do, as personally I have
no quarrel with bears, and secondly, the sound of my shot would
disturb the jungle and might result in driving the tiger away. So I
stopped at the distance of about forty yards and coughed loudly.
The bear heard me, ceased his buzzing and snuffling, and whirled
around on his hind feet, to face me with an expression that was
amusing, to say the least of it. Annoyance, fear, chagrin and
resentment were writ large across his mud-covered features. For a
moment he watched me, rising still higher on his hind-legs, and I
thought at first he would make a blind charge, which is the habit
of the sloth-bear when disturbed at close quarters. But better
judgement prevailed; he sank to all fours and bolted for all he was
worth, bounding away like a black hairy ball, muttering, ‘Aufl
Aufl Auf !’

Early next morning found me back at Pulibonu. There were no

pug-marks on the road to indicate the tiger’s return, leaving the
inference that he was somewhere in the north-eastern valley, or
that he had departed across the escarpment.

Leaving the car, I trudged to Gundalpenta, but found my bait

alive, still chewing hay as if nothing else in the world mattered.
Then I went on to Umbalmeru, and upon approaching the spot
where my other bait had been tethered, found that it was missing.
Examination revealed that it had been killed by a tiger, which had
then succeeded in dragging it away, after first snapping the strong
tethering rope with which I had secured it.

To follow the drag mark was easy, and after proceeding about
100 yards, my attention was attracted by a solitary crow, perched
on the low branch of a tree, looking downwards in expectation.

This could only mean one thing—that the tiger was there and in
possession of his kill. If he were not there, the crow would have
descended to feed on the carcase, instead of sitting on a branch
looking so dejectedly downwards, as he was doing at that
moment.

The tree on which the crow was sitting overlooked a

downwardly sloping bank of spear-grass, at the foot of which was
a small depression densely covered by a thicket. It was somewhere
in this thicket that the tiger, and his kill, were sheltering.

To approach this thicket directly was inadvisable. To begin

with, the tiger would probably hear me and decamp. On the other
hand, and especially if he were the man-eater, he would
undoubtedly charge, and the proximity of the surrounding bushes
and the length of the spear grass gave me a very poor chance of
being able to stop him before he reached me.

I therefore backed away some fifty yards and began casting

about for a detour by which I could approach the spot from some
other angle, or perhaps from the opposite side, where I could
glimpse the tiger from more favourable ground.
 To my good fortune, a shallow nala ran diagonally across,
roughly from north-west to north-east, on its way to join the early
reaches of the Kalyani River. Tiptoeing up this nala, I soon judged
I was abreast of the thicket in which the tiger lay. Continuing for
another twenty-five yards, I cautiously climbed the right-hand
bank and found, as I expected, that I was now some little distance
beyond the thicket. A half-grown tamarind tree lay a few yards
ahead of me, and creeping up to this, I swung myself into its
sheltering branches, and then climbed higher in the hope of being
able to look down into the thicket.

But I was disappointed, in that I could see nothing. Not even the
crow was visible from this position, as the low branch on which he
was perched was obscured from my view by the intervening
thicket. I had therefore no means of knowing whether the tiger
was still there, or had moved on.

I remained in this position for about half an hour, hoping that

the jungle—or rather its inmates—would indicate the movements
of the tiger if he came out of the bushes. The sun was well up by
now, and I knew the tiger would soon move off to one of the water-
pools of Umbalmeru, to quench his thirst after the heavy meal he
had undoubtedly had.

Then I heard the peculiar alarm cry of a grey langur monkey,

‘Ha-aah! Har! Har!’ he called, from a hundred yards to my left.
This he repeated steadily, to the accompanying, ‘Cheek I Cheek !’
of a female of the tribe.

The tiger had moved at last, and the langur watchman had seen
him.

There is no need for me to tell those of my readers who are

familiar with the Indian forests about the wise ways of langur
monkeys. Those who are not will be interested to know that these
great grey arboreans, with black faces and enormously long tails,
live in tribes in the forests, where they exist entirely on wild
fruits, certain leaves, and of course the multifarious caterpillars
and insects which form a particular delicacy. The flesh of the
langur is an outstanding attraction on the menu of tigers and
panthers, and of some jungle tribes, so that generations of hard
experience have taught them to post a watchman, who invariably
takes up his position on the highest tree and keeps an intent
lookout for prowling felines. It might do some humans good to
take a leaf out of the langur watchman’s book, for while he is on
duty this langur will not feed or allow his attention to be in any
way distracted from his job. He realises that the safety and lives of
the babies, females and other members of his tribe depend entirely
on his vigilance. You will see him on top of the highest tree,
sitting alert and looking around. Not a movement within visible
range escapes his beady, black eyes. Eventually, and only after he
is relieved by another watchman, will he think of feeding himself.

The normal calls of langurs at play are a series of resounding

‘Whoomp—Whoomps’ , that echo down the hillsides and the deep
forest glens. When he spots danger, however, the watchman barks,
‘Ha-aah! Har! Har!’ in a successive series of calls, and the tribe
seeks safety in the highest trees.

Alas, for all the wisdom of the astute langurs, tiger and panther
have also developed an instinctive technique to overcome the
cleverness of these monkeys, for they too must eat. When they
hear the watchman’s call, tigers and panthers who have been
stalking the tribe know they have been discovered, and that the
monkeys will take to the highest trees. So they now change their
tactics, and after having located a tree on which a number of the
apes are seated, rush with a series of blood-curdling roars towards
it and possibly leap to the lowest fork, as if to climb the tree
themselves. Seated on the highest branches, the langurs would be
quite safe if they would only stay put. But the horrid snarls and
roars, together with the terrible striped or spotted form charging
towards them with wide-open jaws, unnerves the poor beasts, and
they jump wildly from their perches of safety, either in attempts
to reach neighbouring trees, or from the great height on to the
ground itself, where one of them invariably falls an easy prey to
the tiger or panther anticipating the foolish act.

But I have digressed, and must return to what happened after I

heard the langur watchman’s ‘ Ha-aah! Har! Har ! ’

Clambering down the tree, I crept forward with my rifle at the

ready diagonally towards the spot from which the langur
watchman was giving his warning. Knowing the tiger to have fed
well, I did not anticipate it would attempt to molest the monkeys
on this occasion, but that when seen by the watchman he was
making his way towards one of the pools. Spear grass and ‘wait-a-
bit’ thorn grew prolifically in this area and progress was both slow
and difficult.

Proceeding very cautiously about half a furlong, I caught sight

of the langur watchman on the top-most branch of a wild-cotton
tree, at the same instant as he saw me. He now had two possible
enemies to observe, and I knew if I watched carefully enough I
would be able to get a rough idea of the tiger’s whereabouts by
noting in which direction the langur was looking. I accordingly
squatted down on my haunches in the long grass and ‘froze’.

The watchman looked in my direction for a few seconds, then

looked away to his left, then back again at me, then back again
left, still voicing his alarm.

I knew by these glances that he was watching both me and the

tiger and judged the latter to be ahead of me by at least a hundred
yards. Getting to my feet, and bent double, I shuffled forward as
rapidly as possible in the direction I judged the tiger to be, much
to the consternation of the already excited langur watchman,
who could not make out whether I contemplated an attack
against the tribe or against the tiger. His alarm call redoubled both
in tempo and volume, a fact which began to worry me as I knew
the tiger was listening to him too, and would sense, by this
increased excitement, some fresh source of danger to the monkeys
and so also, perhaps, to himself.

And I was right. I covered the hundred yards rapidly, and after
another twenty-five yards I judged that I must now be pretty near
the tiger and that it was time to redouble my caution.
Momentarily I glanced back at the langur watchman. He was
looking intently in my direction, confirming the fact that both the
tiger and myself were now in the same area of his vision.

‘Freezing’ again, I listened and watched minutely the space

before me, and on either side. It consisted of the usual clumps of
thorn-bush, interspersed by short glades of speargrass, about four
foot high. As I watched I saw a slight movement of the grass to my
left, about thirty yards away. I raised myself in order to get a
better view, and the tiger saw me. A low growl followed by two
bounds, and he had disappeared.

I knew it was now both futile and dangerous to follow him,

having made him aware of my presence and the fact that he was
being followed. Cautiously guarding my rear against a surprise
attack, I crept back towards the thicket in which I knew the kill
was lying, and I soon found it. The calf had been half-eaten; it was
resting on its left side, sheltered by the grass and thicket from
vultures, and very fortunately overlooked by a wild mango tree.

I had now to make a quick decision. There was a chance of the

tiger returning to his kill, in spite of having seen me, which I
would miss if I were to lose this opportunity of sitting up for him.
At the same time, I had not come equipped for a night vigil, and
was carrying no torch, blanket or food. If I decided to sit up, I
would have to remain in the tree till morning, as the nights were
dark at that time and there was no moon. It would hardly be
possible to negotiate the pitch-black forest and return to my car at
Pulibonu, apart from the fact that I would be entirely at the man-
eater’s mercy. If I remained, I was in for a night of extreme
discomfort in the bitterly cold breeze that would blow down from
the escarpment, against which I could not shield myself. I thought
of going back to the car to get the necessary things. The distance
was roughly four miles each way, and I feared the tiger might
come back in my absence and entirely remove the kill.

Finally I decided to abandon all thought of personal discomfort

and sit it out. Ascending the mango tree, I settled myself in its
second fork, where I was able to be fairly comfortable with my
back against a branch. I folded my feet crosswise, in Indian
fashion, after removing my shoes, and stood the cocked rifle
against the branch before me. From this position I had a clear view
of the kill to my left, then an interruption by the branch before
me, then another view, then a branch, then a view over my right
shoulder at an angle from which it was impossible to shoot, and
finally the branch against which my back rested. This precluded
any view of the rear. At the same time I was about fifteen feet
from the ground and safe from the tiger’s spring. To reach me he
would have to pass the first crotch in the tree, where he would be
almost at point-blank range.

The time was 12.50 p.m., and I settled down to what I felt would
become one of the coldest and most unendurable vigils of my
whole career as a hunter.

I will not weary my readers by recounting how the hours

dragged by until 6.30 p.m., when the fowl and daybirds of the
forest had gone to roost, and the langurs had long since moved
away from the hated presence of their two enemies, tiger and
man. I was alone, except for an occasional nightjar that flitted,
chirping, around my tree. At 6.45 p.m. it was almost dark. The
nightjar had now settled below me, and commenced its squatting
call of ‘Chuckoo-chuckoo-chuckoo’, when I met one of the strange
experiences that sometimes, but very rarely, fall to the lot of a
wanderer in the Indian forests.

I had been told stories by jungle men, and had also read, that
tigers, in particular localities only, imitate sambar and emit the
belling call of a stag, presumably to decoy other animals of the
same species to them, particularly the does. I had never placed
much credence in this story, and never experienced it myself.
That evening, shortly after 6.45, the sudden solitary ‘Dhank’ of a
sambar stag rang out from a thicket in the waning light, in the
space still visible between the branch against which my rifle
rested before me, and that immediately to the right, and from out
of this thicket almost simultaneously stepped the tiger.

Now there could not have been any sambar stag in that thicket,
along with or just in front of the tiger, for I could not have missed
its hoof beats as it ran from the spot. No sambar would have stood
there and allowed the tiger practically to touch it in passing.
Beyond that one ‘Dhank’ there was no other sound, when, as I
have said, the tiger stepped into the open, and there was no
possible doubt that the tiger had made the sound. Why it did so is
a mystery, as it was not hunting. It had fed well earlier that
morning and was now returning to another repast, so that there
could have been no thought in its mind of decoying a sambar by
imitating its call. I can only recount what actually happened, and
what I experienced, and the fact that, beyond doubt, there was no
sambar in that thicket when the tiger stepped out. I leave the rest
to your own conjecture and conclusion. For my part, having heard
it with my own ears, I have no alternative but to believe the old
tales I had read and heard of a tiger’s ability to mimic this sound.

The animal walked towards the kill and was lost to view behind
the branch before me, which opportunity I seized to get my rifle
into position. It then reappeared to my left, and very shortly
seized the kill in its jaws and lifted it. My shot struck it squarely
behind the left shoulder. It spun around to receive my next shot in
the neck, then collapsed, kicked and twitched for another minute,
and was still.

The tiger being dead, I now felt that it was safe for me to walk
to the car, provided I could find my way in the darkness. With all
the difficulties involved, I felt this to be preferable to sitting all
night in the tree, cramped and shivering, with the cold and on an
empty stomach. Abruptly making up my mind, I shinned down the
tree without approaching the tiger, and hurried off to find the bed
of the Kalyani River before total darkness set in, for I realised it
would be possible, even in darkness, to stumble along the bed of
the dry river which would ultimately bring me to Pulibonu and
the car, although the distance would be about six miles through
all the bends of the river. I would almost surely lose the narrow
footpath, the only alternative, in the darkness, and have to spend
the night in the jungle.

Trying to negotiate the stony bed of the Kalyani in darkness

proved a real nightmare. On many occasions I slipped on the
rounded boulders that strewed the bed of the stream in profusion,
or barked my shins against hidden tree-stumps and rocks. More
than once I was in danger of twisting an ankle, or perhaps
breaking a leg in jumping from one boulder to another, and twice I
fell while holding my precious rifle aloft to prevent dashing it
against the rocks. The journey required absolute concentration,
and it took me four hours to reach Pulibonu, stepping into the car
at ten minutes past 11 p.m.

You may suppose that in driving back to Nagapatla I was

congratulating myself on having slain the man-eater. But in
actual fact I was not, for many circumstances forced themselves
on my mind and made me uneasy as to the degree of success I had
achieved. First, the tiger had killed a buffalo bait; second, it had
remained at that bait when discovered by me and then casually
retreated, with me following; third, after becoming aware of my
presence it had turned tail and fled; fourth, it had returned to its
buffalo-kill; last, it had emitted a close imitation of a sambar’s
call. All these facts individually and collectively far from
indicated the actions or behaviour of a man-eater, but pointed
instead to an ordinary tiger, more particularly a game-killer. The
more I thought about it, the more doubtful I became that I had
shot the man-eater. It was good for my peace of mind that, when
concentrating on my struggle along the Kalyani River in the
darkness, I had not had time to think of these things, or of how I
had placed myself entirely in the power of the real man-eater, had
he met me in those circumstances.

Next morning I returned with a party of men, carried the tiger

to the car and brought it to Nagapatla, where general joy
prevailed at the death of the man-eater. Before skinning the beast I
examined it very carefully and found it to be a flawless specimen
of adult male tiger, with a beautiful coat and in perfect physical
condition. This made me doubt even more that I had bagged the
real man-eater.

That evening I left for Bangalore, spending the night with the
Collector at Chittoor, to whom I recounted my misgivings, and
extracted a promise that he would let me know by telegram
should any human kills recur.

On the afternoon of the eleventh day from that date, I received

his wire, stating that a woman cutting grass, just within the
boundary of the reserve forest forming the Chamala Valley, and
within a mile of Nagapatla, had been carried away by the man-
eater. I had failed. I had shot the wrong tiger, exactly as I feared
had been the case.

Next morning found me journeying back to Nagapatla, arriving

at the little forest bungalow late that afternoon.

Early the following morning, I was shown the spot where the
tiger had attacked his most recent victim. The woman had been
cutting grass, which she had gathered into a bundle preparatory to
carting it away on her head. This bundle she had placed beneath
the shade of a tree, and was evidently in the act of tying it up
when the tiger, which had stalked her from the adjacent jungle,
launched his attack. Another woman, who had also been cutting
grass and was about a hundred yards away at the time, had heard
a piercing scream, and, looking up, had been in time to see a tiger
disappearing into the forest with her companion in its jaws. She
had fled to Nagapatla and told the tale, whence news had been
conveyed to Rangampet and onwards to Chandragiri, where the
tahsildar had taken immediate steps to inform the Collector at
Chittoor, who in turn had telegraphed me.

No attempt had been made to follow the tiger, or to rescue the

woman. Three days had now elapsed since the occurrence, and
the ground was too dry to reveal any tracks. Casting around in a
broad semi-circle, we succeeded in finding the woman’s saree,
which had unravelled itself from her naked body and lay on the
ground some quarter mile away. Blood tracks we could not find,
showing that the tiger had not released its original grasp of her
throat, for there had been no other cries from the unfortunate
victim after her first desperate scream for help.

We never succeeded in locating the remains of that woman.

Returning to the village, I procured the three remaining buffalo

calves, which had been my baits on the last visit and had been left
behind; I tied one close to the roadside by the fourth milestone,
one at Pulibonu, and this time I tied the third only two miles from
Nagapatla, in the bed of the Kalyani River before it entered
cultivated areas.

The following morning all three baits were alive, but there were
also tiger pugs along the Pulibonu forest road. The tiger had joined
the track just before the third mile, passed my bait on the fourth
mile without touching it, and had left the road again at the sixth
mile, shortly before reaching Pulibonu, making eastwards towards
a large, stony hill, known as ‘Monkey-hill’, that jutted out from
the Tirupati block.

The pug-marks were distinct and revealed no deformity in the

animal. Nevertheless, it had passed within a few feet of my live-
bait, which I had tied by the roadside on the fourth mile, without
even stopping to look at it, as the tracks very clearly indicated.
This was certainly much more like the behaviour of a man-eater,
and I felt a sense of elation that at last I seemed to be up against
the real thing.

As I have said, the tiger had gone towards ‘Monkey Hill’. It was
either sheltering on its jungle-clad slopes, or had perhaps skirted
the base of the hill and rejoined the track towards Gundalpenta
and Umbalmeru, and thence onward to the escarpment, further
away. In any case, there was a faint chance that it might return
along the road that night, and as now there was a good moon,
nearing full, I determined to make an attempt to shoot the animal
on this path.

A large teak tree stood by the roadside some 150 yards from my
bait at the fourth milestone. Like most of its kind, this tree had an
upright stem practically impossible to climb, but by seating myself
at its base with my back to the bole, I commanded a view of my
bait, the road in both directions, and over a hundred yards on all
sides, since that section of the forest had suffered from fire about a
year before and was therefore free of undergrowth.

I took up my position by 5 p.m. As darkness set in the moon,

which had just topped the trees to the east, restored visibility by
casting its pale, silvery light over the silent forest. Although in
daylight I considered that the position I had selected was quite
safe, nightfall had its accustomed effects, and I began thinking of
the possibilities of the tiger stalking me from the rear. Common
sense came to my rescue however, and told me this was
impossible, unless the tiger first saw me, or heard me for tigers
have practically no sense of smell. But to be seen or heard I would
have to move first, so you may be certain I sat absolutely still and
without a sound, with my back resting against that big tree. I
could not smoke nor eat, but had taken the precaution of dressing
warmly against the chill that would set in with the early hours of
the next day. I remember that the jungle was exceptionally silent
that night, leading me to conclude the tiger was not in the
vicinity. As I had anticipated, the early hours brought with them a
sharp drop in temperature, and as a consequence an equally sharp
dew-fall, till my clothes were soaking wet and the ice-cold barrel
of the rifle streamed with moisture.

Several times I glanced towards my buffalo-calf, to see how it

was reacting. The first part of the night it spent in placidly
chewing the cut grass I had provided, but in the early hours it
settled down on the ground apparently to rest and get what
warmth it could against the chill that had set in.

Dawn eventually came to the relief of a very dispirited hunter,

and I made my way back the four miles to Nagapatla. Here a
wash, followed by steaming tea, bacon and eggs, and two hours’
snatched sleep, made me feel a new man again and fit for any
eventuality.

I motored up the road to Pulibonu, two trackers seated on each

mudguard while I drove at a snail’s pace, the men scanning the
road as we went. But the tiger had not passed anywhere along it
that night. Arriving at Pulibonu, we skirted the vicinity of the
Kalyani River in both directions, as well as a mile up each of the
tracks leading north-west and north-east, but again we found no
evidence of the tiger’s recent passing.

About noon we returned to Pulibonu, where I sat down by the

forest well to smoke and consider my plan of action for that night.
 Just across the Kalyani, and two furlongs from where I was
sitting, grew a tamarind tree which overlooked the bifurcations in
the forest paths, leading respectively to Pulibonu, and branching
off north-eastwards to Umbalmeru and the escarpment. I had
heard that several tigers had been shot from this tree in recent
years; indeed, I had myself bagged a small leopard as it passed
below me while I sat in that tree some eighteen months earlier, so
that I eventually decided to commit myself to the safety of its
sheltering branches for the next few nights, at least while the
moon was on, in preference to the danger always present while
sitting on the ground.

Having come to a decision, I instructed my two men to make a

machan on the same branches I had occupied previously, and
while they did so I fell fast asleep at the foot of the tree. The men
knew what they were doing, and some thirty minutes later awoke
me to examine their handiwork and put the few necessary final
touches.

I always carry the frame of a charpoy, or Indian rope cot,

constructed in two half-sections, in the rear seat of the
Studebaker. Experience has taught me that this makes the best
machan. It is light but strong, makes no noise even if you move
about on it, is very comfortable, and most important of all, lends
itself to easy erection on any tree as a machan, easy concealment
by a screen of leaves, and easy removal when the time comes to go
home. Moreover, it is both cheap and portable.

This charpoy had been strung across two branches, to which it

had been securely bound with cotton rope, which I also carry for
such purposes. The whole had been well concealed by twigs,
which had also been built up along the sides to provide further
concealment for myself. An opening had been provided through
which I could see the crack where it branched immediately below
me, and also some 100 yards in each direction, towards both
Pulibonu and Umbalmeru. A similar opening in the screen of
leaves behind me allowed me to see the road back to Nagapatla for
quite 200 yards.

All being to my satisfaction, I drove the men back to Nagapatla,

had a hearty lunch and a further short nap till 4 p.m., when I got
together the necessary blanket, water-bottle, gun-torch,
sandwiches and tea, and returned alone to Pulibonu, where I
concealed the Studebaker in a forest glade adjoining the well.
Walking back to the tree, I was settled for the night before 6 p.m.

The hours dragged by practically undisturbed by jungle sounds

till 11 o’clock, when a panther made its sawing call from the
direction of the Umbalmeru track. ‘Ah-hah! Ah-hah! ’ it sawed,
the sound being an almost exact imitation of somebody sawing
wood, the expiration and inspiration of breath at each double
sound faithfully resembling the forward and backward motions of
a saw in action.

Then around the bend he strode, a beautiful specimen of

‘Thendu’, or large forest panther, the rosettes on his hide showing
up clearly in the brilliant moonlight. He walked towards the tree
in which I was sitting, crossed the road below it and disappeared
into the forest on the other side.

Filled with admiration, I watched the pretty sight, but let the
animal go, for fear of disturbing the tiger which might hear my
shot if he was anywhere in the vicinity.

Nothing further turned up that night, and the following night

was exceptionally uninteresting, in that I did not hear or see a
thing.

Returning to Nagapatla next morning, I fell asleep, but was

wakened about 10 a.m. with the news that a herdsman had been
killed by the tiger scarcely half-an-hour before.
 Hastily dressing and grabbing my rifle, I followed the bereaved
brother of the missing man and a few others for about three-
quarters of a mile down the Pulibonu road, where we branched to
the right and were soon on the banks of the Kalyani River. The
man had been grazing his buffaloes in this vicinity, when the tiger
had sprung upon him from the thicket of rushes which here
bordered the river. The man had screamed, and his brother, who
was attending the same herd and driving on the stragglers, had
seen the whole incident. In this case the tiger had grasped his
victim by the shoulder, so that it was possible for him to continue
to scream as he was dragged away into the same bank of rushes
from which the tiger had sprung. His brother had then run back to
the village to spread the news, and on to the forest Bungalow
where I was sleeping.

Reaching the actual spot from which the man had been taken,
we followed into the rushes, where the slightly bent reeds
indicated the direction from which the tiger had approached,
while a much more evident path showed how he had left, carrying
his victim in his mouth. The victim’s turban lay among the reeds,
after traversing which we reached the dry bed of the river. The
man had possibly been struggling, or his screams may have
annoyed the tiger, for he had here released his hold of the man’s
shoulder and probably grasped his throat. From this place a fresh
blood-trail became evident, as well as a drag-mark, where the
man’s legs had trailed along the ground as the tiger hastened with
its victim across the exposed sands that formed the bed of the
river, into the jungle that clothed the further bank.

Cautiously advancing, we traversed the dense shrubbery that

immediately bordered the river on its further bank and came out
on to a grassy glade. The tiger with its burden, in crossing the
glade, had bent the heads of spear-grass and they had not yet had
time to recover. Following along land that sloped slightly
upwards, I crested a long hillock, beyond which the ground
dropped sharply into a small stream as it wended its way to join
the Kalyani further down. I felt that the tiger would decide to
begin his gruesome meal in the hidden recesses of that stream, and
at the moment was in all probability engaged on this task.

To follow the trail directly into the stream would be useless, as,
no matter how cautiously I might move, I was bound to make
some slight sound among the thorns that would put the tiger on
the alert and acquaint him with the fact that he was being
pursued. A man-eater in such circumstances is an extremely
dangerous animal to deal with, and I knew that he had all the
advantages of cover and concealment in his favour. He might
decide to abandon his human victim and bolt, or even carry it
with him; he might decide to remain by his kill and fight it out;
most dangerous of all, he might decide to ambush me in the thick
undergrowth, by launching a rear or flank attack. Very quickly
reviewing the situation, I therefore decided to cut across to my
right in a diagonal fashion, enter the stream about a quarter of a
mile down its course, and then work upwards along the soft sand
which at least would emit no sound if I covered it on tiptoe. By
this means I hoped to surprise the tiger on its kill.

Retreating accordingly across the small hillock I had just

crested, I bent double on its further side, where I knew I would be
lost to view from the nala-bed, and in this position I shuffled
forward as rapidly as possible for a furlong or so. Then again
cresting the ridge, I noted the direction of the stream by the
undergrowth along its banks, and descended in a half-right
declination to meet it a furlong further down. Eventually reaching
the sandy bed, I halted for a minute to regain my breath, after
moving in the doubled position I had been doing, and then, with
rifle cocked and held to my shoulder, I began to tiptoe up the soft
sand, keeping as much as possible to the centre of the stream-bed
and avoiding the thickets and bushes that clothed its banks.

I will always remember that nightmare walk. The stream

narrowed in places to ten yards; at its widest point it was never
more than thirty. I tiptoed forward slowly, every sense alert,
scanning every bush and shrub on both banks, looking below them
and around them, and as far as I could see. Periodically, I stopped
to listen intently, but no sound disturbed the abysmal silence, like
that of the land of the dead. How I longed for the slightest living
sound, the chirp of an insect, or the call of a bird! Nothing but
total silence enveloped me, broken only by the very faint, grating
sounds of my own footsteps as I cautiously tiptoed forward along
the sand.

I might have progressed about half a furlong in this way when

the stream took a slight turn to the left. Before reaching this point
I halted in my tracks to listen, and it is well that I did so, for next
instant, soundlessly and unheralded, appeared the tiger, carrying
its human victim by the back, just 25 yards away.

The surprise was mutual. Evidently the tiger had heard or

sensed he was being followed, and without getting down properly
to his meal had decided to convey it to some remoter spot
downstream. On my part, although I had moved so cautiously at
every step, I had not actually anticipated meeting the tiger just
yet.

Inaction for both of us was only momentary, however. Dropping

its prey, the tiger sank its head between its forelegs, its hindlegs
gathering beneath it, with tail erect, tensed for the spring. At the
same time the rifle spoke, the bullet striking the animal, as I later
discovered, just a half inch below the centre of a straight line
between the eyes. But this slight inaccuracy was sufficient to have
missed the vital brain-shot that would have dropped it instantly in
its tracks, and with a gurgling roar it rushed forward, lurching
over its victim and stumbling onward in its stunned efforts to
reach me. Leaping to one side I fired round after round into the
striped form, till I stood with empty magazine before the
twitching monster at my feet, from whose smashed and mangled
skull the blood literally spurted in a heavy red stream.
 Next instant I felt faint and sick from reaction, I reached the
bank, where for a moment I almost passed out. But a strong
constitution came to my rescue and I was able to return to the
men whom I had left on the main stream of the Kalyani; they had
heard my five shots, which told them that now indeed the man-
eater was dead.

You may be interested to know that, although we examined

that tiger closely, both before and after skinning, and actually
held a post-mortem on the carcase, absolutely no trace could we
find of any physical or functional disorder or derangement that
might have caused it to become a man-eater. Here indeed was a
finely proportioned adult animal, able, from all the evidence that
could be gathered by external examination, to hunt its natural
food, the game of the forest, or even an adopted diet in the form of
cattle from the village. But it had deliberately repudiated both
these forms of food to follow a perverse taste for human flesh,
which had eventually resulted in encompassing its end, and
incidentally, very nearly mine. Where it had originally come from
nobody knew, but all were glad that it had now gone to the
jungles from which there was no return.
 4

The Hosdurga-Holalkere Man-Eater

OLALKERE is the second-largest town in the District of

H Chitaldroog, which itself is the northernmost district of the
native State of Mysore and borders on the neighbouring division of
Bellary in the Province of Madras towards the north-east, and on
the Province of Bombay to the north-west. It has long been the
centre of sporadic instances of man-eating by tigers, and there is
good evidence to believe that the locality is the habitat of tigers
which have inherited a taste for human flesh.

About ten years ago several instances of human kills were

reported in this area, which was thrown open, by advertisement in
the Mysore Gazette, to the free shooting of tigers without the
requirement of a big-game licence.

At that time there was a very sporting couple in Bangalore,

Angus Mactavish and his wife, who were keen on killing a tiger,
particularly a man-eater, and suggested to me that we make a
party of three and spend some four weeks in the attempt.

Accordingly we motored in Mactavish’s car from Bangalore to

Chitaldroog, the capital town of the district of the same name,
where we called on the district forest officer to obtain all possible
information about the most recent kills and where they had taken
place.
 Sketch map of localities referred to in the story of the Hosdurga-
Holalkere man-eater.

This officer was most cooperative and informed us that the

existing man-eater’s beat extended from the very outskirts of
Chitaldroog town itself to the town of Holalkere, which lay some
ten miles away in a south-westerly direction, and thence
southward nine miles to the small village of Hosdurga, where the
two recent human victims had been taken.

From Hosdurga the line of the tiger’s activities was reported to

proceed eastwards to the borders of the huge reservoir of
Marikanave or Vani Vilas, as it is sometimes known, five miles
away, an enormous lake inhabited by huge fish and crocodile; all
along the shores of this lake, and back northwards in a rough line
to Chitaldroog town itself. Indeed, he assured us, the man-eater
had been reported among the ruins of an old fort which crested a
small hill named Yogi Mutt, rising abruptly to the south of the
town.
 I knew that the environs of this old fort had long been
frequented by stray bears and panthers, with an occasional tiger,
but after further consultation it was decided to move on to
Holalkere and Hosdurga, where we would establish our centre of
operations, as circumstances warranted, after hearing local
reports.

Leaving early next morning, we reached Holalkere within an

hour, where the usual condition of nervous excitement and fear
that accompanies the proximity of a maneater always prevail. We
were told all sorts of stories, some of them completely
contradictory, and from this mass of statements were able to
gather only that the man-eater was a very astute animal,
wandered everywhere and had the knack of appearing
unexpectedly at most unlikely places. A prevailing rumour was
that it very often frequented a vast plantation of date palms,
interspersed with a dense undergrowth of lantana that bordered
both sides of the road leading from Holalkere to Hosdurga. This
plantation commenced just beyond the outskirts of Holalkere
itself. We were told that its pug-marks could be seen almost daily
on the road, and were advised to motor up and down the nine
miles that connected the two places all night, when we would
surely meet the man-eater, sooner or later, particularly when
passing the palm-grove.

Accordingly we set out at 7 p.m. that night, and had left

Holalkere a mile behind when the tall, spreading leaves of the
palm-trees came into view, the close array of their spiky trunks
being entirely hidden from view at the base by a dense and
continuous stretch of lantana undergrowth. From this point we
motored onwards at a snail’s pace, flashing the spotlight in all
directions, while the gleaming headlights pierced the road before
us. Proceeding in this fashion for a half-mile, we came upon what
looked like a very black, hairy man who had climbed a palm-tree
some 15 feet high to the right of us, and was busy gulping down
bunches of the small, yellow half-ripe palm dates that hung in
clusters from among the spiky fronds.

We approached closer and stopped the car, when this strange

man began to climb down. Descending half-way, however, he
stopped and looked around at us, and my companions were
surprised to discover that their ‘strange man’ was a sloth-bear,
disturbed at a feast of dates. I had known from the onset that it
was a bear, but had wanted my companions to learn for
themselves. With her .3005 Spring field rifle, Mrs Mactavish
brought off a good shot from the car, dropping the creature to the
ground with a resounding thud.

We then motored on to Hosdurga without seeing a thing,

returned to Holalkere, and twice more backwards and forwards in
each direction, seeing nothing beyond a hyaena near the carcase
of the bear on our final return journey. Fearing, therefore, that if
we left the carcase there any longer it would be destroyed, by
herculean effort the three of us managed to hoist the heavy body
on to the space between the engine and the front mud-guard of
Mac’s car. Although long, the hair of a bear is slippery, and it was
most difficult to keep a firm hold of any part of the animal, which
began to slip out of one’s fingers as soon as its weight was lifted.

Next morning we had tea at the Travellers’ Bungalow at

Holalkere, together with steaming porridge and bacon and eggs,
which Mrs Mactavish prepared in excellent fashion. Then after
skinning the bear we decided to move on to Hosdurga to obtain
first-hand information about the two latest human kills.

Traversing the date-palm plantation in daylight enabled us to

realise fully the denseness of the surrounding, all-enveloping
lantana, which it was impossible to fathom the night before, and
of what little hope there was to see or shoot a tiger in such a place.
 At Hosdurga, we were told the story of the two earlier tragedies.
The first had happened some three weeks before. A girl aged
eleven years, and incidentally a distant relation of the amildar of
the taluk, was living with her parents in a house on the outskirts
of the village. At 8 p.m. she had gone outside, probably to answer
a call of nature, and had never been seen again, nor had any cry or
sound, explaining her fate, been heard. Anxious about her failure
to return, her parents followed with a lantern, but nothing was
seen of her, nor were any marks evident on the hard ground.
Becoming increasingly alarmed, they aroused the village, and in
about two hours a party of some fifty persons, armed with
lanterns, staves, hatchets and two muzzle-loading guns, went
forth to search for the girl. Nothing could they find, however, in
the darkness that night. Next day further efforts were made, and a
few fragments of tattered underwear were found entangled among
thorns a half-mile away. Nothing was ever found of the remains of
that little girl.

The second kill had occurred twelve days ago, in the following
fashion. The reservoir of Marikanave lay some five miles away to
the east. About halfway to its shore, and The Hosdurga Holalkere
Man-eater 85 crossing the track that led there, was a tiny brook
that formed, close to the track-side, a small but fairly deep pool.
This pool was used by two brothers of the village, who were
professional ‘dhobies’ or washermen, as a convenient place in
which to wash clothes. They possessed three donkeys, which were
used for conveying the washing to and from the pool. That
evening they had finished their task at about 5 p.m., loaded the
donkeys and were returning homewards. These animals, being
their only stock-in trade, so to say, were taken particular care of,
one brother walking in advance followed by the three donkeys in
line, and the other brother bringing up the rear. They were a mile
from Hosdurga when a tiger leapt from concealment, seized the
leading man and disappeared with him before he could utter a
sound. His brother in the rear, seeing what had happened, lost his
head and bolted back towards the pool which they had just left.
 When 8 p.m. came and neither the donkeys nor the brothers had
turned up at Hosdurga, the two wives became alarmed and spread
agitation throughout the village. By 10 p.m. a second search-party
of some three-score men, armed with lanterns, staves and, of
course, the two muzzle-loading guns, set forth in search.

In due course they came upon one of the three missing donkeys,
complacently sitting in the middle of the track, the bundle of
washing still tied to its back. Farther on, a furlong short of the
pool, they came upon the man who had turned tail and fled. He
had fainted with terror at finding himself alone in the jungle after
seeing what had happened to his brother, and was in a state of
collapse. He frothed at the mouth and his eyes were turned
upwards. It was nearly an hour before he was in a condition to
whisper hoarsely the terrifying news. Together with him the party
then returned to the spot where the attack had taken place, when
a half-hearted attempt was made to search for the missing man.
Naturally it proved unsuccessful and it was decided to return next
day.

Accordingly daylight found the party back again, when

extensive search revealed bits of tattered clothing, a blood-trail,
and finally the remains of the unfortunate man, which had been
three-quarters eaten during the night. All that was left was his
head, two arms, one whole leg and just the remaining foot, which
were duly gathered together and brought back to Hosdurga for
cremation. Contentedly grazing a furlong from the track were the
two remaining pack-donkeys.

An additional piece of news was now offered, in that four days

ago a bullock-cart, with a double-yoke of oxen, proceeding to
Holalkere, had been attacked by a tiger three miles from Hosdurga
at about 3 p.m. In this instance the driver had jumped out of the
cart and escaped, returning by a circuitous route through the
forest to the village. A party had gone out next morning to find
the cart, with one bull still yoked to it, standing by the roadside.
Hardly 50 yards away lay what was left of the other bull, which
the tiger had killed, wrenched free of the yoke, carried this
distance and then eaten in full view of its unfortunate
companion.

Along with all this news we were also told that a rival party of
two huntsmen were in occupation of the small one-room
Travellers Bungalow of which the village of Hosdurga boasted,
having arrived by car some five days earlier.

This indeed cramped our style, as it would not be cricket to

commence attempts at shooting the man-eater when the other
sportsmen had preceded us. Further, in keeping with the good old
adage of ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’, too many huntsmen
generally achieve nothing beyond frightening off their quarry,
that is, if they do not in the meantime accidentally shoot each
other.

It was nearing ten o’clock by the time we had gathered all this
information, and we were just debating the advisability of
returning to Holalkere, when the two sportsmen in question
turned up. They were both youngsters, and although
inexperienced, were exceedingly keen on the game. Introducing
themselves, they repeated all the news we had already heard, and
added that they had tied out a buffalo bait for the last two nights
in the vicinity of where the washerman had been eaten. Nothing
had happened during the first night and their party of coolies had
gone out that morning to ascertain how the bait had fared the
previous night.

We wished these gentlemen the best of luck, and told them we

would return to Holalkere so as not to be in their way. They would
not hear of the idea, however, considered our action to be a
personal affront and begged us to join them in the bungalow till
the next morning, when, they stated, they were due to return to
Bellary, where they had come from.
 In the midst of all this friendly talk, their party of coolies
arrived to announce that the bait had been killed and half-eaten
the night before. Those two boys were the acme of hospitality and
offered us the chance of sitting over their bait. Needless to say, of
course, we would not consent to this.

After a combined lunch, we set out with them to see the kill and
render any possible assistance. We found the boys had chosen
rather unwisely in tying their bait in a region scattered with
boulders. Moreover, they had not secured the animal properly,
with the result that the tiger had broken the tethering rope and
dragged its victim partly behind a rock, and completely out of
view of the tree in which they had intended to construct their
machan.

To the spot where the kill had been dragged were two possible
lines of approach by the man-eater, if in fact it was a man-eater
that had killed the bait; the first being from the direction of the
track where the ‘dhoby’ had been killed, and the other from a
hillock lying a quarter-mile away, approximately south-east of
the kill. Two separate boulders, among the many that lay around,
were so positioned as to command each a view of these possible
lines of approach, as well as of the kill and of each other.

The two sportsmen therefore elected to sit, one behind each of

these boulders. I ventured to suggest that, as the adversary they
were dealing with might also turn out to be the man-eater, it
would be safer if they sat on top of the boulders behind a
concealing wall of thorns. They did not agree to this, however,
and decided to sit on the ground with their backs to the boulders.

Roughly sheltering them behind a few cut thorny bushes, we

left these doughty lads by 4 p.m. to return to the bungalow. I was
anxious about their welfare and would have liked to linger within
calling-distance, to render help if necessary, but finally decided
that my presence might frighten the tiger off, and my motive be
misunderstood. Little did we know that afternoon, that our hearty
good wishes for a lucky night were the last words that any of our
party would utter to one of those fine boys.

We spent the evening in the bungalow, drinking tea, smoking

and chatting, while interviewing as many villagers as possible to
gain additional information. A strong wind was blowing from the
south-west, so that it would be impossible to hear any rifle shot
fired by the two lads, who were over a mile away. We had an early
dinner, and Mactavish and his wife then turned in. I decided,
however, to sit on the verandah and listen to any jungle sounds I
might possibly hear.

It was nearing 11 o’clock, the village had been silent for the past
hour and I was thinking of going to bed, when I heard a peculiar
noise, which I soon recognised as running, stumbling footsteps in
the distance. Realising that my intuitive fear of impending
trouble, experienced so strongly earlier that evening, had not
misled me, I hastily grabbed my rifle and torch and ran out to
meet the runner.

It turned out to be Ince, the elder of the two sportsmen. His

clothes were tattered, he was lathered in sweat and staggered like
a drunken man, looking behind him continually as he stumbled
forward. Supporting him by the shoulder, I asked what had
become of his companion. The poor boy was so exhausted that he
could hardly speak, but he finally gasped out the awful words,
Tiger—got him—carried him off, ooh! ooh! and began to weep on
my shoulder like a child.

I hurried him to the bungalow, where I awoke Mactavish and

his wife. We gave Ince a stiff dose of brandy, laid him down and
covered him with two blankets, for he was now shaking like an
aspen with the reaction that had set in. Then, with Mrs Mactavish
chafing his hands, we impatiently waited for his story, and it was
indeed an extraordinary tale.
 He had sat below the rock commanding the approach from the
track, while his companion, Todd, behind the other rock,
commanded the approach from the hillock. Shortly before dark,
Ince thought he had seen a long, red dish object move in the
bushes quite some distance away and beyond Todd, where the
land sloped gently down from the hillock. Of course he had no
means of apprising Todd of what he had seen, and knew that the
latter did not know about it, as that area was hidden from his
view by the very boulder below which he—Todd—was sitting.
Ince had continued to watch the bushes, but had seen nothing
thereafter.

Then darkness fell, and the hours passed wearily by until about
10 p.m. The kill was not visible in the shadows, although the stars
shed a faint light that enabled Ince to see in his immediate
vicinity. Suddenly Ince heard a faint thud, a slight dragging noise,
and then the unmistakable sound of crunching bones. Guessing
that the tiger had returned and was eating its kill, Ince waited
awhile to give his companion a chance to take the shot, knowing,
as he did, that the kill was equidistant, if not a little nearer to
Todd, who must also be hearing the sound of the tiger feeding.

Nothing happened, however, and nobody will know why Todd

remained inactive.

Then the thought came to Ince that perhaps his companion had
fallen asleep, and with that he decided to take the shot himself.
Aligning his rifle in the direction of the kill he pressed the button
of his rifle-torch, the bright beam immediately revealing a huge
tiger devouring the remains of the buffalo.

At the same time there was a piercing scream from Todd, a

horrible growl from that direction, a slight scuffling noise, another
half-muffled cry, and then silence. In the meantime Ince had
shifted the beam of his rifle-torch from the tiger and his kill to the
rock, at the base of which Todd had been sitting earlier that
evening. The last glimpse he had of the former was as it bounded
away from the remains of the buffalo into the concealing shrubs.

Of Todd he could see no sign. Calling to his friend repeatedly,

Ince rushed blindly to the spot where he had been sitting. Todd’s
rifle, water-bottle and half-empty packet of sandwiches lay on the
ground, but he was nowhere to be seen. Becoming hysterical with
the realisation that his friend had been taken by the man-eater,
Ince floundered about and attempted to search the jungle for him,
only to lose his own way. Demented with grief and growing more
desperate each minute, he rushed aimlessly about when, by sheer
good luck, he succeeded in stumbling on the track leading to
Hosdurga, up which he had run top speed.

It was now clear from Ince’s story that we had two tigers to deal
with: one an avowed cattle-lifter and the other an even more
determined man-eater. They were probably a pair, male and
female, although this was not necessarily so. Never in my life had
I met such an unusual combination. The possibility that they were
two grown cubs from the same litter, one of which had acquired
man-eating tendencies, appeared to be ruled out by Ince’s
description of the cattle-lifter as a ‘huge tiger’ and by no means
half-grown. The man-eater nobody had seen.

Within fifteen minutes we aroused the village, and assembled

some twenty rather reluctant helpers, although the owners of the
two muzzle-loaders were again to the fore, with lanterns, sticks,
staves and matchets. Mrs Mactavish insisted on coming too, and
so did Ince, although he was almost spent. The search-party,
together with Mactavish and myself, were soon at the rock from
which Todd had been taken.

Casting around, it was not long before we found an odd rubber-

soled shoe that had fallen from his left foot. From the place where
we found it we judged the tiger was making with its burden
towards the little hillock from which it had apparently come.
Pressing forward with all possible speed, we eventually reached a
spot where the animal had first laid its victim down. From then,
probably alarmed by the noise created by Ince in his shouting and
floundering, it had moved on. As usual, a blood trail now
commenced, which led us to the base of the hillock, which it
followed towards the right-hand side.

Led by Mactavish and myself, and keeping close together for fear
of unexpected attack, we persevered in our search, but it was 3.30
that morning before we came upon what remained of poor Fred
Todd. The tiger had eaten quite half of him, and it was a ghastly
sight. A severe reaction now overtook Ince, who began to retch,
wept and finally collapsed. It was past 6 a.m. that terrible day
before we managed to get the remains to Hosdurga, together with
a now totally incapable Ince.

We put what was left of Fred Todd into Mactavish’s car, while I
drove Ince in what had been his poor friend’s motor, and we
reached Chitaldroog by 9 o’clock. Here Ince was taken into the
Local Fund Hospital, and we spent the major part of the day on
the tedious official inquiries that follow an incident of this kind,
so that it was almost sunset before we returned to Hosdurga, and a
very empty, silent Travellers’ Bungalow. We fell asleep that night,
sad and disheartened, but grimly determined on revenge. Mrs
Mactavish, in particular, had endured the nervous strain of the
past twenty hours in heroic fashion, and was of untold assistance
throughout the whole time.

Early next morning found us back at the scene of the tragedy,

where we spent the next three or four hours in piecing together
the evidence. The ground was hard, as no rain had fallen for
several weeks, and it was impossible to find an imprint of the
man-eater to enable us to determine its size and sex. Ince’s
description of the cattle-killer led us to think it was a male. The
man-eater was therefore, in all probability, a female, although, as
I have said earlier, this was not necessarily so.
 Finding nothing in the vicinity, we followed the trail once more
to the spot where we had found Todd’s body, but nowhere could
we see a solitary pug-mark of the killer. We even attempted to look
further, but the hard ground hid its secret well, and in spite of all
our efforts, the maneater’s size and sex remained a secret.

During our absence at Chitaldroog, the vultures had completely

demolished what had remained of the buffalo kill. We now had to
make a fresh start in our operations.

After due consultation it was decided to secure a fresh buffalo

bait close to the original track where the washerman had been
killed. Mactavish could sit over it, while I determined to lie prone
on top of one of the boulders close to where Todd had been taken.
Our plan was roughly this. Should the two tigers move in
company, the cattle-lifter would kill the bait, when, in all
probability, although a man-eater, the other tiger would not be
able to resist the temptation of a feast, and would also join in.
That would provide Mac with a shot. On the other hand, even if it
did not join in, the man-eater would probably be in the vicinity;
and as the rock on which I was going to lie was in a direct line
with the hillock, and along the direction of his approach the
previous day, I hoped to be able to hear and see him if he should
pass near me.

As there were no trees along the track where Mac was to sit up,
we solved the problem of protection by scooping a shallow hole in
the earth, over which we decided to place an inverted ‘Sugar-cane
pan’. These pans resemble huge saucers, and are some six to eight
feet in diameter, eighteen inches deep, and beaten from sheet iron
about one-eighth of an inch thick. They are used throughout India
as containers in which to melt the juice from the sticks of cane-
sugar, previously gathered by means of crushing through a press.
This juice is boiled in the pan and becomes a goldenbrown liquid,
which is then allowed to cool and solidify, before being cut into
four-inch squares to form what is known as ‘jaggery’ or brown
sugar. Jaggery is the only form of sugar used in Southern Indian
villages, white sugar being unknown, and practically every village
in any fertile area possesses its own cane-sugar plantations, with
accompanying ‘Sugar-cane pans’. We had already seen a few of
them in Hosdurga.

It was not long before we were back from the village with one of
these pans, carried by half-a-dozen men, a length of camouflaged
tarpaulin which Mac had brought in his car, and the other
necessities for a night sit-up. This pan we inverted over the
shallow hole we had dug and was raised from the ground at four
points by rocks, so as to provide a six-inch gap for vision and
ventilation, and a space through which to shoot. Over the pan we
spread the camouflaged tarpaulin, covering this again with a
sprinkling of sand dug from the shallow hole, and with a few
thorns, cut-bushes, leaves, etc., to give it a realistic appearance.
We made a good job of the whole effort, so that the pan looked no
more, from a fair distance, than a small hump in the ground.

A further complication now arose as Mac was about to get in,

when his wife insisted on sitting with him. We both did our best to
dissuade her, but she was adamant, with the result that finally the
men and I raised the pan at one end, allowed the Mactavishes to
creep in, and then rearranged the whole affair. Actually, I felt it
was quite safe inside, the inverted pan providing a sort of
armoured turret. The bait was then tied, and before going off to
the rock on which I was to lie, it was agreed that, in case of need,
we were to signal each other by three sharp whistles.

I ascended my rock by 5 p.m., settled myself comfortably, and

lay prone to await events. I recollect that the stone was
uncomfortably hot after having been exposed to direct sunlight
throughout the day.

There was no sound as the hours dragged by and the forest

seemed empty of any form of life. Even the familiar nightjar,
welcome at the moment, was absent. The silence was deep and
complete, and the stars twinkled down on me in eerie stillness. I
fell to thinking of poor Fred Todd, and of what had happened to
him.

Midnight passed, when suddenly I heard a clear whistle, twice

repeated. It was the agreed signal from Mac, and wondering what
had happened to ail him, I slid down from the rock, switched on
the torch, and cautiously approached the place where he and his
wife were stationed. I came upon them standing beside the buffalo
bait, which was alive and untouched. To one side lay the pan that
they had overturned in getting out, and this is what they told me.

They had seen and heard nothing till about midnight, when Mrs
Mac, sitting directly behind her husband who was facing the
buffalo, thought she heard a faint sigh or moan behind her.
Glancing around slowly, and endeavouring to look through the
space between the pan and the ground, she had at first noticed
nothing. Then she observed what appeared to be a boulder, as big
as a bathtub, just six feet away. Remembering that there had been
no boulder there earlier in the evening, she had brought her head
closer to the opening, and was horrified to see a tiger, lying on the
ground on its belly, its forelegs stretched out in front, intently
meeting her gaze. Stifling the gasp of surprised horror that almost
escaped her, she endeavoured, by vigorous nudging, to attract her
husband’s attention. From his position Mac had seen nothing, and
it was almost impossible for him to turn around, for the hole, that
had originally been dug for one person, was too small to allow for
the movement of two.

Sensing by her continued nudges that something unusual was

afoot, Mac had then made a determined effort to turn himself,
with the result that the muzzle of his extended rifle contacted the
edge of the pan with a slight metallic clang. There was a loud
‘Woof ’ and a thud, as the tiger jumped lightly over the
contraption. Knowing that they had been discovered and that no
purpose was likely to be served by remaining any longer, they then
summoned me by the agreed signal.

To remain longer was useless, so we decided to return to the

bungalow at Hosdurga, leaving the bait where it was for the night,
pending a decision on some other plan.

Early next morning I despatched a party of men to bring in the

bait. They returned with the astounding news that the animal had
been killed and entirely devoured. Hastening to the spot, we found
their story true. Practically nothing remained of our bait but its
head and hooves. Close examination of the ground revealed that
two tigers had partaken of the meal, in close proximity, moreover,
to the overturned sugar-cane pan and tarpaulin sheet, lying in a
heap nearby, both of which had failed to frighten the beasts away.

The deduction to be drawn from this latest development was,

therefore, that our man-eater was also a cattle-eater when
opportunity offered. Alternatively, there was the possibility that
three tigers were operating in the vicinity; a man-eater, and two
cattle-killers.

For the following night we decided to work to the same plan,

tying a fresh bait a quarter-mile further along the same track, and
to plant the sugar-cane pan beside it as before, this time making
the shallow hole large enough to accommodate both Mac and
myself. Mrs Mac very reluctantly consented to remain in the
bungalow. The camouflaged tarpaulin was spread over the pan,
under a layer of loose sand and rubble, with grass, thorns and
small cut bushes, to give the whole a very realistic appearance of
a small rise in the ground. Mac and I sat back to back, rifles ready,
with Mac facing the bait. On this occasion we also provided for a
slightly greater apperture to allow more shooting space, by using
larger stones at the four opposite ends of the pan.
 Mac and I sat thus throughout three nights in succession, but we
saw and heard nothing. But about 10 o’clock on the fourth
morning, while we were having a nap in the bungalow, news
arrived that a man had been killed a mile from Holalkere, in the
same date-palm grove where we had shot the bear some days
earlier, and almost at the same spot.

Hastening there by car, we were both disgusted and annoyed to

find that the relations of the latest victim had in the meantime
removed his body for cremation, so that we lost the chance of
sitting-up over this human kill, to which the tiger might possibly
have returned.

We then procured another buffalo bait at Holalkere, and tied it

within fifty yards of the place where the man had been killed. A
convenient tree overlooked the road at this spot, and on this tree I
erected a machan. As Mac was feeling a bit seedy, and was tired
after his vigil of four consecutive nights, he decided to rest on that
occasion and I sat up alone.

Again nothing happened, and 6 a.m. found me trudging the mile

towards Holalkere with mixed feelings of tiredness,
disappointment and disgust. Arriving there, I sent men out to
bring back the bait. They came running back in half-an-hour with
the news that, as they were about to untie the animal, a tiger had
growled in the jungle within a few yards of them. They had then
rushed pell-mell back to Holalkere, leaving the buffalo where it
was.

Jumping into the car, we hastened to the spot and were truly
surprised to find our bait still alive. This was very unexpected, as
we were certain that the tiger, or tigers, would have killed the
buffalo as soon as the fleeing men were out of sight. Taking a
chance, I went up into the machan at once, instructing Mac to
return to Holalkere. There was just a possibility, I felt, that the
tiger might turn up.
 Nothing happened, and as at 1 p.m. I was feeling both hungry
and sleepy, I then got down, untied the bait, and walked along
with it to Holalkere.

That night, we retied the bait at the same spot, and I sat up once
again. Mac and his wife went to Hosdurga in the car, and sat up
together under the sugar-cane pan, beside the bait we had left
there, in the spot where he and I had sat for three consecutive
nights.

Again nothing happened, and by 6.30 a.m. they came along in

the car from Hosdurga, picked me up, and proceeded to the
bungalow at Holalkere, where we all went to sleep after lunch.

At 4 p.m. we were awakened by a great hubbub. Restoring some

order in the throng that had collected in the verandah, we came
to learn that a company of a dozen men had left Holalkere before
noon to drive a herd of cattle to Chitaldroog for market, intending
to cover the intervening distance long before sunset. About three
miles from Holalkere one of the cattle had strayed from the main
road for a short distance of perhaps twenty-five yards. A man who
had gone to drive it back was attacked by a tiger that had
evidently been flanking the party, and was in hiding in the very
bushes that bordered the roadside. Being cut off from retreat to his
friends on the road, he had rushed up a rock that happened to be
nearby. The whole scene had occurred in full view of the party, all
of whom stood huddled together in a bunch and failed to render
help of any sort, so stricken were they with fear.

The tiger had then sprung up the rock and fastened the claws of
a forepaw in the man’s thigh, attempting to pull him down. The
man, continuing to scream for help, had clung with both hands to
the branch of a tree that overhung the rock, to save himself from
being dragged down.
 The first attack failed, and the tiger slipped backwards to earth,
its claws practically peeling the skin from the man’s thigh, till it
hung like the skin of a partially stripped banana.

Becoming infuriated, and no doubt urged on by the sight of

human blood, the tiger then made a second attempt, this time
fastening both its forepaws squarely in the body of the man and
dragging him from his feeble hold. Once it got him down from the
rock it had seized him by the neck and bounded off into the forest.

It was a matter of minutes to reach the spot by car. Evidence of

the fresh tragedy was available in abundance, the bits of human
skin and finger nails embedded in the broken branch testifying to
the intensity of that last desperate hold. Spattered blood could be
seen everywhere, and there was a distinct trail where the victim
had been carried away.

We followed this up in all haste, the trail leading downwards to

a valley of dense jungle. It was past 5 p.m. and we had exactly an
hour to find the body before dark. Soon we discovered the usual
pieces of tattered clothing, then a dark pool of blood where the
tiger had deposited his victim, only to go on downwards into the
dark valley.

Perhaps six furlongs had been covered in this way when we

came upon a low outcrop of rock, interspersed with bushes. I was
surprised to find that the tiger had not yet stopped to begin its
meal, as this was a quiet and secluded spot; but hardly had the
thought entered my mind, when a distinct growl came from
behind a large rock, followed by the sound of a small stone being
dislodged, as the tiger bounded away before we could even see it.
Rounding the bend, we encountered the corpse, weltering in its
own blood, and about one-third devoured.

Time was passing, there was no suitable tree nearby, and the
only possible place to sit was on top of the largest of the
neighbouring rocks, which was about twelve feet high. This rock
rose steeply on three sides and was fairly safe against a tiger’s
spring, but unfortunately it sloped on the fourth side, and still
more unfortunate was the fact that this sloping side did not face
the dead man but was a little more than a right angle from the
body’s position. This meant that if I lay on top of the rock I would
have to keep a careful watch in two directions, namely, on the
corpse below me to the left, and on the sloping side of rock to my
right, for fear that the tiger might make a sudden rush up this side
and be on to me before I was aware of it. As I have said, I
considered my rear, which faced one of the sides where the rock
dropped steeply, fairly safe against a sudden spring, to do which
the tiger would have to leap a clean twelve feet to the top of the
rock. If he did not clear that height in one jump, he would have no
hold at all and would slip backwards, which would give me ample
time to shoot. No tiger, in my opinion, would risk such an
uncertain jump.

Screening the top of the rock on the sloping side with a few
small stones and bushes, I scrambled up, after telling the Macs to
spend part of the night in driving up and down between Holalkere
and Hosdurga in the hope of meeting the tiger on the road, in case
it had abandoned the kill.

With the departure of my friends and the villagers, I was now

alone with the mangled remains that were strewn on the ground
below me. The hours passed, while I kept an intent watch on the
sloping rock to my right. The jungle beyond was hidden in
darkness, and appeared just a blur in the hazy background,
against which it was impossible to distinguish any animal smaller
than an elephant. In the gloom the corpse to my left could no
longer be seen.

At about ten o’clock a sambar belled in the distant forest a mile

away. This was followed by a tiger calling, which was answered
shortly by another tiger in the direction of the road from which we
had come.

The complexity of the situation was now fully apparent, as I

thought the matter over during those silent hours. We had at least
two tigers operating in the area, possibly three. Of these, one was
a man-killer, daring, cruel and ruthless. The other was a cattle
lifter, equally daring and cunning by nature. But this did not
necessarily mean that either of the tigers refrained from indulging
in both habits, when occasion presented. Again there was the
possibility of a third tiger operating in the district, which might
itself be a man-eater, or a cattle-lifter, or both. So far, due to the
dry weather and hard ground, we had been prevented from picking
up any distinguishing pug-marks to be able to identify these
various animals.

The tigers had ceased calling by now, and all was silent again in
the surrounding forest except for the chirping of the tree crickets,
the occasional hoot of an owl, and the periodic sound of a gust of
wind bending the tops of the giant trees, a sound like the roar of a
distant sea.

Then suddenly, and without warning or premonition, it

happened! There was a thud against the rock behind me, a violent
scratching and scraping against the stone, mingled with a snarling
growl, and then another thud as the tiger fell backwards to the
ground. Before I could turn and peer over the edge of the rock, he
was gone. That man-eater had done the unexpected thing! Having
somehow become aware of my presence, he had stalked me from
behind and attempted a sheer leap of twelve feet to the top of the
rock where I was lying. By good fortune he had failed to make it by
a few inches.

I spent the rest of the night sitting up and fully alert, but
nothing occurred. I waited till the sun had risen high next
morning before venturing to scramble down and return to the
road, as I feared the tiger, having discovered my presence, might
be lying in ambush for me, but again my luck held out and I
reached the road in safety, where Mac came for me in the car in a
few minutes, having himself spent a fruitless night in driving up
and down between Holalkere and Hosdurga.

Immediately upon arrival at the bungalow I instructed a party

of men to return to the human remains and cover them with
branches to protect them against vultures, as I intended to sit up
again on the rock that night. These men were just setting out,
however, when the relatives of the dead man arrived from his
village and demanded the remains for cremation. I attempted to
persuade them to allow the body to stay where it was for another
day, they were adamant, and so any opportunity that might have
presented itself of avenging the death of that poor man that night
was lost to us through the obstinacy of his relations.

Two hours later, a party of men arrived from Hosdurga to inform

us that our bait, which had been left tied near the sugar-cane pan
for the past week, had at last been killed.

Evening found Mac and myself sitting under the pan, and about
midnight we heard a tiger moving around in the vicinity, by the
intermittent low grunt it was making every now and then. We
waited anxiously for it to come on to the kill but this it would not
do, and kept circling the area for the best part of three-quarters of
an hour. Quite obviously it had discovered our presence near the
kill. A brave—but foolhardy—idea now entered Mac’s mind,
which was that he should get up and walk away to give the tiger
the impression we had left and that his kill was alone. He hoped it
would then approach and I could deal with it.

The plan was likely to meet with success, as you will remember
that this is exactly what happened on the last occasion we had
left the pan and our bait. At the same time it was a very
dangerous thing for Mac to do, in view of the fact that the tiger
hovering near might be the maneater itself, or might be
accompanied by the man-eater, as on an earlier occasion. It took
me quite thirty minutes to drive the idea from the head of that
stubborn but magnificently brave Scotsman, that to venture out in
the dark jungle with a man-eater about would be to sign his own
death warrant.

In the meantime the tiger continued to prowl around, but went

off in the early hours of the morning, and we returned to the little
bungalow at Hosdurga, after yet another night of disappointment.

Nothing happened the two following days, the nights of which

we spent driving up and down between Hosdurga, Holalkere and
Chitaldroog, flashing the spotlight in the hope of meeting one of
the tigers on the road.

Early on the morning of the third day a party of Lambani

woodcutters reported that they had been camped in the forest four
miles away the previous night, in the protection of a huge
campfire, around which they had drawn their five carts in a rough
circle, and within which they and their five bullocks were
sheltering. At dead of night the fire having burnt low, a tiger had
crept past the carts and attacked one of the bulls. The rest had
stampeded around, awakening the men, who had shouted and
thrown fire brands at the tiger. It had then decamped. The bull
had been bitten through the neck and severely scratched as well,
but it was alive. At dawn they had come on to Hosdurga with four
carts and the injured bullock, abandoning the fifth cart which the
bullock was too badly hurt to haul.

One of these Lambanis, who had been in the area from

childhood and knew the forest like the palm of his hand,
mentioned that six miles away, in the heart of the forest, was a
small stream leading to a clear pool surrounded by sloping rocks,
under giant trees. It was in this locality, he asserted, that the
tigers had their permanent abode. Now that it was summer, they
spent the hours of noonday heat in this cool retreat, and
invariably one or other of them would drink at this pool in the
evening before setting out on its hunt for prey, or in the early
hours of the morning, after returning from the hunt.

This man evidently knew what he was talking about, for

intimate speech with him revealed that he was a poacher and a
bootlegger to wit, who made quite a lot of money by illicitly
distilling in the fastnesses of the forest a very potent liquor called
‘arrack’ from the bark of the babul tree. Evidently few knew of
this place, and those who did dared not venture there, for fear of
the tigers. The upshot of the conversation was that it was agreed
Mac and I would leave with him after lunch that day to spend the
evening, night and following morning at this pool.

3 p.m. found us at the spot, and a more likely tiger-haunt I have

seldom seen. The pool was a small one, entirely surrounded by
sloping rock, but the banks of the tiny stream that fed it amply
revealed the presence of tiger, by repeated tracks that led down to
and crossed it. A rough survey of these tracks indicated the pug-
marks of two separate animals, a large male and an adult female.
From the repeated reports of its large size, the former was in all
probability the cattle-lifter, leaving now definite cause for
suspicion that his companion, the female, might be the man-eater
unless, of course, there was a third tiger in the party.

A wild mango tree overhung the pool at almost the spot where
the stream ran in, and on the lower branches of this tree, at about
the height of fifteen feet, we put up my portable ‘charpoy’
machan, which we had brought along with us for just such an
occasion, carried by the Lambani. 4.30 p.m. found all three of us
sitting on this machan, it being dangerous to send the Lambani
away by himself, for fear of the man-eater.

On account of the overhanging big trees, it was pitch dark by 7

o’clock, nor did any animals visit the vicinity; no doubt they
avoided it because of the habitual proximity of the Kings of the
Jungle. The hours dragged by in solemn silence, disturbed once or
twice by the distant calls of Sambar and Kakar, or barking-deer.

It must have been past 4 a.m. when we heard a slight sighing,

moaning sound, and then the unmistakably heavy but softly
muffled tread of a tiger on the carpet of fallen bamboo leaves that
covered the sloping bank that faced us. Minutes passed, but we
could see nothing in that stygian darkness. Then we heard the
distant sound of the lapping of water from the edge of the pool
down below in the darkness, and to our right.

The time had come, and as previously agreed, I gently nudged

Mac to take the shot. Pointing his rifle in the direction of the
sound, while I kept ready for a covering shot if necessary, Mac
depressed the torch-switch and the bright beam streamed down
upon the form of an immense tiger crouched over the water’s edge.

The beast looked up, his eyes reflecting the light in two large,
gleaming red-white orbs, and then Mac fired. There was a roar as
the tiger sprang into the air to turn a complete somersault and fall
over backwards, biting the ground and lashing out in a furious
medley of bubbling, snarling growls. Mac followed up with two
more shots before the tiger rolled over, half into the water, to
twitch in the throes of approaching death, then to lie still.

With the dawn we descended, to find that Mac had shot the
male of the party. He was a truly magnificently proportioned tiger
and a wonderful trophy, but we were all disappointed to know
that the man-eater was still at large. Mac’s first shot had struck
the animal at the top of its nose, smashing the upper jaw and
palate, and passing into the throat, which accounted for the
bubbling sound we had heard with its snarls. His second shot had
passed through the right shoulder and into the abdomen. The third
had missed.
 I will pass over the events of the next four days, during which
no reports were received, and the local population began
congratulating us on having slain the man-eater, the opinion of
some being that it was this same tiger that had killed both man
and cattle. But we knew better and lingered on, certain that
sooner or later we would receive news of another human kill,
unless of course the man-eater had left the area after the death of
its companion. The nights of those four days we spent in driving
along the road up to Chitaldroog, and along all passable forest
tracks, in the hope of meeting the man-eater, but without success.

Shortly before noon on the fifth day came the news we had
feared but anticipated, in the form of three runners despatched by
the amildar at Chitaldroog to acquaint us with the fact that, late
the previous evening, a lad aged fourteen years had been carried
away by a tiger from a hamlet at the base of the southern slopes of
the hillock of Togi-mutt, which I have already told you lay to the
south of the town of Chitaldroog itself, and boasted an ancient,
abandoned fort on its summit.

Driving there by car, we visited the hamlet and were shown the
small hut on its outskirts, from the very door of which the lad had
been snatched at sun-down the previous evening. As the country
to the south of the hamlet was practically bare, there was good
reason for believing, along with the inhabitants of the village,
that the tiger had carried its victim up the hill, and was probably
at that moment sheltering in the ruins of the fort.

No organised attempt at searching for the body had been made

and only four hours of daylight remained to us when we assembled
a party of half-a-dozen men and began to climb the hill.

It was soon apparent that the tiger had not carried its victim up
the main footpath leading to the top of the hill, which we more
than half ascended without finding a vestige or trace of the
victim. Climbing neighbouring boulders as we advanced, I
instructed men to look in all directions for anything that became
visible, and when about three-quarters of the way up one of these
men reported vultures sitting in a tree about a quarter-mile to our
left. Scrambling across the intervening rocks and thorny bushes,
we eventually came upon the remains of the boy, completely
devoured, by this time, by the vultures.

There appeared little use or hope in sitting up over the bones,

especially as we knew from experience that the killer seldom
returned to such a meal. Nevertheless, Mac and two men put up
my machan on the tree on which the vultures had been sitting and
decided to remain there, while I felt I had just enough time to
ascend the rest of the hill and look among the ruins.

Regaining the path, I hurried upwards, and reached the ruins

just after 5 p.m. The walls of the fort had long since crumbled into
decay, and a sea of lantana and thorny undergrowth covered the
area as well as the old moat that lay outside. At this point, the
remaining four men in the party elected to remain outside; to
await my return they ascended to the top-most branches of a tall
fig-tree., the gnarled roots of which bit deep into the debris of the
fort’s wall.

Proceeding cautiously, I endeavoured to keep on top of the

fallen wall, as far as it was negotiable, in order to maintain some
elevation above the surrounding lantana, which was both
impassable as well as dangerous to enter, as I would not be able to
see the tiger in that undergrowth even were it but a yard away.

Progress was most difficult and strenuous, and by the time I had
reached the opposite end of the fort, I was breathing heavily from
my exertions and bathed in perspiration. Here I faced the sun as
the golden orb neared the western horizon.

Years ago I had been over the same fort, and I knew that about
this spot were the almost-completely engulfed remains of walled
enclosures, and what had been dungeons in the distant long ago.
Because of these structures the wall at this point became
impossible to follow. I was loath to step down into the lantana,
but it soon became apparent that I would either have to do this
and struggle through a distance of about one hundred yards to
where the wall began again, or retrace my steps. Time was also
against me; so to avoid delay I finally decided to risk the lantana,
which I commenced to push my way through, as silently as I was
able. But this soon turned out to be impossible, for the lantana
twigs, covered with minute thorns, clung to my clothing at each
step and made considerable noise as I broke my way through.

I knew I was now opposite the remains of the dungeons and

enclosures, and that here, if anywhere in this deserted ruin, was
where the tiger would most likely be hiding. At the same time, no
doubt keyed up as I was by the unfavourableness of my position,
my tensed nerves and senses signalled the proximity of danger. A
sixth sense cried out that the tiger was near and on my trail,
watching me for the moment of attack, which would take place
very soon if I did not escape from the lantana. I had felt these
warnings too often to ignore them, so while trebling my vigilance
and looking in all directions, I pressed forward to higher ground.

Thirty yards more—twenty yards more—fifteen yards more—

and then from the lantana to my left rose the snarling head of a
tiger, its ears laid back in preparation for the spring, its jaws wide
open to reveal the gleaming canines. My bullet crashed into the
wide-open mouth, as the animal launched itself forward. Rushing
blindly on to gain higher ground, I all but lost my eyes in the
intervening lantana, the thorns tearing my flesh and clothing,
while pandemonium broke loose behind me.

With the back of its head blown out, that tiger tried to get me,
and when I had covered those remaining fifteen yards and spun
around, it was but two yards away, with a great gaping red hole
where half its skull had once been. Almost beside myself with
terror, I crashed a second, third and fourth bullet into the beast
and as, shattered, it toppled on its side, I sat on a piece of the ruin,
shaken, sick and faint.

Ten minutes later I struggled to my feet, and avoiding the

bloody mass before me, returned to the tree where I had left the
four men, by completing the circuit of the remaining fort wall.

Hearing the four shots and the snarls of the tiger, they had
concluded I had been killed, and were debating whether to come
down from their tree and hasten back to their hamlet, or spend the
rest of the night in its branches. It was quite obvious they had
never expected to see me alive again.

Collecting them, we had hardly covered a furlong when we

were met by Mac and the other two men. From where he was
sitting, he too had heard my four shots and, like the staunch
friend he was, had hurried forward to give any assistance I might
need. As it was, seeing me tattered, scratched and bleeding from
my rush through the lantana, his ruddy face drained to a chalky
white and he ran forward to hold me, thinking I had been mauled.

Squatting there, I told him what had happened, while I puffed

clouds of smoke from my cherished briar and received his warm
congratulations. Indeed, I could not help remarking, as I smoked
that soothing pipeful of tobacco, that I had never expected to
smoke again, when I saw that terrible face, contorted with its lust
to kill, but a few feet away.

Later that night we carried the tiger down, hoisted it on the car
and took it to Chitaldroog town. As we had expected, it proved to
be female and was undoubtedly the man-eater that had killed the
boy. Its aggressiveness towards me also justified this conclusion.
Early next morning, while skinning the animal, we were visited
by the amildar, who wanted to see the devil that had killed his
relative, the little girl at Hosdurga, by the district forest officer
and other officials, and by hundreds of the inhabitants. It was late
that evening before we could leave for Bangalore with the skins of
the two tigers that had formed such an exceptional and unheard-
of combination, as cattle-killer and maneater hunting together.

Incidentally, skinning the tigress revealed no sign of the reason

for her having become a man-eater. As I have already said, this
district had a long history of man-eaters behind it, extending for
generations past, and I am of the opinion that this tigress came of
man-eating stock. Such an explanation would also account for her
mate, the big male that Mac had shot, being a normal cattle-lifter
that had not touched human flesh.

The tigress had probably only met this male during the mating
season that was just over—it lasts from November to January—
and had not been with him long enough to infect him with her
man-eating habits. Had she littered she would have undoubtedly
have taught her cubs the taste for human flesh, just as she herself
had been taught, and so have extended the generations of man-
eaters of that district.

The third tiger, whose existence we had suspected, never

materialised, for before leaving we left word with all the officials,
as well as people, to inform us at once if a third tiger was heard of.
This was because we felt there was always the remote possibility
that the third tiger might also be the man-eater. But months
passed and we received the glad tidings that all reports of man-
eating had ceased throughout the district after the killing of that
tigress on the summit of Togi-mutt’. Fred Todd, and the rest of her
victims, had been avenged.
 5

The Rogue-Elephant of Panapatti

E WAS a small animal, as rogue elephants go, standing about

H seven feet and a half in his socks. This could be gauged by the
tracks of his forefoot, twice the circumference of which gives, to
within a couple of inches, the height of an Indian elephant. But
what he lacked in stature he made up for in courage, cold
calculating cunning, and an implacable hatred of the human race,
whom he had evidently made it his ambition to decimate, as and
when the opportunity presented itself.

He had one tusk, about 18 inches long, while the other had been
broken off short, by (it was said) the big leader of the herd
inhabiting the banks of the Cauvery River and the jungle
fastnesses that comprised the forest block of Wodapatti, in which
was situated the cattle-pen of Panapatti, in the district of Salem.
This youngster, before he became a rogue, had evidently been
ambitious and was more than normally high-spirited, for he had
thrust his unwelcome attentions upon the ladies of the herd under
the very eyes of their lord and master. A warning scream of
resentment and rage from the leader had had no salutary effect,
and the youngster had offered battle when the tusker had
attempted to drive him away.

This had led to a major encounter, in which years, experience

and greater weight had told heavily in favour of the leader. The
youngster had eventually bolted, battered and beaten, with
vicious gashes in his sides, inflicted by the powerful tusks of the
bigger male, while one of his own tusks had been snapped off short
in the fray, no doubt to give him bad toothache for many days to
come.
 He had wandered in this condition, morose and surly, in the
vicinity of the herd, but never daring to enter it, when one day, as
he was walking down a forest cart-track, he had turned a corner to
come suddenly face to face with a buffalo cart, laden with
bamboos that had been felled for the contractor. A blind rage had
seized him at that moment, together with a deep urge to get his
own back on something. Madly he rushed at the cart, and the
driver just escaped by jumping off and fleeing for life. But the
unfortunate buffaloes were yoked to the heavily-laden vehicle and
stood helpless to the onslaught.

The rogue—for rogue he had now become—proceeded to smash

the cart to matchwood, before turning his attentions on the
buffaloes. One he seized by its long, curving horn, and flung
bodily down the embankment that bordered the track, where it
was found next day with its horn torn out from the roots; one of
its forelegs had suffered a compound fracture, and the broken,
exposed bone had dug itself into the soft earth with the force of
the fall, so that the weight of the animal effectively anchored it to
the spot. The remaining buffalo it had gored with its one tusk, but
this animal had bolted down the track, dragging the broken yoke
of the cart behind it, and so escaped the fate of its less fortunate
companion.

Thereafter the elephant steadily worsened his reputation, and

many an unfortunate wayfarer to the river had gone to his death
beneath its massive feet or, caught by that terrible trunk, had been
beaten to pulp against the bole of a forest tree.

My first experience with this animal was by accident. I had

gone down to Hogenaikal, on the banks of the Cauvery River and
about four miles from Panapatti, for a week end’s mahseer fishing,
and to secure a crocodile if opportunity presented. As rumour had
it, at that time the rogue was not in the locality, having crossed
the river to the Coimbatore bank in wake of the elephant herd
which had wandered there in search of fresh pasture.
 In the evening of the second day, after having met with
indifferent fishing, I had returned to the forest lodge for tea, when
the call of a peacock close at hand had tempted me to go after the
bird, which I hoped would make me a tasty roast for that night’s
dinner.

Slipping a couple of No. 1 shot into the breach of my shotgun, I

cut diagonally across the forest to the glen where the peacock was
calling. Reaching it, I stepped cautiously forward in an effort to
locate my quarry, eventually arriving at the dry bed of the Chinar
stream, a tributary of the Cauvery River, which it joined a mile
further down.

My rubber-soled boots made no noise on the soft sand. 1 could

hear the rustle of the peacock’s feathers as it preened its tail
somewhere behind the bushes on the opposite bank, and was just
tiptoeing across the stream, when a shrill, trumpeting blast smote
the silence, to be followed by the crashing bulk of the rogue as it
broke cover fifty yards away and swiftly bore down on me.

Realising the futility of attempting to escape by running away—

for elephants can cover ground at an astonishing speed and I had
no chance of out-distancing him, because of the hampering soft
sand and clinging thorny shrubs of the neighbouring jungle—I
covered the curled trunk in the sights of my shotgun and fired both
barrels at a range of about thirty yards.

The noise of the report and the stinging missiles stopped him
momentarily and, while he screamed with rage and defiance, I
fled up the path by which I had come, carrying my empty gun, at
a pace I had never thought myself capable of attaining. Arriving
at the Forest Bungalow, I seized my rifle and ran back again. But
there was nothing to be seen on the deserted sands of the Chinar
stream, and upon approaching the spot I found the rogue had
swerved into the forest on the opposite side, where I did not care
to follow him, as night was approaching.
 The next day I had to return to Bangalore on business and could
not possibly extend my stay, so I left the honours of the first round
entirely to the rogue of Panapatti.

This creature, through his notoriety, had been declared as an

undesirable or ‘rogue’ elephant by the government, and official
notification had been broadcast by the Forest Department, both in
print and locally by beat-of-drum, or ‘tom-tom’ as it is officially
called, offering a government reward of Rs 500 (about £34) for its
destruction.

An Indian gentleman of the locality then very bravely

determined to put an end to the elephant’s career and claim the
reward. The details of his attempt—as I later pieced it together—
were as follows.

Armed with a .500 double-barrelled black-powder Express rifle

which had seen better days, he arrived at Panapatti and was told
that the elephant was wandering in the adjacent Wodapatti Forest
Block. The same Chinar stream, on the bed of which, near
Hogenaikal I had nearly met my end beneath the monster’s feet,
curves gracefully past Panapatti and meanders through the forest,
its north-western bank forming the boundary of the Wodapatti
Reserve, and its opposite bank that of the Pennagram Block.

The Indian gentleman of whom I am speaking, having tried for

two days without success to meet the rogue, spent the night of the
third day in his tent about two miles within the Pennagram Block,
away from the Chinar Stream and the Wodapatti Range, out of
which the elephant was said never to stray. But as a precaution he
had his followers build a ring of camp fires around their two tents,
and the men were given instructions to keep plenty of firewood in
reserve for replenishing and stoking the fires during the night
watches.
 All then being peaceful, he apparently fell fast asleep; so,
evidently, did his followers.

In the early hours of the morning the rogue came upon this
peaceful scene. The fires had perhaps died low, with just their
embers glowing. Normally, no elephant or any other animal will
go anywhere near a fire. But the sight of the white tent and the
urge to destroy proved too strong for this beast, for he carefully
made his way through at a point where there was no fire and
rushed upon the tent with a scream of rage.

The camp followers awoke at the pandemonium created and,

realising the demon was upon them, scattered and fled in all
directions. The unfortunate occupant of the white tent had no
chance to use his time-worn Express. The structure fell about his
ears and was trampled flat beneath the huge bulk of the elephant,
which then proceeded to tear it to ribbons. It was while engaged in
this congenial task that it came upon the hunter, alive or dead at
that time, nobody knows. Curling its dreaded trunk around him, it
carried him off in triumph to the clearing of a forest line which
passed nearby. There it literally rubbed him into the ground
beneath its huge feet, till nothing remained of the human body
but a pulpy mass of bloody flesh and crushed bones, mixed with
sand from the forest line. Finally, not liking the smell of blood, it
tossed the bloody mass far away and returned to the fastnesses of
the Wodapatti block.

As a result of this incident, the government reward was doubled

to Rs 1000, while I determined to begin my second round against
the elephant.

Arriving at Panapatti, I visited the scene of the recent tragedy,

where I could not help wondering at the audacity of the blood-
thirsty elephant in actually penetrating the circle of fires. The
spot nearby, where it had rubbed its victim into the ground, was
also clearly evident, although the remains had long since been
demolished by vultures.

Returning to Panapatti, I requisitioned the aid of one of the

cattlemen from the adjoining cattle-pen, who was also a fair
tracker, to help me find the animal. Tracks there were aplenty
across the sands of the Chinar stream, but the problem was to find
and follow one that had been freshly made. This it was impossible
to do, for the good reason that the elephant had evidently made
off from the vicinity, and was either somewhere within the
Wodapatti Block, or had wandered across the low hills to the main
Cauvery River, which flowed, as I have stated, some four miles
away.

The Wodapatti bank was clothed, for a couple of miles down the
Chinar stream, with a species of tall flowering grass, whose roots
subsist on sub-soil moisture and which attained a height of ten
feet in places, topped by beautiful heads of flowering stems which
somewhat resembled the flowering heads of cane-sugar, but were
of greater length and much finer texture. In the early mornings,
droplets of dew, which had gathered overnight on the fine strands
of these flowering heads, glittered in the rays of the rising sun,
giving a fairy-like appearance to the graceful fronds and a vision
of beauty and peace which entirely belied the danger that
threatened upon entering the grassy belt. The stems had grown to
such height and thick profusion that one could not see more than
a yard ahead, and to walk through the grass one had to part the
stems with one hand, holding the rifle in the other. A herd of
elephants might have lurked within, and nothing could have been
seen of them until almost within touching distance. The tracks
made by the rogue in his previous excursions were marked by
crushed and bent stems, and even these were rapidly reassuming
their upright positions.

The grass belt varied in width from 100 to 200 yards. As the hills
at this point abutted the Chinar Stream, the jungle was
represented by giant bamboo, traversing which was almost as
dangerous as crossing the flowering grass. Fallen bamboos lay in
profusion everywhere, their spiky ends impeding both advance
and retreat. The tall boughs, clothed with their feathered leaves,
curved gracefully overhead, bending and creaking to the forest
breezes.

We spent four whole days searching for the elephant,

laboriously traversing the grass belt and the bamboos, crossing the
range of foothills and descending their further slopes till the
purling waters of the Cauvery River flowed past our feet as it
hastened to the falls and cataracts at Hogenaikal, the great
Mettur Dam some 35 miles downstream, then the eastern plain of
Erode and the city of Trichinopoly, and finally the distant Bay of
Bengal. In all this time, never a fresh track of the rogue did we see.

The afternoon of the fifth day found my guide and myself again
on the banks of the Cauvery River, when I decided to follow the
bank upstream in the hope of finding some trace of my quarry. We
had advanced with considerable difficulty about three miles,
stepping over the giant roots of the tall ‘Muthee’ trees that clothed
the bank and ran down into the water for sustenance, interspersed
with brakes of tall flowering-grass, when we came upon the fresh
tracks of an elephant which had evidently crossed the river early
that morning from the opposite bank of the Coimbatore District.
Rough measurements revealed that they tallied with the spoor of
the rogue.

Tracking now became easy, for we had a definite trail to follow,

and the footprints and heavy bulk of the elephant had made a
clear path through grass, bamboo and undergrowth.

The spoor led up and across a small foothill, near the top of
which we came upon a heap of dung. Although quite fresh, this
lacked that warmth to the touch which would have shown that it
had been very recently cast. So we followed on, down into a deep
valley. Here we found still fresher dung, but not warm to the
touch, which showed that our quarry was yet some distance
ahead.

We struggled up the adjoining slope and across two more

foothills, and then observed that the tracks suddenly slued round
and made back in the general direction of the Cauvery River.

We were overcome by a fear that the animal had escaped us by

returning across the Cauvery. Going forward as fast as possible, we
came upon another heap of dung together with the mark of urine
which had soaked into the ground. But this time minute traces of
froth showed in the sand and the dung was warm to the touch. At
last our quarry was not very far ahead, nor was the Cauvery River!

Our further progress turned almost into a race to reach the river
at the same time as the elephant, and before it crossed out of rifle
range. From fallen branches, oozing with freshly-flowing sap, we
could observe that the pachyderm was grazing casually as it
approached the river.

Finally, a sharp dip in the land and a murmur of sound told us

that we had almost reached the river’s bank, and soon the glint of
water between tree-stems told us that we were there. Silently and
cautiously we crept forward. The sand became soft. Then we
noticed that the elephant, instead of crossing as we had feared,
had changed its mind and walked upstream and across a grassy
bank. Here it was apparent that the spoor was very recent, for the
tender blades of grass were fast embedded in the moist ooze, from
which bubbles of air burst before our eyes.

We had gone another 150 yards when we observed that a creek

lay ahead, and as we came abreast of it we heard the noise of
splashing and the hollow sound of air being blown through an
elephant’s trunk. Our quarry was having a bath.
 Fortunately, the little breeze that blew was in our direction,
and as we parted the intervening twigs and stems of grass, we saw
an elephant lying on its side in the water, but facing away from
us.

In this position, it was impossible to tell whether the animal

was the rogue, or a wandering elephant from among the several
herds that inhabited both banks of the river. So we settled down to
watch.

After a further five minutes of snorting, blowing and splashing,

the animal suddenly rose and began to walk in a leisurely way
across the creek. In all this time it had not shown its head, nor had
we been able to see whether it had two tusks, or a broken stump at
one side.

The situation now called for early decision, as once the

elephant reached the thick verdure clothing the opposite bank of
the creek, it would be lost to view. So I snapped my thumb and
finger twice in quick succession. The sound, infinitesimal as it
must have been, penetrated the keen hearing of the elephant.
With a swish and a swirl of water it spun around, and there before
us stood the ‘rogue of Panapatti’, the stump of his broken left tusk
clearly in view, while the right tusk, small as it was, curved
viciously upwards. Within a second his small eyes located us, his
trunk curled inwards, and with his head raised and his small tail
sticking out ridiculously, screaming with triumph and hate, he
charged across the intervening water, bent on yet another lustful
killing.

My .405 spoke once, the heavy solid bullet speeding straight to

its mark beneath the coiling trunk and into the throat. The
animal stopped dead in its tracks, while a gout of blood spurted
from the severed jugular. It turned sideways in an attempt to make
off, when two more rounds both found their marks in vital places,
one in the soft depression of the temple, and the other behind the
huge ear as it flapped forward.

The great bulk stood still, then shivered as if stricken with

terrible ague, and finally collapsed, as if pole-axed, in the shallow
waters of the creek, which rapidly became reddened with blood, as
the rays of the late afternoon sun vanished beneath the rim of the
towering peak of Mount Ponachi Malai on the Coimbatore bank,
sending streaks of crimson light into the orange sky.
 6

The Man-Eater of Segur

HE hamlet of Segur is situated at the foot of the north-eastern

T slopes of the well-known Nilgiri Mountains in south India, or
‘Blue Mountains’, which is what the word ‘Nilgiri’ literally
means. On the summit of this lovely range stands the beautiful
health resort of Ootacamund, at an average elevation of 7,500 feet
above mean sea level. This ‘Queen of Hill Stations’, as it is
affectionately termed, is the focal point of visitors from all the
length and breadth of India. Ootacamund has a charm of its own,
with a climate that allows the growth of all types of English
flowers and vegetables to perfection. The all-prevailing scent of
the towering eucalyptus (‘blue-gum’) trees, which is wafted
across the station from the surrounding plantations, mingled with
that of the fir and pine, makes memories of ‘Ooty’ unforgettable,
and with its cool climate gives a welcome change to the visitor
from the heat and enervating temperature of the sweltering plains
far below.

A steep ghat-road, 12 miles in length, leaves Ootacamund, and

after passing through graceful, rolling downs, where fox-hunting
was once a pastime of the English residents—the local jackal
taking the place of the fox—drops sharply downwards to Segur, at
the foot of the range, where dense tropical forests prevail. The
road is so steep in places as to be almost unusable, except to motor
cars of fairly high power. At Segur the road bifurcates, one branch
running north-westwards through dense forest, past the hamlet of
Mahvanhalla and the village of Masinigudi, to meet the main
trunk road, linking the cities of Bangalore and Mysore with
Ootacamund, at the forest chowki of Tippakadu. The other
bifurcation leads eastwards through equally dense forest, along
the base of the Blue Mountains, to the forest bungalow of
Anaikutty, nine miles away. Two perennial streams water this
area, the Segur River and the Anaikutty River, both descending in
silvery cascades from the Blue mountains; here their waters run
through giant tropical forests to join those of the Moyar River,
some fifteen miles away. The Moyar River, or ‘Mysore Ditch’, as it
is known, forms the boundary between the native state of Mysore
on the north, the district of Coimbatore on the north-east, and the
Nilgiri Range with its foothills on the south, both Coimbatore and
the Nilgiris forming part of the Province of Madras. The evergreen
forests of the Malabar-Wynaad extend to the west and south-west.

All the areas mentioned are densely wooded, hold game

preserves on the Mysore, Malabar, and Nilgiri sides, and are the
habitat of large numbers of wild elephant, bison, tiger, panther,
sambar, spotted-deer and other animals.

The forest-bungalow of Anaikutty is built on a knoll, past which

run the swirling waters of the Anaikutty river. In summer it is an
unhealthy place, full of malarial mosquito, and the origin of
many fatal cases of ‘black-water’ fever. In the winter it is a
paradise. The mornings are fresh and sunny, ideally suited to long
hikes through the forest. The afternoons are moderately cool. The
evenings chilly, while with nightfall an icy-cold wind descends
from the mountain tops to take the place of the warmer air rising
from the surrounding forests. The nights are then so in tensely cold
that one is invariably confined to the bungalow itself, in all the
rooms of which fireplaces have been provided. Here a truly
Christmassy feeling prevails, before a blazing fire of forest logs,
while the party discusses the latest stories of the ‘abominable
snowman’, or ghost stories are related in hair-raising detail. Even
within the compound of this bungalow elephant and tiger and
panther roam, their screams, roars and grunts reminding the
sleepy inmate, snugly tucked below double-blankets, with the
glow of a fire by his bedside, that he is still in the midst of a
tropical jungle.
 These forests are a favourite resort of mine, and in them I have
met with several little adventures that are still memorable after
these many years.

To relate just one. Wild-dogs, which hunt in packs in India,

varying in numbers from three to thirty, sometimes invade these
forests from over the boundaries of Mysore and Coimbatore, where
they are very numerous, more so in the latter district. These packs
are very destructive to all forms of deer, particularly sambar and
spotted-deer, which they hunt down inexorably, and tear limb
from limb while still alive. On several occasions, both in these and
other jungles, I have come across sambar actually being chased by
these dogs. The method adopted is that, while a few dogs chase the
animal, others break away in a flanking movement, to run ahead
of their quarry and ambush it as it dashes past them. When
hunting, they emit a series of yelps in a very high pitch,
resembling the whistling cry of a bird rather than that of a dog.
The quarry is brought to earth after being attacked by these
flankers, which bite out its eyes, disembowel it, hamstring or
emasculate it, in their efforts to bring it down. I once saw a
sambar pursued by wild-dogs, dash into a pool of water to try and
protect itself. It had been disembowelled and trailed its intestines
behind it for the distance of twenty feet. Sambar are
extraordinarily hardy, and sometimes are literally eaten alive by
these dogs, before being killed.
 Sketch map of the localities referred to in the story of the man-
eater of Segur.

One evening, at about 5 o’clock, I was a mile from the

bungalow, interesting myself in an unusual species of ground
orchid that sprouted from the earth in a spray of tiny star-shaped
flowers. Suddenly I heard a medley of sounds whose origin I could
not at first define. There were cries, yelps, and long-drawn bays,
interspersed with grunts and Vhoofs that puzzled me. Then I knew
that the noise was that of wild dogs, which seemed to be attacking
a pig or a bear. Grabbing my rifle, I ran in the direction of the din.
I may have covered a furlong, when around the corner dashed a
tigress, encircled by half-a-dozen wild dogs. Concealing myself
behind the trunk of a tree, I watched the unusual scene.

The dogs had spread themselves around the tigress, who was
growling ferociously. Every now and again one would dash in from
behind to bite her. She would then turn to attempt to rend asunder
this puny aggressor, when a couple of others would rush in from
another direction. In this way she was kept going continually, and
I could see she was fast becoming spent.
 All this time the dogs were making a tremendous noise, the
reason for which I soon came to know, when, in a lull in the fray, I
heard the whistling cry of the main pack, galloping to the
assistance of their advance party. The tigress must have also heard
the sound, for in sudden, renewed fury, she charged two of the
dogs, one of which she caught a tremendous blow on its back with
her paw, cracking its spine with the sharp report of a broken twig.
The other just managed to leap out of danger. The tigress then
followed up her momentary advantage by bounding away, to be
immediately followed by the five remaining dogs. They were just
out of sight when the main pack streamed by, in which I counted
twenty-three dogs, as they galloped past me without the slightest
interest in my presence. Soon the sounds of pursuit died away, and
all that remained was the one dead dog.

During the affair I had been too interested, and too lost in
admiration at the courage of the dogs, to fire at either the tigress
or her attackers.

Next morning I sent out scouts to try to discover the result of the
incident. They returned about noon, bringing a few fragments of
tiger-skin, to report that the dogs had finally cornered their
exhausted quarry about five miles away and had literally torn the
tigress to pieces. As far as they could gather, five dogs had been
killed in the final battle, after which the victors had eaten the
tigress, and even the greater portions of their own dead
companions.

Three distinct tribes of natives inhabit these areas. There are

the Badagas, descendants of long-ago invaders from the state of
Mysore, themselves fleeing from Mahommedan conquerors from
the north. These Badagas have now become rich; they own lands,
vast herds of cattle and semi-wild buffaloes, with tremendously
long, curved horns. Next come the Kesavas, the greatest in
numbers but laziest in disposition, who work under the Badagas as
herdsmen and tillers of the soil. Lastly, come the Karumbas,
comparatively few in number, the original inhabitants of the land
and now entirely jungle-men; they live on wild honey, roots,
hunting and the trapping of small animals and birds. These
Karumbas make excellent trackers, and like the Sholagas of the
Coimbatore District and Poojarees of Salem, are true children of
nature, who are born and live in the forests till the day of their
death.

Having given the reader a little idea of the country in which the
adventure took place, I shall lose no further time in telling the
story of the ‘Man-eater of Segur’.

This tiger was reported to have come originally from the jungles
of the Silent Valley Forest Block in the District of Malabar-
Wynaad, below the extreme opposite, or south western face, of the
Blue Mountains. This area is infested with elephants, of which it
holds the record for ‘rogues’, and with bison. As a rule it does not
hold many tiger. A few human kills took place in the Silent Valley
and then ceased entirely, to recommence at Gudalur, some twenty
miles from Tippakadu, at Masinigudi, and finally in all the areas
between Segur and Anaikutty. How and why the tiger came so far
from its place of origin, encircling the greater portion of the Nilgiri
Mountains in doing so, nobody knows.

It was midsummer and the tiger had been particularly active,

killing at Segur and, within a week, at Anaikutty, when I arrived.
The last victim had been a Kesava herdsman, tending his herd of
semi-wild buffaloes some two miles from Anaikutty along the
lower reaches of the river, as it wended its way towards the Moyar.
In this instance, the man-eater had stalked and attacked the man,
completely ignoring the surrounding grazing buffaloes. It had
killed him, and was perhaps carrying him away, when the
buffaloes had become aware of its presence.

These animals, as I have already stated, are only semi-

domesticated, and extremely dangerous to a stranger, especially if
he happens to be dressed in the unusual mode—to them—of a
European, when they frequently charge on sight. Seeing the tiger,
they had evidently attacked him en masse, and succeeded in
driving him off, leaving the dead man where he had been dropped.

That night, neither buffaloes nor herdsman returned to the

kraal, so early the next morning a search party set out to discover
the reason for their absence. It did not take them long to find the
dead herdsman, surrounded by his herd of placidly grazing
buffaloes, which had effectively prevented the tiger from
returning to its prey. An examination of the corpse, the pug-marks
of the tiger, and the pursuing hooves of the charging buffaloes,
revealed the sequence of happenings as I have related them.

The kill that had taken place a week earlier at Segur had been
that of a woman, as she went down to the Segur River with her
water-pot to fetch the daily supply of water for her family. In this
case the tiger had succeeded in carrying off its victim, the only
evidence of the occurrence being the mute testimony of the
broken water-pot, the pugs of the tiger in the soft mud that
bordered the river, a few drops of blood, the torn saree, and a few
strands of human hair that had become entangled in the bushes as
the tiger made off with its prey.

I visited both localities and by careful measurement and

examination of the pugs, which were very clear on the river bank
at Segur, determined that the tiger was a smallish-sized male of
considerably less than adult age.

Reports had it that the tiger very frequently traversed the ten
miles of forest road between Segur and Anaikutty, his pugs being
seen, along this track, especially in the vicinity of both places. As
a preliminary, I therefore decided to sit up along this road at
differently selected places, and without wearying the reader with
details, put this plan into practice, spending thus a whole week,
alternately in the vicinity of Segur and Anaikutty, without seeing
any signs of the tiger.

The seventh night I spent on a tree a mile-and-a-half from Segur.

Returning the next morning to the Anaikutty forest bungalow,
where I had established my headquarters, I was informed that a
Karumba, who had left the previous morning to gather wild honey
from the combs of the giant rockbee that abound by the hundred
in the region of a place called ‘Honey Rock’, about four miles from
the lower foothills of the Nilgiris, had not yet returned.

Assembling a group of twenty persons as a search party, I

accompanied them to this wild and densely wooded spot. Splitting
the party into four groups of five men each, as protection against
possible attack by the man-eater, we searched till noon, when one
of the men discovered the body of the dead Karumba lying in a
nala, and brought me the news. I went to the spot and found the
man had been killed by being bitten through the throat. Beside
him lay his empty kerosine-tin, in which he had been gathering
honey, all of which had spilt on the ground to form a feast for a
colony of black-ants, which covered the tin in a black mass.

Thinking at first that the tiger had killed him, and wondering
why it had not devoured him in that quiet, secluded spot, we cast
around for tracks, but soon discovered that the killer had been a
female sloth-bear, accompanied by its cub. The human-like
imprints of the mother’s feet, and the smaller impressions of the
cub’s, were clearly to be seen in the soft sand that formed the bed
of the nala.

Evidently the she-bear had been asleep with its cub, or perhaps
about to cross the nala, when the Karumba, in his search for
honey, had suddenly come upon it. The sloth-bear has a very
uncertain temperament at the best of times, being poor of sight
and hearing, so that humans have often been able to approach
them very closely before being discovered, when in the fright and
excitement of the moment, they will attack without any
provocation. Undoubtedly this is what happened, when the she-
bear, surprised, frightened and irritated, and in defence of her
young which she fancied was in danger, had rushed at the
Karumba, bitten him through the throat, severing his jugular, and
then made off as fast as she could.

I did not wish to spend time in hunting a bear which, after all,
had only killed in defence of its cub, and was for returning to the
bungalow at Anaikutty, when the four Karumbas that were
included in the party, urged me to track down and shoot the
animal, which they felt would be a menace to them when they, in
turn, came to the same place for honey. More to please them than
because I had any heart in the venture, I therefore sent the rest of
the party back and followed these four men on the trail of the she-
bear.

The tracks led along the nullah and then joined a stream, down
which Mrs Bruin and her baby had ambled for some distance
before breaking back into the jungle. Thence she had climbed
upwards towards the many rocks and caves that gave them
shelter, where hundreds of rock-beehives hung from every
conceivable rock-projection in long, black masses, sometimes
attaining a length of over five feet, a width of a yard, and a
thickness of over a foot.

The ground we were now traversing was hard and stony, and to
my unskilled eyes presented no trace of the bears’ passing. But the
Karumbas were seldom at fault, and their powers of tracking
really worth witnessing during the long and tiring walk that
followed. For more than two hours they led me uphill and down
dale, and across deep valleys and stony ridges. An overturned rock
or stone, a displaced leaf, or the slightest marks of scraping or
digging, showed them where the bears had travelled.
 At last we approached the mouth of a cave, high up over a
projecting rock from which hung twenty-three separate rock-
beehives. This cave they declared, was the home of the she-bear
and her cub.

Standing ten yards from the entrance, and to one side, I

instructed the men to hurl stones into the interior, which they did
with unabated vigour for quite twenty minutes. But not a sound
did we hear. Then the Karumbas made a torch of grasses, which
we ignited and threw into the cave, but still nothing happened.
Finally they made five similar torches. Lighting one of these, I
followed the Karumba that carried it into the cave, while the
remaining three Karumbas came behind us, carrying the four
spare grass torches.

The cave was comparatively small inside and was obviously

empty, the occupant and her youngster having left at hearing our
approach, if not before. But I was glad of this, because, as I have
said, I had no quarrel with this animal, and would have regretted
having to shoot it and leave the baby an orphan.

We had lit our third torch, and were just about to leave, when
one of the Karumbas came upon an interesting curiosity of the
Indian forest, of which I had heard but never seen, and the
existence of which I consequently never believed.

He found in a corner what the natives call ‘bear’s bread’, or

‘Karadi roti’, as it is named in Tamil. This was a roughly circular
mass, about ten inches across, an inch thick, and of a dirty
blackish-yellow, sticky consistency. Female bears are reported to
seek out the fruits of the ‘Jack’ tree, a large fruit with a rough,
thorny exterior; wild ‘Wood-apple’ fruit, the size of large tennis
balls and with hard shells; and pieces of honeycomb, including
bees, comb and honey. Each of these ingredients is first eaten by
the she-bear in turn, the whole being then vomited in the cave in
a mass, which the she-bear allows to harden into a cake, as
reserve food for her young.

Due possibly to its long hair, the bear is marvellously

impervious to the stings of the rock-bee, which prove fatal to a
human being if suffered in large numbers. It can climb trees and
rocks with astounding ability in search of wild fruit and
honeycombs. A cave, inhabited by a she-bear with her young, is
reported to contain sometimes a dozen such cakes. In this case we
had found only one, but in as much as I had never come across or
seen one before, I was immensely interested. As evidence of the
wholesomeness of this ‘bread’, the four Karumbas offered it to me
for immediate consumption, but I declined with thanks. They
then divided it equally between themselves, and ate it with
evident gusto.

We were now sitting at the entrance of the cave. Whether the

flames of the torch, the smoke, or the sound of human voices
disturbed them, I do not know, but suddenly a few black objects
buzzed around us, and as we sprang to our feet to make off, the
rock-bees from the hive immediately above, grossly disturbed and
angry, descended upon us in an avalanche.

It was every man for himself, and as I grabbed my rifle and

sprinted down the hillside, the agile Karumbas out distanced me
very quickly. What I lacked in speed I made up, however, by being
clothed, the bees being able to register some twenty stings on my
neck and hands and other exposed parts, as compared with about
forty that I counted on each of the bare skins of the Karumbas,
when we slowed up half-a-mile away. It was indeed a comical
ending to a tragic but interesting morning, and we returned to
Anaikutty a far wiser, but very sore and smarting party.

I set out at 8 p.m. that night, motoring slowly to Segur in my

Studebaker, a Karumba acting as assistant by my side and flashing
the beams of my ‘sealed-beam’ spotlight along the jungle on both
sides. Meeting nothing, we continued for six miles along the
north-western road, past Mahvanhalla and Masinigudi, and
finally the four miles to the forest chowki at Tippakadu. Here we
allowed an hour to pass before returning, this time encountering,
three miles from Tippakadu, a herd of bison along the roadside.

These animals crashed away as the car approached closer.

Between Masinigudi and Segur we met several spotted-deer, and
just after taking the turn to Anaikutty a large bull elephant in the
centre of the road, his tusks gleaming sharply white in the
powerful beams of the spot light. A gentle toot of the horn sufficed
to send him scurrying on his way, and finally we reached the
Anaikutty bungalow without seeing a trace of the man-eater.

The following morning dawned bright and fine, and I set out
with my Karumba guide across the forest towards the Moyar
River, nine miles to the north. Again we encountered no trace of
the tiger, but came across the pugs of an exceptionally large forest-
panther as the land began to dip sharply to the basin of the Moyar.
Judging by its tracks, it was indeed a big animal, approaching the
size of a small tigress, and would have made a fine trophy, had I
the time to pursue it. We returned to the bungalow in the late
afternoon, tired and somewhat disappointed, after our long and
fruitless walk.

Again that night we motored to Tippakadu and back,

encountering only a solitary sambar, when returning, at the river
crossing before the Anaikutty forest bungalow.

With dawn I undertook another hike with my Karumba, this

time in a south-easterly direction and towards the Nilgiris. We
found a dead cow-bison in the bush four miles away, an
examination of the carcase revealing that the animal had died of
rinderpest. The Forest Department had reported some two months
earlier that this epidemic had spread from the cattle of the
Badagas, whose herds it afflicted in a contagious and epidemic
form, to the wild animals, especially bison, and here lay proof of
the statement.

That afternoon a report came in from Mahvanhalla that the

tiger had taken a woman near the bridge by which the main road
to Tippakadu crosses the Mahvanhalla Stream before it joins the
Segur River. Motoring to the spot I was shown the place where, the
previous evening, the tiger, which had been lurking on the banks
of the stream, had attacked the woman, who had been among the
herdsmen watering the large number of mixed cattle and buffaloes
kraaled at Mahvanhalla.

Apparently nobody had actually witnessed the incident, the

woman having been a little apart from the rest of the party
assembled near the bridge and hidden by the bend the little stream
takes just before it passes under the road. She had screamed shrilly
and silence had followed. The remaining graziers, five in number,
had hastened to Mahvanhalla, gathered reinforcements in the
form of six others, including the husband of the unfortunate
woman, and returned to the spot to look for her. They had found
the basket she had been carrying, and close by in the soft earth,
the pug-marks of a tiger; then the whole party had returned to
Mahvanhalla. At dawn the next day, the four men who now
reported themselves had set forth by footpath to cover the ten
miles to Anaikutty and report the incident to me, it having
become known that I was in the area to shoot the tiger.

We went to the place where the woman had been attacked, and
with the expert help of my Karumba tracker were soon able to
pick up the trail of the tiger and its victim. Before following I
dismissed the party from Mahvanhalla, together with the
bereaved husband, who made me promise faithfully that I would
bring back at least a few bones of his beloved spouse to satisfy the
requirements of a cremation ceremony.
 Almost without faltering, my Karumba guide followed what
was to me the completely invisible trail left by the tiger. The man-
eater was evidently making towards a high hill, an out-spur of the
Nilgiri Range, that ran parallel to the road on the west at a
distance of about two miles. Years ago I had partly climbed this
very hill in search of a good bison head, and knew its middle
slopes were covered with a sea of long spear-grass which gradually
thinned out as the higher, and more rocky, levels were reached. In
that area, I felt we had little chance of finding the tiger or its prey.

Nevertheless my stout little guide continued faultlessly, and

within a mile of the foot of the hill came across the woman’s
saree, caught in the undergrowth. Shortly afterwards the tiger
appeared to have changed its mind, in that its trail veered off to
the right, parallel to the hill, which now was quite near, and back
again towards the bed of the Mahvanhalla Stream. Still following,
we eventually reached the stream, which here ran through a deep
valley. Scattered bamboo-clumps grew in increasing numbers
down this declivity, and the shrill squeal of vultures and the
heavy flapping of their wings soon heralded the close of our
search. The remains of the woman lay below a clump of bamboo,
eaten by the tiger, and the vultures had finished what had been
left over from his feast. We found the head lying apart, the eyes
picked out of their sockets by the great birds, which had also
devoured most of the flesh from the face. This ghastly remnant,
together with her hands and feet, her glass bangles and silver
anklets, we gathered together and wrapped in grass, and in
fulfilment of my promise, the Karumba very reluctantly carried
the bundle to her husband. Sitting up at the spot seemed a waste
of time, as the tiger would not return to such scattered remnants.

That night I continued my hunting by car but without success,

and next day procured a young buffalo, which I tied close to the
bend in the stream at Mahvanhalla, where the woman had been
attacked. The chances of the tiger visiting the same spot being
remote, I decided not to sit up over the live buffalo, but to await a
kill, should it occur.

In this surmise I was wrong, for before noon next day runners
came to Anaikutty to report that the buffalo had been killed and
partly eaten by a tiger. By 3 p.m. my machan was fixed, and I sat
overlooking the dead bait, at a height of some fifteen feet.

A large red-martin, a big species of mongoose that inhabits the

lower slopes of the Nilgiris, was the first visitor to put in an
appearance at the kill. He came at about 5.30 p.m., at first nibbled
cautiously, and then began to gobble chunks of the raw meat. By 6
o’clock he had filled himself to bursting-point, and made off to
pass the night in dreamless contentment, or with a heavy attack
of indigestion.

As dusk fell the shadowy forms of three jackals slunk forward.

With the greatest temerity they approached the dead animal,
sniffed it while glancing around apprehensively, and made off in
frightened rushes, only to return each time, as hunger and the
demands of a voracious appetite urged them on. At about the
fourth attempt they finally settled down to eat, but had hardly
taken a few mouthfuls when there was a rush and a scamper and
they were gone.

This was surely the coming of the tiger, I thought, and sure
enough a slinking, grey shape flitted into the open and cautiously
shambled up to the kill. No tiger would so shamefacedly approach
his own kill, however, and the hyaena—for hyaena it was—began
all over again the cautious and frightened approaches of his
smaller cousins, the jackals.

Several times he sniffed at the meat, the while he glanced

furtively to right and left. Several times he shambled away, to
scurry around in a wide circle and see if the coast was clear, before
cautiously slinking up again to take a hasty mouthful. Then off he
went in another wide circle to make sure that the rightful owner
of the kill was not in the vicinity to catch him red-handed. This
continued for quite half-an-hour, before the hyaena settled down
to a serious meal.

He had been eating for ten minutes when a tiger called nearby,
‘A-oongh, Aungh-ha, Ugha-ugh, 0-o-o-n-o-o-n ’, was four times
repeated in the silent night air, and the hyaena whisked away as if
by magic and did not return.

I sat in readiness, momentarily expecting the appearance of the

king of the jungle. But the hours dragged on and he did not come.
Whatever may have been the reason, that tiger gave the kill a
wide berth that night, and the false dawn found me shivering with
the intense cold that had now set in despite the summer season. I
remained till day light to descend from my machan, cramped and
stiff, thoroughly disgusted and disappointed with the world at
large and with the tiger in particular. What caused him to
approach so close to his kill that night without actually putting in
an appearance will ever remain a mystery.

I rested the next day and followed my usual nightly procedure of

motoring along the road to Tippakadu and back, but without
seeing any sign of the tiger. This time a small panther jumped off a
roadside culvert exactly at the turning point on the road to
Anaikutty, and crouched in the ditch, its bright eyes gazing into
the spotlight as the car passed by. I let the little brute alone, to
pass its days in happiness in the beautiful forests where it rightly
belonged.

The next week proved uneventful, and I began to think of giving

up the chase and returning to Bangalore, but eventually I decided
to wait three more days before departing. One of these three days
passed uneventfully, when, at midday the second day, a Badaga
boy, the son of a rich cattle-owner at Segur, was carried away by
the tiger while taking the midday meal to his father, who was
with the cattle, and other Kesava herdsmen.

I was soon at the spot with my Karumbas, to follow up the trail.

The tiger had carried the boy across the Segur River and into the
jungle to the north. Again we followed, without delay, and this
time found the body hidden in a nala and only half-eaten.
Unfortunately, the father arrived at the scene, and wanted to
remove the body, and an hour was lost in argument to persuade
him to let it remain and give me a chance of sitting up.

In the vicinity of the body there was no suitable tree or rock in

which to conceal myself, and eventually it was decided to move
the corpse some fifty feet towards a bamboo clump, on the top of
which an unstable machan was erected. To reach this, I had to
climb up the notches of a cut bamboo stem, only to find the
machan one of the worst I had ever sat on in my life. It swayed
alarmingly with every current of wind, and my slightest
movement caused the bamboos to creak ominously below me.
Besides, I did not have a good view of the body, which was over
thirty yards away. The bamboo stems growing around me
completely obstructed any view at a close range.

The beginning of my vigil was most uninteresting, and no living

thing put in an appearance beyond a peacock, which alighted
higher up the nullah bank from the place where the corpse was
lying. From there it walked slowly downwards, till it suddenly
caught sight of the prone, human form in the nullah where we
had left it, when with a great flapping of wings it sailed away
above my head, its flowing tail glinting a greenish-red in the rays
of the setting sun, for all the world like a comet flapping through
the forest.

At 9 p.m. I became aware of the presence of the tiger by the low

moan he emitted from near the spot where he had originally left
the corpse. I cursed myself for having shifted it, but realised that
this had had to be done, as there was absolutely no shelter for me
at that spot.

Finding his kill had been moved, the tiger then growled several
times. After all, we had shifted it a bare fifty feet, and from where
he stood the tiger would undoubtedly see it in its new position and
come towards it; or so I hoped. But moving the kill had been fatal,
raising within the tiger a deep suspicion as to why the man it had
left dead, and had partly eaten, had now moved away. It is
extraordinary how very cautious every man-eater becomes by
practice, whether a tiger or a panther, and cowardly too.
Invariably, it will only attack a solitary person, and that, too,
after prolonged and painstaking stalking, having assured itself
that no other human being is in the immediate vicinity. I believe
there is hardly any case on record where a man-eater has attacked
a group of people, while many instances exist where timely
interference, or aid by a determined friend or relative, has caused
a man-eater to leave his victim and flee in absolute terror. These
animals seem also to possess an astute sixth sense and be able to
differentiate between an unarmed human being and an armed
man deliberately pursuing them, for in most cases, only when
cornered will they venture to attack the latter, while they go out
of their way to stalk and attack the unarmed man.

This particular tiger was definitely possessed of a very acute

sixth sense, for it guessed something was amiss. Instead of openly
approaching its kill, as I had hoped it would, it then began to
circle the whole area, plaintively moaning at intervals, as if in
just complaint against the meanness of fate at having moved the
kill. Around and around it travelled for quite an hour, till it
finally decided that the kill was forbidden fruit, and the last I
heard was its plaintive moaning receding southwards, as it made
for the sheltering hills.

This last episode, with its attendant failure, caused me to

redouble my determination to bag this most astute animal, and to
postpone my departure, if need be, for another fortnight, to enable
me to do so.

Gossip with the Karumbas now suggested that the tiger might be
met at nights along the many cart-tracks that branched into the
forest from Anaikutty, Segur and Mahvanhalla, rather than along
the main roads on which I had been motoring for several nights.
As these cart tracks were unmotorable, I hired a bullock cart for
the next week, and determined to spend each night in it
meandering along every possible track in the vicinity of the three
places. The driver of this cart, a Kesava, was an unusually
doughty fellow, and my two Karumba scouts were to accompany
me to suggest the most likely tracks.

The next three nights we spent in this fashion, encountering

only sambar and spotted-deer, and on the third night, an elephant,
which gave us some anxious moments. It was where the track
crossed the Anaikutty River, two miles from the village, that we
first met him. He had been standing under a mighty ‘Muthee’ tree,
as motionless as a rock, and quite unnoticed by us. In the cart we
carried the car-battery, which I had detached together with the
‘sealedbeam’ spotlight, to be used in emergency only. For ordinary
illumination, and for picking up eyes in the jungle, we were using
two torches, a seven-cell and a five-cell respectively.

As I was saying, we were crossing the river, and the cart was
about midway in the stream, the bulls struggling valiantly to pull
the huge wheels through the soft sand, when the elephant,
alarmed and annoyed by the torches, let forth a piercing scream,
like the last trump of doom, and came splashing at us through the
water. Switching on the ‘sealed-beam’, I caught him in its
brilliant rays about thirty yards away. The bright beam brought
him to a halt, when he commenced stamping his feet in the water
and swinging his great bulk and trunk from side to side, undecided
whether to charge or to make off. We then shouted in unison, and
focussed all lights on him, and with a paring scream of rage he
swirled around and shuffled off into the black forest, a very angry
and indignant elephant indeed.

We continued these bullock-cart prowls for the next three

nights, but without success.

On the morning of the seventh day, the tiger killed the son of
the forest guard stationed at Anaikutty, a lad aged eighteen years.
At 9 a.m., and in bright sunlight, he had left his hut in the village
and gone a short distance up the path leading to the river and to
the bungalow where I lay sleeping after my nights in the cart. He
had gone to call his dog, which was in the habit of wandering
between the village and the bungalow, less than a mile away,
because of some scraps which I daily gave it after each meal. That
boy was never seen alive again.

His father, the forest guard, thinking he was with me at the

bungalow, took his absence for granted. When noon came, and it
was time for the midday meal, the youth had not yet appeared
and the guard decided to come to the bungalow and fetch him. By
the roadside, within a furlong of the river, he came across his son’s
cap. This alarmed him, and he called aloud to the boy. Receiving
no answer, he ran the remaining distance to the bungalow and
awoke me, to tell me what he had found.

Feeling something had befallen the lad, I picked up the rifle and
accompanied the anxious father to the spot where the cap was
still lying. Looking around, we found his slipper under a bush ten
yards away and realised that the worst had happened. Remaining
at the spot, I told the now-weeping guard to hurry back to the
village and summon the Karumba trackers.

Within a quarter-hour these men had joined me and we started

on the trail.

The boy appeared to have struggled and had probably cried

aloud, although none had been there to hear him, for within a few
yards of where we found the slipper, the tiger had apparently laid
him down and bitten him savagely. This was made clear by the
sudden spurts of blood that smeared the dried grass for the area of
quite a square yard. The tiger had then proceeded with its prey,
leaving a trail of blood on the ground, which gradually petered
out as the blood began to coagulate.

The river here turned north-west and we found that the tiger
was making in its direction. Pressing forward, we soon reached the
thick jungle that clothed the river-banks, where the blood-trail
once again became evident in the occasional red smear that
marked the leaves of the undergrowth as the tiger, holding its prey
in its mouth, had pushed through.

In the soft mud of the river-bank we saw the fresh pug-marks of

the killer, which passed across the shallow water to the opposite
bank. Here it led up the slope to the shelter of a clump of jungle-
plum bushes, before which we found the lad’s remains. He had
been almost half-devoured and was a ghastly sight. The reason for
the sudden spurts of blood on the trail we had followed now
became apparent. The boy had obviously been still alive when
carried off by the tiger, as we had already surmised, and must have
screamed and struggled in an effort to get free. Annoyed, the tiger
had thrown him down and dealt the boy a smashing blow across
the skull with its forepaw. The forehead had been crushed
inwards, like a squashed egg-shell, while the sharp talons had
half-torn the scalp away, leaving the bare bone of the skull
exposed to view. One of the eyes had also been gouged out by a
claw, and hung from its socket.

The grief of that poor father was truly heart-rending to watch,

as he prostrated himself at the feet of his only son, kissed the poor
mangled remains, and called aloud to heaven and earth for
vengeance, while heaping dust, that he scratched from the dry
ground, on to his own head. Shaking him roughly to bring him to
his senses, and telling him earnestly that the more noise he made
and the more time he wasted correspondingly lessened our
chances of shooting the tiger, we succeeded in reducing his cries to
a whimper.

A medium-sized ‘Jumlum’ tree overshadowed the plum-bush

beneath which the boy lay, and on this tree I determined to erect
my machan. I sent the father and the two Karumbas back to the
bungalow, instructing the latter to bring my portable ‘charpoy’
machan, and pending their return climbed up into the ‘Jumlum’
tree, both for my own protection, and to get a shot if the tiger
should suddenly put in an appearance.

The two Karumbas were back in under an hour with the

machan, which they securely and efficiently tied in the lower
branches of the ‘Jumlum’ tree at the usual height of a little over
fifteen feet. They had also brought my water-bottle, gun-torch and
blanket, as instructed, and soon after noon I climbed into the
machan in high hopes of securing a shot.

Evening came, and nightfall, without a sign of the tiger. Then

followed a sudden rain-storm, such as sometimes occurs in the
midst of a dry summer in India. Lightning flashes illuminated the
forest as bright as day, vividly revealing the corpse beneath the
plum-tree below; thunder crashed, reverberating against the
adjacent hills; and the rain literally descended in torrents,
preceded by a sharp shower of hailstones.

Within a minute I was soaked to the skin, and as the downpour

continued, before my very eyes the river rose with the mass of
water that rushed down from the surrounding hills, till I judged it
to be unfordable.

This dreadful state of affairs continued till well past midnight,

when the rain died down to a thin, cold drizzle. Then a horribly
chill wind set in, blowing down from the Nilgiris to the sodden
forest. The drizzle finally ceased, the wind continued and, as
evaporation began in my soaking clothes and blankets, the cold
became intense and unbearable.

Gladly would I have faced a dozen man-eaters and returned to

the bungalow, but this was impossible owing to the swollen river,
which still remained unfordable. The waters swirled by, carrying
with them uprooted tree-trunks, stripped branches, and debris of
all kinds, including dead logs that had been lying for years along
the river bank. To attempt a crossing of that raging torrent, in
pitch darkness, would have been to invite death by drowning, if
not by a blow across the head from a racing tree-trunk.

To add to my difficulties, the acute cold, the exposure, the lack

of proper sleep and my now generally exhausted condition,
brought on a sharp attack of malaria. The onset of the attack was
in the usual form of ague, which caused my teeth to chatter like
castanets, followed within an hour by high fever to the verge of
delirium. I lost all interest in shooting and the tiger, and how I
passed the remainder of that never-to-be-forgotten night without
falling off the machan, I shall never know.

It was past 8 o’clock next morning before my Karumbas

returned, to find me almost unconscious and still in a high fever.
Somehow they got me across the river and to the bungalow, where
I spent the next forty-eight hours in bed in the grip of successive
attacks of malarial chills and fever, which only abated on the
third day with the assiduous use of paludrine.

How I did not contract pneumonia as an after-effect of this

terrible experience is a question to which only Providence knows
the answer.

On the third day, when I began to take a little more interest in

life, my men told me that the tiger had returned, either during or
after the raging storm, and removed its victim while I was
huddled, so ill, in the tree above it. This gave me an added reason
for gratitude to Providence, for had I fallen off that tree in
delirium, I might easily have become a fresh victim.

I took it easy for the next two days to give myself a chance of
recovering completely from my bout of fever, and also to await
news of a fresh kill, which was bound to occur, sooner or later.
The third day I spent in procuring three buffalo baits, tying one
each at Anaikutty, Segur and Mahvanhalla. They were all alive
the following morning, so on the next day I resumed my
peregrinations, roaming the forest around Anaikutty in the
morning in the hope of meeting the tiger accidentally, and driving
by car to Tippakadu and back by night.

Two days later, the run of bad luck I had been experiencing over
the past three weeks suddenly changed for the better. That
morning, for a change, I decided to follow the course of the Segur
River for some miles downstream; driving with my Karumbas to
Segur village, I left the car at a large banana plantation and began
to put this plan into effect.

Hardly a mile downstream is a swampy area, much inhabited by

bison in years gone by, and still locally known as ‘Bison Swamp’.
A half-mile beyond this, a large patch of dense bamboo jungle
covers both banks of the stream. These bamboos have always been
a favourite haunt of elephant and sambar, tiger occasionally
passing through on their way down from the hills.

It was 8.30 a.m., and we had just entered the bamboos, when a
sambar doe belled loudly from the opposite bank, to be taken up
almost immediately by the hoarser cry of a stag. The Karumbas
and I sank to the ground among the rushes that grew profusely
along the river edge at this spot. The two sambar repeated their
calls in quick succession, and it was obvious that something had
alarmed them.
 At first I thought they had seen or winded us, but I dismissed the
idea with the realisation that what breeze existed was blowing
upstream, from the sambar to us. Also, they could not have
spotted us, being, as they were, some distance within the
bamboos, from where we were quite out of sight. Our progress had
been very silent and cautious, so the only conclusion to be drawn
from the continued strident calls of the sambar was that they had
seen or winded a tiger or panther, as no other human beings would
be about in such a lonely place, due to the panic created by the
man-eater.

We lay in the rushes for almost ten minutes when, with a loud
clatter over the loose stones in the river-bed, a sambar stag, closely
followed by a doe, dashed across, to disappear among the bamboos
on the same bank as that on which we were hiding.

Not a move came from any of us as the anxious moments passed

and then, silently, gracefully and boldly, a tiger stepped out of
cover from the opposite bamboos and glided down the steeply
declining bank to the river’s edge. Without hesitation he walked
into the river, ignored the cobbled stones, and when the water had
reached his chest, he stopped and commenced lapping.

Taking careful aim, I fired behind his left shoulder. He sprang

backwards, emitting a coughing-grunt, and then rolled over on his
side, facing away from me and towards the bank from which he
had just come. Running forwards out of concealment, I advanced
some forty yards, from where I could just see a part of the side of
his face, the rest having sunk below the water. Here I waited quite
fifteen minutes, to put in another shot if need be, but it proved
unnecessary, for the tiger was dead.

I have mentioned that I had taken careful measurements of the

man-eater’s pugs, which I compared with those of the specimen
now before me, to find they corresponded exactly. Thus I knew
that at last, after many tiring efforts and exasperating failures, I
had shot the man-eater of Segur.

The reason for his man-eating propensity also became apparent,

in that the animal had only one eye. The remaining eyeball had
shrunk to nothing. When skinning this tiger I took particular
trouble to investigate the cause of the loss of that eye, and upon
digging out what remained of the organ with a knife, I found a
gunshot slug embedded in the socket.

Here was clear reason why the animal had become a man-eater.
Someone, in all probability a poacher armed with a muzzle-
loader, had fired at the animal’s face, in the far-away Silent Valley
of the Malabar-Wynaad. A slug had entered the eye and blinded
him. Desperate, in pain, and hampered by the loss of his eye, the
tiger had found it difficult to hunt his normal prey, and so had
taken his revenge upon the species that had been responsible for
the loss of his eye.
 7

The Man-Eater of Yemmaydoddi

EMMAYDODDI is an area of forest in the Kadur District of

Y Mysore in southern India. It is bordered by a ridge of foothills,
the highest of which is named Hogar Khan, that form the eastern
spurs of the great mountain range known as the Baba Budans,
which reach a height of 6,500 feet. A magnificent lake, called the
‘Madak’, entirely surrounded by forest-clad hills, forms the
southern limit of this area, from which a narrow water-channel,
paralleled by an equally narrow forest road, runs for ten miles
north-east wards, till the former joins a smaller lake about three
miles north of the little town of Birur.

This area is rich in game, and still richer in vast herds of cattle
that are driven into the forest by day to graze, and driven back
each evening to Birur.

Small wonder it is, then, that the surroundings abound with

tiger, that come there in the first instance as game-killers, to feed
on the plentiful sambar, spotted-deer and wild pig, but sooner or
later become cattle-lifters, because the cattle are so much easier
to kill and because of the complete complacency and indifference
with which the local herdsmen look after their charges. It is no
exaggeration to say that hardly a day passes without the loss of a
fine cow or bull in the jaws of a tiger, while the panther’s
destruction of calves, goats and village dogs on the outskirts of
Birur is almost as common.
Sketch map of localities referred to in the story of the man-eater of
Yemmaydoddi.

Actually, these smaller carnivores are fewer in number than

their bigger cousins, and confine themselves to the outskirts of the
town itself, well out of the tiger area, because of their fear of the
larger animal to whom they themselves sometimes fall prey.

Early in 1946 a small male tiger appeared in this locality with

habits distinctly its own. It began with minor killings of calves
and goats, snatched in the evenings from returning herds, near the
outskirts of Birur, and its depredations were at first taken for those
of a panther, except for the characteristic breaking of the neck in
the case of the larger calves. This method of killing is almost
exclusively followed by tiger, and sometimes by the larger species
of forest panther, known as ‘Thendu’ in Hindustani, so that there
was appreciable cause for mistake in identifying the marauder as
one of the latter, till on one occasion a frightened herdsman
actually witnessed the killing of a young cow, where-after the
question was no longer in doubt.

This young animal rapidly grew to adulthood in the area,

miraculously escaping the shots of various shikarees, both
indigenous and foreign, and grew in cunning and daring too, till in
eighteen months it became a major menace to the cattle-grazers,
killing twice, and occasionally thrice a week, and invariably
selecting a particularly fine specimen on each occasion.

Towards the end of 1948, I accompanied a party of friends to

Yemmaydoddi, with the object of procuring a trophy for one of
them, Alfie Robertson, who was shortly due to return to England.
I had received news of the tiger on several occasions and felt sure
it would be a fairly easy matter for my companion to bag the
animal, provided we camped at Birur a few days till receiving
news of a kill.

We motored from Bangalore, the distance being 134 miles.

Unfortunately I was detained at my office and we left late in the
evening. The roads were execrable, and we met with an accident
near a place called Tiptur, 86 miles from Bangalore. We were using
my friend’s car and he was driving. The rear wheel went over a
deceptively flat stone, which stood up on its edge when the wheel
passed over one end of it, the other cutting a nine-inch slit in the
petrol tank, which was at the rear of the car. Eight gallons of
gasolene thereupon poured on to the road, and the vehicle came to
a stop.

We had no spare petrol, but were carrying a Primus Stove, for

which we had brought two bottles of paraffin oil. Passing one end
of the rubber lead of the foot pump into a bottle of paraffin, we
contrived to fit the remaining end on to the pipe leading into the
carburettor after having first started a syphon-feed. Thus we
managed to cover the short remaining distance to Tiptur. Here we
awoke the only tinker in town, unbuckled the fuel tank and
managed to patch up the rent with the side of a paraffin tin which
I found outside some sleeping inhabitant’s house.

Next came the major problem of fuel for the onward journey.
We pushed the car to the one petrol station in the town, only to be
informed that the supply of gas had been exhausted the previous
day and would not be replenished till noon the next day, at the
earliest.

It seemed that we were doomed to a prolonged halt at Tiptur.

There were one or two lorries in the town. We awoke the sleeping
drivers and offered them fabulous prices for just one gallon of
petrol to carry us the sixteen miles to the next town of Arsikere,
where was a Burmah Shell petrol pump at which we were bound
to be able to get a fresh supply. But one and all pleaded they
themselves had run out of fuel, and were awaiting the expected
fresh stock at noon next day.

The situation was disheartening, till I decided on adopting

desperate measures. It was about 3.30 a.m., and scruples and
conscience, like the town of Tiptur, had long since fallen asleep.
Calling to Alfie to bring the paraffin tin, from which we had cut
the patch for our fuel-tank, and carrying the rubber-lead of the
foot-pump myself, we commenced a stealthy stalk through the
silent streets of Tiptur. In a lane we spotted a battered ‘A’ Model
Ford. Instructing Alfie to keep careful watch against the owner
awakening. I crept forward on the off-side of the vehicle. Reaching
the bonnet, I removed the fuel-tank cover behind the engine,
slipped one end of the rubber tube into the tank, and syphoned a
little over a quart of the precious fuel into the tin, which I
balanced between my knees. A second trip procured us another
quart. Mixing the fuel with the remaining bottle of paraffin oil,
we made off hastily to Arsikere, where we obtained a fresh supply.

As a result, we did not arrive at our destination, the small town

of Birur, until about 7.30 in the morning. We passed through the
town and had gone about two miles towards the forest, when we
came upon an open field in which a number of vultures were
crowded. My friend took a photograph, while I got down to
investigate the cause of this assembly, and was agreeably surprised
to find a half-grown bullock, killed by a panther, right up against
the hedge that bordered the road we had just traversed.

There was no doubt that the kill had been made by a panther, as
the fang marks on the throat of the dead animal showed where it
had been strangled. The vertebrae of the neck were intact and had
not been broken, which would have been the case had the killer
been a tiger. Besides, the underportion of the animal had been
eaten, while the entrails were still inside the carcases,
conclusively proving a panther to have been the miscreant. For a
tiger is a clean feeder, and before beginning a meal makes an
opening in the rear portion of its kill, through which it removes
the entrails and stomach to a distance of ten feet, so that its meal
shall not be polluted with excreta.

We were highly delighted at this early stroke of luck, and after

protecting the kill from the vultures with branches broken at a
distance from the hedge, I constructed a hide in the hedge itself,
overlooking the kill at pointblank range. We made a good job of
this construction, and Alfie felt himself more than compensated
for the trouble we had experienced with his car the night before,
in the certainty of bagging the panther when it returned to its kill
late that evening.

We then moved on some distance, ate, and slept in preparation

for the night’s adventure. By 5 p.m., were turned to the kill and
our hide-out, removing the covering which had effectively kept
the vultures from the dead animal. Alfie then sat himself inside
the hide, complete with rifle, torch, blanket and water-bottle, and
I was in the act of driving back to Birur in the car, when a
breathless herdsman ran up to inform us that one of his large
milch cows had just been killed by a tiger, hardly half-an-hour
earlier and not a mile away.

I gave the decision to Alfie. Would he prefer a panther as a

certainty, or a tiger as a chance? In keeping with what would have
been my own decision, he chose to make an attempt on the tiger.
We accordingly bundled the paraphernalia out of the hide and
into the car, drove swiftly up the road for half-a-mile till the
herdsman told us to stop, brought the things out again, and then
hastened after him into the forest and to the kill.

We did not have far to walk, and within three furlongs came
upon the dead animal, a fine black milking cow. The neck had
been distinctly broken and bubbles of froth were still coming from
the nose. But the tiger had not eaten a morsel, evidently having
been disturbed by the herdsman, or perhaps by the buffaloes,
which had been grazing along with the cattle.

It was now 6 p.m. and rapidly growing dark. Unfortunately,

there was no tree at this spot, and a few minutes’ search made it
evident we would either have to abandon the kill or risk a ground
shot at the tiger when it returned.

Alfie was too keen even to hear of abandoning the kill, so with
the help of the herdsman I broke a few branches from adjoining
bushes, and made a very rough hide, into which we all clambered
shortly after 6.30 p.m.

It was almost dark by now, and within fifteen minutes the

outline of the dead cow, twenty-five yards away, faded into
obscurity. Although moonless, the stars diffused sufficient light to
enable us to see in the immediate vicinity, but the kill itself was
just out of range.

An hour passed, and then about half-a-mile away I heard the

weird cry of the solitary jackal. Much has .been written and many
theories propounded about this strange phenomenon of the forests
the lone jackal. Jackals usually wander in packs near the outskirts
of towns and villages, the precincts of which they enter at night in
search of offal. Their chorus cry, headed by a leader, is distinctive,
familiar to the people of India, and sounds something like :
‘Oooooooh! Ooo-where? Ooowhere? Ooo-where-where-where ?
Here! Here! Here! Here! Here! Heee-re! Heeee-re! Heee-jah! Heee-
yah! Heee-ee-ee-yah! Here-Here-Here-Here-Heeeee-yah. yah! yah!
yah.’

The lone jackal, however, although a jackal of the same species

in every sense of the word, adopts a very different call. His
solitary, long-drawn, ‘Ba-loo-ah! Baa-oooo-ah! had earned him a
reputation, coupled with endless superstitions, fables and jungle-
lore. But from this maze of conjecture two theories stand out. The
first is that this jackal accompanies a tiger or panther, generally
the former, which it leads to a kill by its weird cry, claiming as its
share of the strange partnership a bite at the remains after the
rightful owner has gorged its fill. The second theory is that the
lone jackal attaches itself to a particular carnivore, which it
follows at a very safe distance, most tenaciously, in order to make
certain of regular meals at what is left over from kills every time
his patron feeds. Whichever of the two theories is correct, the
presence and cry of a lone jackal is a certain indication of the
proximity of a tiger or panther, a fact of which I have had personal
corroboration in many forest areas of India.

Therefore, the cry of the lone jackal told us that night, in as

definite a way as if we had seen the tiger itself, that the cattle-
slayer was approaching. About ten minutes elapsed and then we
heard a distinct ‘Ugha-ugh! Ugh!’ in the direction of, and beyond,
the kill. The tiger had arrived! Softly I nudged Alfie’s leg, but he
was all attention. Time passed, and we heard a slight crackle in
the scrub followed by a faint thud and dragging sound.

Alfie depressed the torch switch and a bright beam of light

flared out. Unfortunately, with the uncertain back ground, he
misjudged the spot where the kill was lying, and shone a little too
far to the left. The warning was enough for the tiger, and with a
guttural ‘Wrr-oof! Wrroof it sprang back into the shelter of the
undergrowth.

We remained an hour longer, but I knew it was time wasted, and

that the tiger would not return. At the end of this time we heard a
faint ‘A-oongh! Aungh-ha! O-o-on-o-o-n!’ as the tiger crossed a
ridge over a mile away, leaving us to ourselves.

Ruefully we packed up and returned to the car, only to find that

Alfie had mislaid the switch-key. While searching, the night bus,
carrying passengers from the town of Lingadhalli to Birur, passed
us. Then Alfie found the key, and we followed in the wake of the
bus.

Arriving at the spot where we had constructed our hideout for

the panther, we were surprised to see, reflected in the glow of the
headlights of the bus before us, the eyes of the leopard which had
now returned and was devouring its kill. At the same time the
driver of the bus saw the eyes, and brought the ponderous vehicle
to a halt with a screech of brakes, and a cloud of suffocating dust
which enveloped us behind.

Alfie and I got down, walked abreast of the bus and located the
panther sneaking away half-across the intervening field. He fired
and the animal sprang into the air with a sharp ‘ Arrr-aarh ! and
then streaked across the field like greased lightning.

Too late we realised that we had done the wrong thing. Alfie
should have got back again in our hideout and I should have
driven away in the wake of the bus. The leopard would
undoubtedly have returned to its kill within minutes of the
departure of the two vehicles, and given Alfie an easy shot. As
matters stood, I had not counselled correctly, and we had now a
wounded leopard on our hands.
 But it was no use crying over spilt milk, so we returned to Birur,
to spend the night at the Travellers’ Bungalow Next morning
found us back at the spot, and after casting around I found a faint
blood-trail which began to make itself evident only at the extreme
end of the field, increasing as we entered the dense undergrowth.
Here we were confronted with a tough proposition. The leopard
had evidently been hit in the flank, and it had taken time for the
blood to flow down the animal’s side and drip to the ground,
which is why it only appeared as a blood-trail at the end of the
field. Thereafter it had dripped freely, while the animal had
crawled into the densest undergrowth, consisting of lantana and
‘wait-a-bit’ shrubs, where it was impossible to follow except on
hands and knees. A time-worn wild pig trail led through this
undergrowth, and the leopard had passed along it, as was evident
by the copious blood-trail he left.

On hands and knees, and pushing my cocked .405 Win Chester

before me as I progressed, I crawled in the wake of the wounded
beast with Alfie bringing up the rear, as a safeguard against a
flank attack, or one from behind. We had progressed about
seventy-five yards in this fashion when, without warning, the
leopard, which had been lying up at the next bend in the trail,
saw fit to launch his attack. There was hardly room for a miss,
and I hit him almost at muzzle-length, the soft-nosed bullet
smashing his skull and completely removing the rear segment of
the brain pan. He died in front of me, the fluid from his brain
oozing from his shattered skull.

We remained at Birur a full ten days, but in all this time only
one further kill occurred, and that on the forenoon of the seventh
day at a place six miles down the Yemmaydoddi channel. By the
time that word of the incident was brought to us and we arrived at
the spot, it was late evening and we found that vultures had
completely demolished the kill, no precaution having been taken
to hide it with leaves. A tree overlooked the remains at about
forty yards distance, and Alfie sat in a crotch till midnight, but
the tiger did not put in an appearance.

Thereafter nothing happened, as I have said, and on the

morning of the eleventh day we left for Bangalore.

Time passed. Then one dark night along the road from
Lingadhalli to Birur motored a quartette of ‘Car-shikaris’—people
who shoot from their car with the aid of spotlights, never so much
as setting foot to the ground when passing through the forests. Of
tracking, the science of big-game shooting, and the beauties of the
jungle and Mother Nature, they know nothing and care less. For
them, the highest form of sport lies in casting intense beams of
light from their sealed-beam spotlights into the bordering forest
and discharging a volley of rifle and gunshots at whatever eyes
might catch and reflect the brilliance of their sealed beams. As to
what animal they fire at, male, female or young, they do not care,
for they are filled only with the lust to kill or wound. Needless to
say, such activities are against all existing regulations, but they
often take place nevertheless.

And so it transpired that, when about four miles from Birur,

they picked up the large fiery white eyes of a tiger as it crested a
bank that bordered the road.

Two shots rang out and the tiger sprang away, its lower jaw
smashed at the extremity by a rifle bullet, while the other shot
had gone wide. Needless to say the ‘car shikaris’ did not stop to
investigate, nor did they return next morning to trail the wounded
beast and put it out of its misery. They merely went on their way,
seeking for other eyes at which to fire.

The wounded tiger must have suffered intense agony for the
next two months, nor could it eat properly. Being unable to
maintain a death-grip on its prey with a badly-healed broken
lower-jaw, it was unable to procure its usual food in the form of
game or cattle.

One day, about three months later, it attempted to secure a goat

from a herd that had been driven to graze in the forest. With
infinite caution it stalked the herd, and had just sprung upon a fat
nanny, to kill her with a powerful blow from its paws, instead of
the usual neck-breaking process with the jaw, when the audacious
herdsman, standing close by, flung his staff. The chance aim
proved true in this instance, and the staff caught the tiger a
flanking blow. Enraged, it charged at the herdsman, the paw-blow
substitute again proving eminently successful in almost
completely scalping the unfortunate man while still alive. His
scream of terror and agony was cut short by another powerful
blow of the forepaw, which this time crushed the man’s skull as if
it had been an egg.

The man collapsed, leaving the tiger the choice of two victims
to eat, the goat or a human being. It hesitated over the carcase of
the latter, and licked the blood that oozed from the smashed skull.
As if to make a fair comparison it then went across to the nanny,
which it seized by the neck and after a moment began to carry
away into the jungle thickets. But within a few paces, and for no
accountable reason, it stopped, dropped the nanny, walked across
to the dead herdsman, and seizing him by a shoulder, disappeared
into the all-concealing fastnesses of the surrounding forest.

The dreaded man-eater of Yemmaydoddi was thus created, and

his reign of stark terror had commenced. Thereafter, deaths
attributable to this beast occurred within an area of about 250
square miles, ranging from Birur, Lingadhalli and up to
Bhagavadkatte on the north, across to Santaveri on the Baba
Budan Mountains on the west, and southwards past the Ironkere
Lake to Sakrepatna and back to Birur.
 While human kills followed each other with alarmingly
increasing regularity, they were spaced along a definite beat and
had the distinctive mark that every victim had been killed by a
powerful blow of the paw and not die by usual fatal jaw grip.
Further, the fact that the tiger was unable to use its lower jaw
effectively was amply evident through examination of the various
corpses, to none of which was it the man-eater’s custom to return
for a second meal. The flesh had been scraped from them in a
peculiar way, obviously by the upper-jaw working alone on the
strips of human flesh which this animal would lay bare with its
powerful claws to facilitate the difficult task of eating.

With the advent of the man-eater, the activities of the erstwhile

very energetic cattle-killing tiger which had been operating along
the Yemmaydoddi and Lingadhalli routes, ceased abruptly,
leaving room for the conclusion that it was this cattle-lifter, and
none other, that had now developed into a man-eater. The story of
the ‘car-shikaris’ did not become known for some time, till one of
them, in a 160 Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue moment of
boastful hilarity, revealed that they had fired at and wounded a
tiger on the Birur-Lingadhalli Road. A subsequent piecing together
of these facts brought the story to light as we now know it.

As I have said, the man-eater followed an almost well-defined

beat, killing at the outskirts of villages and hamlets bordering the
places I have named, and in regular succession. These facts I
gathered upon reading the reports that appeared in the Press
regarding the beast’s activities, and by marking off on my forest
map the names of these places and the dates on which people had
been killed.

The centre of this region, which the tiger had chosen as a

regular beat, comprised the rocky and heavily-forested slopes of
the foot-hill range, topped by the hill called Hogar Khan, some
4,500 feet in height. I concluded that these fastnesses, almost
without population, sheltered the tiger, that from them it made
forays into the more populous areas in a series of almost regular
calls. A study of the dates of past killings revealed that the animal
almost regularly returned along its rounds every third or fourth
month. The total number of killings had by this time reached
twenty-seven.

In making my attempt to shoot this animal, I decided to operate

at the village of Hogarehalli, which lay almost midway between
Birur and Lingadhalli, and was only three miles and a half from
the base of Mount Hogar Khan itself through downwardly sloping
scrub jungle. I selected this area primarily because I was fairly
well-acquainted with the geography of the surrounding forest, and
was fairly well-known to the inhabitants, from whom I could
expect reasonable cooperation. Further, the village of Hogarehalli
was, as I have said, near to the foothills of Hogar Khan, where I
was sure the tiger had its headquarters. Most important of all, this
village had not escaped losing a life every time the tiger passed on
his rounds. In other words it was almost a certain call for him.

I arrived at Hogarehalli a full fortnight before the close of the

three-month cycle, that is within two to six weeks of the next
projected visit. Thus, I gave myself plenty of time to make
inquiries into the details and nature of the various killings, and to
arrive at a plan of circumventing this brute if possible.

The village itself is fairly large and although not very heavily
populated, contains houses of a permanent nature, constructed
from stone of reddish hue which abounds in the vicinity,
occurring in the form of flakes and varying in size from the palm
of one’s hand to an area of several square feet. Hogarehalli is also
old; it dates from distant times and possesses two ancient and
solidly-built temples. It is bounded on the west, south-west and
north-west by the dense scrub leading to Hogar Khan, and on the
south by a large and beautiful lake that abounds with geese, wild
duck and teal in the winter months, to the south of which a track
leads to the Yemmaydoddi water-channel about three miles away.
To the south-east lies a belt of dense plantations of coconut and
banana trees, interspersed with the tall slim stems of the areca-
nut, the whole being thickly matted below by growths of the
betel-vine, the leaves of which are liberally chewed by Indians
throughout the peninsula. This area consists of very moist land,
naturally low-lying and irrigated by a channel from the lake to
the south of the village. Southward of Hogarehalli lie a few
scattered rice fields, and then south-eastwards and eastwards and
northwards fields of dry crops, fed only by the monsoon rains,
extending up to the Birur-Lingadhalli road, about a mile and half
away.

As you may have guessed by now, the majority of kills occurred

in the scrub-belt to the west, south-west and northwest, while two
had taken place in the heart of the coconut plantation itself, one
of the victims being a cousin of the owner. The remaining and
more open areas had been avoided by the man-eater. Furthermore,
the kills had taken place in the late afternoon in the majority of
cases, as the inhabitants had, since the killings commenced,
cultivated the healthy habit of securing themselves indoors before
sundown. The tiger’s pug-marks had shown, on several occasions,
that he had entered the outskirts of the village in early morning,
but that the stoutly-built houses and solid wooden doors had
prevented him, at least so far, from effecting any nocturnal
entries.

It was difficult to formulate a plan of action in these

circumstances. I knew that once the tiger killed he would move on
and not visit Hogarehalli again for another three or four months.
At the same time, it was humanly impossible for me to anticipate
where the next man would be attacked and killed. The only
remaining and obvious line of action, therefore, was for me to
attempt to attract the tiger to myself by acting as bait, a
procedure which, you may be quite well assured, I felt most
reluctant to follow. Nevertheless, it appeared to be the only way.
 Since my arrival at Hogarehalli a week had passed in obtaining
all these details, studying the circumstances in which the various
kills had taken place and visiting the spots where they had
actually occurred. The time was now fast approaching when the
man-eater’s next visit fell due.

I found that the victims in the scrub area to the west had been
either woodcutters or herdsmen grazing cattle. Not one of the
cattle had been harmed by the man-eater, although an occasional
wandering panther had taken its toll. An idea then occurred to me
which, I flattered myself, was quite ingenious. Selecting a tree
about half a mile inside this scrub, I arranged for a chair to be tied
within its branches about fifteen feet from the ground and out of
range of the tiger’s leap. I then procured a stout piece of wood,
about six feet in length and three inches in diameter, one end of
which I suspended from a branch by a stout cord while the other
end rested, at an angle, against a branch of the tree below me. To
this end I tied another piece of string, which I passed through a
loop on to the front portion of my shoe. It was thus possible for me
to remain comfortably seated in a chair, armed and prepared,
while by merely moving my foot up and down on its heel, I would
cause the piece of wood suspended below to strike against the
branch it rested upon, emulating the sound made by a woodcutter,
although, of course, considerably less in volume. When one foot
became tired, I could change the string to the other foot. I even
left this string long enough to operate by hand, when, by
increasing the length of the pull, I could increase the swing of the
wood and consequently the noise of the blows. Above my head, as
shelter from the sun, I arranged a canopy of the leaves of the tree
itself, without cutting them. It was also comforting to know that I
could smoke, eat, drink, cough and move about in my chair
without any need for cramped concealment. In fact, as I was
acting as bait myself, the more I advertised my presence, the
greater chance would there be of the tiger attempting to stalk or
attack me.
 The patel or headman of Hogarehalli village, Moodlagiri
Gowda, gave me his fullest co-operation. I explained my plan to
him and stressed that from the time I started operating from my
perch, it would be his business, at all costs, to see that nobody
entered the scrub jungle, or the coconut plantation, thus ensuring
that the tiger had no bait to attack but myself. This he promised to
do, and forthwith broadcast to the village, and to the surrounding
areas, under threat of dire consequences, that nobody was to be
about after midday, especially in the direction of the scrub jungle
and plantation. There was enough hay and dried grass around the
village on which to feed the cattle for a fortnight to three weeks,
by which time I hoped the tiger would have put in an appearance.
The patel’s instructions were all the more popular because nobody
wished to die beneath the paws of the tiger, and because it
provided the villagers with the attractive prospect of being
completely idle for the next three weeks.

Precisely on the tenth day after my arrival at Hogarehalli, I

began to put my plan to the test. After an early lunch I arrived at
the tree shortly before n a.m. armed with water-bottle,
sandwiches and pipe, and of course my .405, and my first day’s
vigil commenced. Moving my foot to create the tapping sound
was, I soon discovered, a monotonous and tiring pastime, added to
which the reflected rays of the noon-day sun caused me great
discomfort and proved extremely tiring to the eyes, gazing as I
must, through the shimmering heat haze, at the scrub jungle
around me. I remained on my perch till sundown and continued to
do so for the next week, without hearing or seeing any indication
of the tiger’s return. By this time I had completely familiarised
myself with the position of every large bush within my range of
vision, and had mentally mapped out the various lines of
approach, consistent with available cover, the tiger was likely to
take in stalking me on my tree, that is, when and if he returned.

After the first unproductive week, and to relieve the deadly

monotony I had experienced, I purchased a couple of cheap novels
from the small bookstall at Birur Railway Station, which I read
while sitting on my perch, automatically operating the string that
pulled the tapping wood, and relying on my hearing to tell me of
anything that was happening while I read. Thus I reached the end
of the second week, still without any indication of the tiger’s
return.

It will be appreciated that by this time I was growing impatient;

I was, in fact, very fed up with my forced inactivity. I racked my
brains to think of some better plan but failed to arrive at any
conclusion offering a more likely line of action than the one I was
following.

We were now in the fourth month, and the return of the tiger
was due at any time, provided of course he was still following his
beat. I had arranged with the deputy commissioner at
Chikmagalur, the headquarters town of the district, to keep me
posted of all human kills in the area through his subordinate, the
amildar at Kadur, which was only four miles from Birur. A runner
was to be despatched to me as soon as any news was received of a
kill, and sure enough, two days later the runner arrived from the
amildar, telling me the tiger had killed at a hamlet on the
Chikmagalur-Sakrepatna road four days earlier. The very next day
the runner came again, to inform me of the slaying of a cowherd
on the northern shores of the Ironkere Lake. This was five miles
from the Madak Lake, which in turn was about nine miles from
Hogarehalli.

Reports so far had been satisfactory, inasmuch as they definitely

indicated that the tiger was still following his regular beat and
was only some fourteen miles away at the time of the last killing,
two days before the news had reached me. I could therefore expect
that by this time the tiger was very near to the outskirts of
Hogarehalli, if not already there, and as the morrow would make
the third day since he had eaten, there was every hope that he
would be eagerly looking for a fresh victim.
 That evening I told Moodlagiri Gowda to warn the inhabitants
of Hogarehalli and the neighbourhood that the killer was in the
vicinity, and to keep away from the scrub area and the plantation
at all costs.

The next morning found me seated in my accustomed place

even earlier than usual. This time I had not brought a novel, but
concentrated on banging the piece of wood as loudly as I could,
coughing, and moving about on the branch of the tree so as to
show myself as much as possible. In returning to the village that
evening I took the greatest precautions against a surprise attack,
but another two days passed and nothing happened. Nor did I
receive any word regarding further kills.

It now occurred to me that the tiger might have returned to his

fastnesses in the Hogar Khan ridge, or perhaps bypassed
Hogarehalli and gone in a north-westerly direction to Lingadhalli
and Bagavadkatte, or even westwards to Santaveri.

As the weather was comparatively warm and a half-moon had

risen, I determined to spend the entire afternoons and nights of the
next two days in the tree, in the hope that I might thus be afforded
an opportunity of attracting the tiger which undoubtedly would
also be on the move after dark. This would place a still greater
strain on me, tired out as I was with fifteen days of fruitless
sitting. Nevertheless, I determined to undertake the ordeal in a
desperate attempt at success.

The next forenoon found me back again, this time with a basket
containing my dinner, a flask of hot tea, a blanket, water-bottle,
torch and other accoutrements that accompany the night-watcher
who spends long, cramped hours on a tree. I also brought three
tablets of Benzedrine to make sure that I did not fall asleep.

I repeated the same ordeal of tapping all afternoon, and kept it

up until late at night. The jungle was inordinately silent except
for the call of a horned owl, and the faraway bark of a Kakar or
jungle sheep. The moon set by 1.30 a.m. and it became pitch dark
and also very cold. Around 3 o’clock I felt sleepy and swallowed
two out of the three tablets of Benzedrine. Half-an-hour later I
heard a rustle, and then the excited cackle of a hyaena as he
winded or saw me. ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! What-have-we-here? Ha!
Ha!’ he commented, and then slunk on his way in the darkness.

Again silence and darkness, till the pale glow of the false dawn
heralded one hour to sunrise. That hour passed, and then, ‘Whe-e-
e-ew! Kuck-kaya-kaya-khuck’m’ , crowed the grey jungle cock,
greeting the rising sun, as I dropped wearily from my perch, to
struggle back to Hogarehalli and snatch four hours of sleep.

Eleven a.m. found me back again on the tree to continue the

tiresome watch. I had come to the conclusion that I could not
stand much more of it. The hot afternoon passed as usual, the ‘
Tok-tok-tok-tok’ of a green barbet, and the ‘Ko-el! Ko-yel ’ of the
Indian Kweel, which is related to the cuckoo family, being the
only sounds. Evening approached, and a spurfowl, picking among
the dried leaves below a nearby bush cried ‘Kukurrukawack.
Kukurruka-wack ’. There was the excited chatter of a group of
birds colloquially known as the ‘Seven-sisters’ as they prepared to
roost for the night, and as the sun sank below the slopes of Hogar
Khan, a peacock issued his farewell note, ‘Mia-a-oo- Ahoo-Aaow-
Ah-h-o-o-Tar-h-oo’ .

Then the birds of the night took up the cry. ‘Chyeece-Chyeece!

chirped the nightjars, as they flitted overhead, to alter their call to
‘Chuckoo-chuckoo-chuckoo’ , when they perched on the ground
or branches of trees nearby.

Ten o’clock came, and, shortly afterwards a series of calls—

‘Aiow! Aiow! Aiow!’ —from a herd of spotted deer in alarm.
‘Aiow!’ Aiow! they repeated persistently, in warning.
 Undoubtedly a carnivore was on the move, and had been seen or
winded by the watchful hinds, but whether a panther or ordinary
tiger, or the man-eater itself, remained the question to be
answered. I tapped louder and more vigorously with the wood,
hoping the tiger would not ponder as to how this mysterious
woodcutter came to be operating by night.

The minutes dragged on, and then there came abruptly the
strident belling-cry of an alarmed sambar stag not half-a-mile
away: ‘Ponk!-Whee-onk!-Whee-onk!’ he repeated, moving up
towards Hogar Khan.

Then deathly silence reigned again! Continuing the tapping, I

scanned every bush that was visible in the half-moon, mentally
revising the various lines of cover I anticipated the tiger might
take in stalking the tree. Nothing moved along any of these, and
all was still, except for one last ‘Ponk !’ from the sambar, at a
distance.

The strange feeling that something would occur at any moment

came over me, and I felt that I was being watched, yet not a sound
or crackle disturbed the stillness. Tapping away, I coughed, then
moved and finally stood up from my seat, coughing and spitting in
true Indian fashion. Yet not a sound, and then, like a bolt from the
blue, he came!

‘Woof! woof!’ he roared, and an enormous grey mass, as large as

a Shetland pony on wings, appeared as if by magic from behind a
bush barely ten yards away, to charge at the trunk of the tree and
reach the crotch below me.

A great grey head appeared only three yards directly below me; I
depressed the torch switch and fired between the glaring eyes.
With the explosion of the rifle the tiger fell backwards to earth,
emitting a nerve-shattering roar. I put in a second shot. He
acknowledged this, too, with a further roar, and the next second
he was gone. From the scrub a hundred yards away I heard a last
‘Wrrr-uf!’ and then complete silence.

I knew that neither of my shots had missed, but cursed myself,

nevertheless, at not having dropped the animal with, at least, my
second shot. Nevertheless I was certain it had been severely
wounded and could not go very far. I allowed myself to doze for
the rest of the night, and with the rising sun warily returned to
Hogarehalli, to organise plans for following up the wounded beast.

Moodlagiri Gowda rallied splendidly, and while I had a short

rest, followed by hot tea, toast and bacon, arranged with the
owner of a buffalo herd to drive his animals through the bush in
the wake of the wounded tiger in the hope that it would be
induced to reveal its whereabouts when the buffaloes came near.

By 9 a.m., I was back at my tree, accompanied by Moodlagiri,

two scouts, fifteen buffaloes and their owner. First I ascended to
the top of the tree, and tried to locate the tiger, but nothing could
be seen. At the foot of the tree, splashed against the bark, were
flecks of blood from his face or head, as my first bullet hit him.
Behind the bush, where he had retreated, we picked up a copious
blood-trail, showing my second shot had also taken effect.

Thereafter we drove the buffaloes slowly in the direction the

retreating tiger had taken, spreading them out as far as possible
into a rough line. I followed the buffaloes, the two scouts keeping
immediately behind me. Moodlagiri and the owner of the
buffaloes remained in the tree where I had sat.

We had covered about 200 yards when we heard a deep growl.

At the same time the line of buffaloes stopped, and lowered their
heads, horns extended, in the direction from which the growl had
come.

A tree grew a little to my left, and I whispered to one of the

scouts to climb it and see if he could locate the tiger. This he did,
but signalled back to me that he could see nothing. The buffaloes
had meantime backed from the spot, nor could we get them to go
forward. Leaving them there, and the scout still up the tree he had
ascended, the remaining scout and I tiptoed back to Moodlagiri
and instructed him to return to the village and try to collect some
of the village dogs to help us. This he agreed to do, but it was a full
hour and a half before he returned, accompanied by two mongrels
only, saying that these were all he could succeed in collecting. We
now set the dogs on the buffaloes to cause them to move forward,
and so gained twenty-five yards, when the tiger set up a horrible
growling. The buffaloes immediately came to a standstill, while
the curs began yapping vociferously.

Creeping forward for shelter behind the two foremost buffaloes,

I endeavoured to peer between their legs in an attempt to
penetrate the undergrowth and catch a glimpse of the tiger, but
could see nothing. I then attempted to prod the animals forward,
but one of them turned on me suddenly, and I narrowly escaped
the sweep of the long horns.

My position was awkward in the extreme, with a wounded tiger

before me that might charge at any moment, and nervous
buffaloes around, that would defend themselves with their horns
in a united stampede against the tiger, or myself, whichever
provoked them first. Retreating a few steps, I signalled to the
scout, who was still in the tree, to descend. With his and the other
scouts’ help, I then began throwing stones over the buffaloes into
the undergrowth at the point from which the growls had come.
This action was greeted with a fresh outburst of growling, but
nothing we could do would induce the tiger to break cover and
show himself. Nor would he retreat, and this fact indicated that
he was in a bad condition.

Further stoning proving useless, I withdrew the two scouts,

leaving the buffaloes where they were, and with their help, and
accompanied by the two curs, made a wide detour of the jungle,
to come up at the rear of the tiger and about 300 yards beyond it.
From here we advanced very slowly, the scouts under my
instructions climbing every tree and point of vantage as we crept
forward in an endeavour to see the tiger. Thus we covered some
200 yards, when one of the scouts signalled he could see something
from the branch into which he had climbed. Descending, he
whispered he had glimpsed a white and brown object beneath a
bush about fifty yards away and roughly half-way to where the
buffaloes were standing.

Climbing into the branch with him, he indicated a clump of

bushes, at which I first stared in vain before I saw an indistinct
brown and white patch just beyond the clump. Aiming at this
object, I fired, and the tiger, mistaking the direction of our
approach, charged the buffaloes with a series of short roars. The
nearest was taken by surprise as the tiger leapt on him. The
remainder got together and rushed forward with lowered horns.
Meanwhile, the buffalo which had been attacked bellowed with
pain and fear and endeavoured to shake his adversary off. The
tiger remained perched on the buffalo, snarling and growling
vociferously.

From my point of vantage in the tree the scene was clear to me,
but I dared not risk a shot for fear of killing the buffalo, or one of
the herd that was fast approaching.

And then the remaining buffaloes reached the spot and the
scene became a medley of tossing horns and struggling brown
bodies. Finding his position precarious the tiger leapt off the
buffalo he was straddling and rushed back to cover, behind a bush
only twenty-five yards away. I could clearly see him, crouched
and watching the buffaloes. A single shot behind the left shoulder
gave him his quietus. Later, on examining the tiger, I found that
my first bullet of the night before had struck his right cheek, some
two inches below and to the right of his eye, passing through his
flesh and shattering his cheek-bone. My second shot had cut
through his belly, and in passing out had formed a gaping hole
through which his entrails were trailing. My third and recent shot
had penetrated his heart. The broken jaw, smashed by the ‘car
shikaris’ months ago, had healed badly, thus explaining why the
animal had been unable to bite properly and had turned man-
eater in consequence.

The attacked buffalo had been badly mauled by the powerful

claws, but not bitten. Compensation satisfied the owner; I am
certain the animal recovered from the wound, as buffaloes are
invariably much hardier than cattle and can survive severe
physical injuries.

Thus ended the career of ‘The Yemmaydoddi Man- Eater’, and

while the district was well rid of a murderous and unrelenting
killer, it must be remembered that the irresponsible and
unsporting shot from the ‘car shikaris’ was the root cause of all
the trouble, and to their discredit must be laid the twenty-nine
innocent human lives that were lost.
 8

The Killer of Jalahalli

HIS is not the story of a man-eating tiger, nor even of a man-

T eating panther, but of an ordinary leopard of very average
size, who fought bravely in defence of its own life, fought cleverly
and effectively, killing three persons and mauling eleven others in
the process, dying gamely at last, undefeated and after days of
suffering.

In 1938, prior to the outbreak of Second World War, the village of

Jalahalli, situated barely seven miles north-west of Bangalore,
near the road to Tumkur, was an unimportant hamlet, perhaps
boasting 150 houses, some of which were made of brick and others
of thatch. As the city of Bangalore is the headquarters of the
government of Mysore, the Forest Department of that state, which
is rich in forests of both evergreen and monsoon varieties, had its
headquarters in Bangalore. The systematic loss and destruction of
various forms of natural forest woods by insect and other pests was
then engaging the close attention of the government, and a
plantation of forest seedlings had been set within a mile of
Jalahalli, covering about four square miles of land, in which
sandalwood, rosewood, red rosewood and other trees had been
grown in natural array, in order to study the action of the various
insect pests (which had also been introduced), in close reach of
the laboratories at Bangalore. These plants had grown to an
average height of ten feet, while the usual undergrowth of spear-
grass, lantana, and occasional wait-a-bit thorn thickly carpeted
the ground, to form dense thickets that had become the home of
innumerable snakes, quite a number of rabbits, an occasional pea-
fowl, and of course partridge and quail in considerable quantity.
 Into this area one day strayed a wandering leopard from the
rocky hills of Magadi, twenty miles away. It began its sojourn by
living on the rabbits, rats and other small inmates of the forest
plantation, but soon learned that it had a ready larder in the
nearby hamlet of Jalahalli, in the form of goats and village dogs,
which it began to eat with irksome regularity.

All went well till one day the leopard destroyed a goat
belonging to the fat police-daffedar (or sergeant) of Jalahalli. This
act the official held to be an affront to his dignity and rank, and
he swore to avenge it with the death of the leopard.

The native police force had been armed with service .303 rifles,
from which the magazines were removed, so that only one round
could be fired at a time. This had been done as a precautionary
measure against over-enthusiastic policemen firing round after
round into mobs during local riots, which are sometimes common
at relatively slight provocation.

So the daffedar sat up in a tree over his dead goat, armed with a
single-shot service .303. Along came the panther at sundown,
quite unsuspectingly, to receive a wound in its left foreleg, for the
daffedar’s aim had become unaccountably unsteady due to
equally unaccountably shaky hands.

The panther bounded away with a grunt, the fat daffedar

shivered through the night in his tree, descended next morning,
examined the ground for blood but found none, and concluded
that he had very fortunately missed the leopard. Anyhow, he
figured that it had been taught a lesson and would leave his goats
severely alone in future.

This happened on a Friday night. The next day, Saturday,

passed uneventfully, and that evening the villagers decided on
conducting a large-scale rabbit beat the following morning. Yards
and yards of two-foot high rabbit-net were laid along the edge of
the Forest Department plantation, and around some three acres of
casurina trees that adjoined it. The beat next morning was to be
conducted by about a hundred villagers, accompanied by dogs and
armed with short wooden clubs. The rabbits would run into the
nets, and while struggling to get free, would be clubbed to death.

All went according to plan till the casurina clump was reached,
where, to the surprise and horror of all nearby, out jumped a
leopard instead of a harmless rabbit. It rushed the ring of beaters
in the near vicinity, and in less time than it takes to write, had
mauled six of them in various degrees of intensity from a scratch
or two to a regular bite, or a deep raking from the razor-sharp
claws.

The beaters scattered in every direction and the panther

returned to the casurinas.

Nearby lived Hughey Plunkett and his mother. He had been a

hunter of considerable repute in his days, having shot a round
dozen tigers, and perhaps twice that number of panthers, in the
forest areas of Diguvametta in the Kurnool District of the Madras
Presidency. The dispersed beaters approached him with news of
the leopard, and appealed for help. Hughey had been spending a
late morning in bed, and was in pyjamas. He had not heard about
the incident of the police daffedar’s wounding the leopard, and
scarcely credited the possibility of such an animal having strayed
to within seven miles of the city of Bangalore. Anyhow, to
appease the worrying villagers he slipped an L.G. and a ball
cartridge into the respective barrels of his .12 bore shotgun, and
accompanied them to the casurina belt.

Here he saw the mauled beaters and realised for the first time
that a panther was actually in the vicinity.

A careful stalk through the casurinas commenced, a small

crowd of half-a-dozen men following in a knot at his rear. Hughey
had passed more than half-way through the trees when the
panther made the mistake of showing itself by darting from one
patch of cover to the other. A quick left and right from Hughey
bowled him over, and the animal lay twitching on its side.

Hughey dashed up, trailed by his followers, and then made the
mistake which cost him his life. He touched the now still form
with his foot. The animal came to life, galvanised into action. It
sprang upon Plunkett, fastened its fangs into his upper right arm,
so that he could not use his weapon, while its hind claws raked
him into streaming red ribbons. The men around scattered, only
one of them attempting to beat off the animal with his ridiculous
rabbit club. The panther then left Hughey and sprang upon this
man, whom, together with four others, it clawed and bit before
rushing back to the sheltering casurinas, leaving its own blood-
trail behind.

The scene of carnage can well be imagined, with Plunkett as its

centre. It took quite sixty minutes for the men to pull themselves
together and carry Hughey, who had fainted and whose right arm
hung on by a mere strip of sinew, back to his farmhouse. He bled
profusely during this journey, and I wondered, when following the
trail two days later, that a human being could lose so much blood
and still live.

Mrs Plunkett, with commendable presence of mind, bundled

him into their car, together with four of the more severely
wounded men, and headed for the Bowring Hospital in Bangalore.
The remaining seven mauled villagers were taken to the Victoria
Hospital, also at Bangalore.

Blood transfusion was given to Hughey and an effort made to

save his arm, but when gangrenous symptoms set in the following
day it was amputated. The shock and loss of blood proved too
great for him, and he died the next day in a delirium of fever.
 All this had happened on a Sunday morning. That same
afternoon a wandering goat-herd observed the blood-trail of the
leopard as it entered the outskirts of the Forest Department
plantation, having left the casurina trees, and informed two
brothers living in the village of Jalahalli, named Kalaiah and
Papaiah respectively.

Next morning—Monday—these two brothers very pluckily,

albeit foolishly, determined to follow-up the leopard on their own.
The elder brother, Kalaiah, owned a hammer .12 bore of old
design. The younger brother, Papaiah, had a single-barrelled
muzzle-loader.

Loading up, these two brave men, shoulder to shoulder, followed

the blood-spoor into the undergrowth of the plantation.

Wandering along like this they became separated, and in a

twinkling the leopard pounced upon Kalaiah, throwing him to the
ground and biting through bladder and testicles with savage
ferocity. The force of the pounce had knocked the .12 bore from his
hands, and as he lay screaming with the animal on top of him, his
younger brother rushed to the rescue, discharging his muzzle-
loader into the panther as it lay on top of Kalaiah. How he did not
also shoot his brother remains a mystery.

The leopard, now still further wounded, left Kalaiah and

pounced on Papaiah, who fell on his face, the fangs tearing
through his back into his lung, while the talons of the hindfeet
raked the unfortunate man’s buttocks and the backs of his thighs.
The animal then made off.

I was eating lunch that day when a man appeared at my door in

a lather of sweat to give me the news. Hastily, I grabbed rifle,
shotgun and torch and jumped into the car, my wife, not to be
outdone at the last moment, determining to come with me. As I
turned out of the gate of our bungalow on to the main road, I met
Eric Newcombe of the local police force, who was on his way to
visit me. Telling him what had happened and making my
apologies, I endeavoured to get away, but Eric refused to be
excluded from the party and piled into the car also.

It did not take us long to reach Jalahalli, and the sight that met
us there was ludicrous in the extreme. Every inhabitant, from the
youngest to the oldest, had come out. A vast concourse had
approached the edge of the plantation in order to catch a glimpse
of the leopard, if possible. These had all taken to the branches of
trees for personal safety, until the trees in the vicinity literally
bent almost to breaking-point with the load of humanity they
carried. But nobody had gone forward to rescue Kalaiah and
Papaiah, who still lay in the plantation where they had fallen four
hours earlier, feebly shouting for help.

The first thing was obviously to succour these men, so we

recruited a dozen carriers and entered the bush. Kalaiah we found
in a very bad way and in extreme agony. Bubbles of blood were
oozing from Papaiah’s punctured lung.

We conveyed them to the car, and I had started the engine to

carry them to hospital, when a villager dashed up, with quite the
longest spear I had ever seen in my life (of what practical use it is
impossible to say, being upwards of twelve feet in length) and the
news that he had just seen the panther slink into a big bush 300
yards away, where we could easily shoot it if we would only go
with him.

I am aware that what happened hereafter was my own fault, in

that I failed in my duty of first conveying the injured men to
hospital. I plead, however, that the excitement of the situation
and the temptation of this easy opportunity to bag the panther
overcame my better judgement and caused me to go after the
animal. Eric Newcombe insisted in accompanying me, so I handed
him my .12 bore shotgun, loaded with L.G. in the left barrel and a
lethal cartridge in the right, together with a few spare shells,
while I retained the .405 rifle for my own use. This again was
another mistake, as future events proved. I should have armed
myself with the shotgun instead. We were accompanied only by
the individual with the exaggerated spear, the remainder of our
party having melted away. My wife brought up the rear, as a
spectator, at a distance.

We approached to within twenty-five yards of the big patch of

scrub not one particular bush as had been stated by the spearman
into which the panther was seen to have crawled, and I told Eric
to move over about thirty yards to my right, so as to avoid each
other’s line of fire, while completely covering the animal’s every
possible escape from the vicinity. I then instructed the spear-
holder to stone the scrub, which he did very thoroughly for about
twenty minutes. However, we heard and saw nothing. I confess
that I then became very doubtful whether the panther was in the
neighbourhood at all. A little later Eric called out that he could
see right into the scrub and that the panther was not there.

By this time some bolder spirits from the crowd had joined us.
One of them was accompanied by a dog, which we tried to induce
to enter the scrub, in the hope that its sense of smell would locate
the leopard. But the dog refused to have anything to do with this
proposition, and remained on the outskirts, barking at the
undergrowth.

This made me revise my opinion with regard to the panther

being absent. Eric had by this time, however, become impatient
and approached to within a few yards of the scrub, which he then
commenced to stone on his own account. Nothing happened when
his first few stones fell.

Then he threw a large one, which evidently landed directly on,

or very near, the panther. There was a loud ‘Augh! Augh!’ and like
a streak of yellow light the beast shot from out of the scrub. He
had no time to raise the shotgun, but nervous reaction evidently
compelled him to press his trigger-finger and thus probably save
his life. The gun went off, blowing a hole in the ground before him
and undoubtedly scaring the panther considerably. The next
second it landed upon him, sweeping the gun out of his grasp,
while Eric and panther, in close embrace, rolled down a short
steep bank of khud and into the long spear-grass that clothed a
small adjacent nullah.

All this time Eric was shouting to me to shoot and the leopard
growled horribly. I could only see the violent agitation of the
spear-grass. I rushed forward, afraid of risking a shot from my
heavy rifle at such close quarters, which would pierce both the
leopard and Eric, tangled up as they were together.

Then the panther left Newcombe and sprang into the lantana
bordering the khud. I fired, and as subsequent events proved,
scored but a furrowing wound along the top of the beast’s neck.

I expected Eric to lie prone after that encounter but was

gratified to see him spring to his feet and race in the opposite
direction, at really marathon speed. I have often chided him on
his running abilities since that day, and it is, with him, a very sore
point. He had been bitten right through his side, one of the ribs
being cracked by a fang, while his thighs and arms were badly
lacerated by the sharp and powerful claws.

We called it a day then and went to the Bowring Hospital, the

seats of the car being soaked with human blood by the time we got
the three wounded men there. The rest of that evening was spent
in writing statements for the police, and in answering
innumerable questions, some of which were inane.

Poor Kalaiah died that night in extreme pain. His brother

Papaiah recovered after a month, having narrowly missed
succumbing to the injury to his lung. Eric Newcombe, due to the
intervention of Providence and a good constitution, did not run
even the slightest temperature and made a complete recovery in a
fortnight.

The next day, Tuesday, saw several hunters after the wounded
animal. There was Lloydsworth of the Tobacco Factory, a famed
shikari who had shot many tigers and panthers, and Beck, an
equally renowned shot and big game hunter. Never a trace could
we find, however. All blood-trail had petered out, and the panther
had vanished, seemingly into thin air.

That evening it killed a herdsboy, aged about twelve years, who

had ventured too near the spot where, unknown to him, the beast
was lying. Incidentally, this spot was over a mile from the locality
where the earlier incidents had taken place. The boy was killed
outright; the panther had seized his throat and bitten through the
jugular and wind-pipe.

The morning of the fifth day, Wednesday, found me at the spot

where the herdsboy had been killed. We made every endeavour to
follow the wounded animal which, although very severely hit,
had ceased bleeding by this time, due to the congealing of the
blood, at least externally. I floundered about in the dense grass
and lantana, which grew thicker as the ground sloped into a
hollow. Half-way down this slope the leopard heard or saw me
coming, and began to growl its warning against further approach.
This was fortunate, for otherwise I might not be here to tell you
this story. The undergrowth being almost impenetrable, I called a
halt to further advance, which would have been suicidal and
decided to await events, which I was almost certain would end in
a day or two with the death of the panther from its many major
wounds.

Later that day occurred an amusing incident. The police had

turned out in force from Bangalore. Some thirty of them, armed
with single-shot service rifles, had been crowded into a police-van,
which was protected all around by expanded metal meshing
against stoning by mobs during times of riot. The driver of this
improvised armoured car had been instructed to scour the
plantation till the enemy was located and brought to book by the
riflemen. This he proceeded to do to the best of his ability, but,
not knowing where he was going in the long spear-grass and
tangled undergrowth, he eventually succeeded in half-capsizing
the vehicle in a concealed, overgrown ditch. The driver and men
were imprisoned inside and shouted lustily for help. None of them
would venture out, for was there not a man-killing leopard loose
that would kill and eat the first to alight?

Hearing cries at a distance, we approached the spot and released

the imprisoned representatives of the law, who then managed to
set their vehicle back on its wheels and return to their barracks,
hardly any the worse for their adventure. Before leaving, they
stated they had heard growls in the undergrowth, but this I put
down to a bad attack of mass nerves.

I had made it a point to be at the plantation daily from 7 a.m.

till sunset, and at about noon on the sixth day, which was
Thursday, I saw vultures gathering in the sky. Watching them
through my binoculars, I saw them alight in the midst of the small
valley that divided the plantation, the same one, in fact, as that
into which I had tried to force my way the previous day.

I knew these sagacious birds had found something dead. It was

either the panther itself, or something that had been killed by the
panther. Cautiously I forced myself through the dense lantana and
clinging wait-a-bit thorn, expecting any moment to hear the
guttural coughs of the leopard as it charged at me. Nothing
happened, however, and at last, lacerated by the thorns, I reached
the valley. I had gone about fifty yards when four vultures rose
from the ground with a heavy flapping of wings. Advancing, I
came on a small pool of water, with the panther lying dead beside
it, in the act of drinking.
 The unfortunate animal had bled internally a great deal and
suffered the pangs of thirst and fever. The exertion of crawling to
water and drinking must have increased the bleeding, for it had
vomited a great gout of thick blood into the water before dying,
and this stained half the pool a clouded crimson. The vultures had
just settled upon my arrival and fortunately had had no time to
destroy the skin.

Going back to Jalahalli, I soon found the men to carry the dead
animal to my car, lashed to a pole. I took it to Yesvantapur Police
Station to make an official report. Here I was delayed for three
hours while awaiting the arrival of the necessary officials, much
to my annoyance, as I feared the skin might spoil from not being
removed from the carcase.

At last I was given permission to take away the dead animal,

which you may be sure I lost no time in doing. While skinning, I
had ample opportunity to piece together the sequence of facts that
had resulted in the death of three persons, and the several
maulings.

The wound in the leopard’s left foreleg, which had been

inflicted by the .303 bullet of the fat police daffedar, was crawling
with worms and completely gangrenous. Hughey Plunkett’s
shotgun ball had passed completely through the animal, cutting
through the stomach without inflicting an immediately fatal
wound. A single L.G. pellet from the other barrel was imbedded in
the bone of the forehead, and had evidently stunned the animal
completely, allowing Plunkett to walk up and touch it. Five slugs
from Papaiah’s musket were embedded in its side, but all too far
back to cause immediate effect. Lastly, my own thoroughly
ineffective rifle shot, as the beast bounded away from Newcombe,
had scored but a deep furrow across the back of the animal’s neck.

I produced this skin at court, in support of a claim for

government assistance by Kalaiah’s family for the loss of their
breadwinner, and the gift of a plot of land for their sustenance. I
am glad to record that, in the course of time, the dead man’s
daring was recognised.

With the advent of Second World War, Jalahalli underwent a

radical change. The Forest Department plantation and the
casurina trees were cut down and thousands of buildings
appeared, first to house Italian prisoners of war, then as one of the
largest hospital bases for the projected invasion of Burma and
Malay, and latterly to house Air Force personnel, being one of the
main training bases in India for her rapidly expanding air arm.

The skin of this panther now adorns the hall of my bungalow. I

cannot help but record the deep admiration and respect in which I
hold this beast. For while others killed in stealth, taking their
victims unawares, this leopard fought cleanly and courageously in
defence of its own life, against great odds, though it was severely
wounded.
 9

The Hermit of Devarayandurga

E WAS called ‘the hermit’, because in many ways he

H resembled one, both in the choice of his abode, and in his
eccentric habits.

For he was an unusual tiger. Although no man-eater, and never

once accredited with eating human flesh, he was of a particularly
ferocious disposition and very hostile to the human race. He killed
three people—two men and a woman—within the short space of
five days, and all on the impulse of the moment and out of sheer
aggressiveness. Further, his habits were unlike those of a tiger, in
that he ate goats and village dogs, which tigers rarely do,
especially dogs. And then again, he suddenly appeared in the
scrub-jungles clothing the hill of Devarayandurga, six miles from
the town of Tumkur and within fifty miles of the city of
Bangalore. Devarayandurga had not held a tiger for many a
decade, being the home only of a few wild-pig and pea fowl. The
area did not boast a regular forest, but was covered with very
ordinary scrub-jungle of lantana bushes and wait-a-bit thorn.
Moveover, the hilltop was very rocky, and held a few small caves.
In these an occasional small panther was known to take up
residence, ousting the previous occupant, usually a porcupine, by
the simple expedient of devouring it. But the caves hardly
provided sufficient shelter, let alone a safe hiding place, for a large
animal like a tiger. The whole area was but an island scrub among
flat, cultivated fields, which no normal tiger would ever risk
crossing either by day or night.

But this is exactly what ‘the hermit’ did, for cross these fields it
must have done, to reach the doubtful and scanty shelter provided
by Devarayandurga hillock.
 At first no one knew that a tiger had appeared. The few villages
that are scattered in the area began to suffer the loss of an unusual
number of goats and dogs, and the loss was ascribed to a panther,
till the tiger’s pug-marks were picked up one morning traversing a
ploughed field near one of these villages. Within the next two days
a large cow was killed that had been left out to graze all-night
within the hitherto safe outskirts of the village. The owner of this
cow, an old woman, was very attached to the animal, and when
she heard next morning that it had been killed, she proceeded to
the spot, a quarter of a mile distant, where she squatted down
beside her dead protege and commenced to weep and wail aloud,
calling heaven to witness the great sorrow she felt, and the loss
she had suffered, with the death of her beloved cow. The other
members of the small family had accompanied the old lady to the
spot, and had sat around a while in silent sympathy, to listen to
her weeping and wailing. But they soon grew tired of it, besides
having other things to do, and one by one they returned to the
village, leaving the old woman alone beside her dead cow, still
weeping with unabated vigour.

It was now 11 a.m., and a bright sun shone down on the scene.
No ordinary tiger would have returned to its kill at such a time, in
that glare and heat, and to a place disturbed by such noisy
wailing, but ‘the hermit’ was not an ordinary tiger. This tiger did
return and saw the old woman beside the kill, rocking herself to
and fro while she cried aloud. The beast concluded that this noise
was intolerable and must be stopped. So out it sprang on the old
woman, and with a simple blow of a paw put an abrupt end to her
life. It then dragged the cow some yards away and ate a hearty
meal. The body of the old woman was untouched, and her
existence apparently forgotten by the tiger.

When she did not return by 4 p.m., her family, judging that she
must have exhausted herself with weeping and fallen asleep, came
to the spot to take her home, when great was their surprise and
horror to find she had been killed, while the tiger had made a
hearty meal of the dead cow and returned into the brushwood.
Rushing pell-mell back to the village, they spread the sad news.
Soon the headman, armed with a muzzle-loader, and
accompanied by two dozen stalwarts carrying a miscellany of
handweapons, came to the spot. They then attempted to follow
the tiger’s trail, but not for long, for the animal had entered the
dense scrub quite close at hand. Being too afraid to enter the
brushwood, they commenced to shout lustily and throw stones,
and the headman discharged two musket shots into the air.
Nothing happened and they turned back in order to carry the body
to the village, when out rushed the tiger and pounced on the last
man of the party, the unfortunate headman, and incidentally the
only member of the group to carry a firearm. He was dead before
he became aware of what had happened.

The party broke and fled to the village, and only late next
morning did they return in great force to recover the two corpses,
both of which had been untouched during the night. The tiger,
however, had made a further meal of the cow.

For the next two days consternation reigned supreme. On the

third morning, a traveller approached the village from Tumkur,
driving before him two donkeys laden with a variety of goods. A
mile down the road from the village the tiger pounced on the
leading donkey, which collapsed beneath its attacker. The second
donkey stood still, while the traveller, with a scream of terror, ran
down the road whence he had come. His action appeared to
provoke this extraordinary tiger, for it chased and killed him, and
then returned to the dead donkey, which it carried away and ate.
Both in chasing the man, and on its return, it had passed the
second donkey, which it did not even touch. The body of the man
remained uneaten.

These incidents, occurring so close to Bangalore, were headlined

in the local Press; next morning I left for Devarayandurga by car,
reaching the spot in just over two hours.
 Questioning the frightened villagers, I was told the story as I
have just recounted it. The weather being dry and the roads dusty,
all pug-marks had disappeared by this time, and for a short while I
was disinclined to believe that the maurauder was a tiger,
thinking it more likely to be a large and strangely-aggressive
panther. The men who had accompanied the headman, however,
and had witnessed his attack and death, assured me that it was
indeed a tiger. Nevertheless, knowing how prone the villager is to
exaggeration, I was still in doubt.

After a short lunch, I spent the afternoon, accompanied by an

obviously nervous guide, in scouring the surrounding area, poking
among the caves and tiring myself out completely in looking for
‘the hermit’; but never a trace, nor a pug-mark, did I come across.

At 4 p.m. I returned to the village, and with great difficulty

procured a half-grown bull as bait, no buffaloes being available in
this area. This bait I tied about three-quarters of a mile from the
village, at a spot where the road was crossed by an extremely
rocky and thorny nullah. It was now close on 6 o’clock, and as
there was no time to erect a machan, I decided to spend the night
at the Travellers’ Bungalow at Tumkur, six miles away and return
next morning, by which time I hoped the tiger would have killed
the bait.

This I did, waking at 5 a.m. and reaching the spot where I had
tied the bait by about 5.30. It was just growing light when I
stopped the car a half-mile down the road, so as not to disturb ‘the
hermit’, if he had made a kill. Approaching the spot cautiously, I
found my bait had disappeared. Closer examination revealed the
animal had been killed and the tethering rope severed, apparently
by deliberate, and very vigorous tugging on the part of the slayer.
Pug-marks were also visible, and these showed, first, that the
killer was a tigress and not a tiger after all, and second, that this
was an adult animal and large for a tigress. Remembering the
stories I had been told of the peculiar nature of this animal and
her disposition to attack suddenly, I followed the drag very
cautiously, scanning the area ahead and on all sides most
carefully at each step, looking behind me, too, every little while.
Progress was thus very slow, but the drag was clearly visible
nevertheless, and in 150 yards I came upon my dead bait. The
tigress, apparently, had moved off.

The young bull had been killed in the usual tiger fashion, its
neck being broken. The tigress had then carried it to the place
where it now lay, when she had sucked the blood from the jugular,
as was evident by the deep fang-marks in the throat and the dried
blood on the surface. She may then have left the kill and returned
later in the night, or settled down to a feed right away. The tail of
the bait had been bitten off where it joined the body, and left at a
distance of about ten feet; this is a habit normal to most tigers,
and generally to big panthers also. Finally, the stomach and
entrails had been neatly removed to a distance of again about ten
feet, but not near where the tail had been left. The tigress had
then begun her meal in the usual tiger fashion from the
hindquarters, eating about half the bait.

From all these facts it was therefore apparent that the tigress
was not, after all, the very strange and eccentric animal she was
reported to be. She just appeared to be a particularly bad-tempered
female.

Hoping that she might return, I climbed a scraggy tree that grew
about twenty yards away, and was the only cover available for my
purpose. Here I remained till 9.30 a.m. No tigress appeared, but on
the contrary the sharp-eyed vultures, from their soaring flight
above, spotted the kill, and I soon heard the rattling sound of the
wind against their wing-feathers, as they plummeted to earth for
the anticipated feast.

To save the kill from being consumed, I was therefore compelled

to descend and cover it with branches broken from the adjacent
bushes, afterwards returning to the car and making for the village.
Here I procured the services of four men and came back to the tree,
where I instructed them to put up my portable charpoy-machan,
which I had brought with me in the car. By noon all was ready.
One of the men then suggested that, as ‘the hermit’ was
particularly fond of goats, I would considerably increase my
chances of bagging her if I tied a live goat in the vicinity. The
bleating of the goat, he said, would surely draw her to the spot,
even if she had decided to abandon the half-eaten bull. Thinking
there was something in the idea, I motored back to the village and
soon returned with a half-grown goat of the size that usually bleat
vociferously.

After some biscuits and tea, I ascended the machan after

instructing the men to tie the goat only when I had taken my
place; thus the goat would feel it was alone and bleat loudly as
soon as they were gone. It was about 2 p.m. before the men finally
departed, and very shortly afterwards the goat began to bleat in
really grand style.

This it kept up intermittently till about 5.45 in the evening,

when I heard the tigress approaching by the low, moaning sound
she occasionally emitted. The goat heard this too, stopped its
bleating, and faced the direction of the sound while its state of
stark terror was pitifully visible as it trembled violently from head
to foot.

Most unfortunately, the tigress was approaching from behind

me. Though my charpoy-machan provided ample room for me to
turn around, the trunk of the tree itself and a clump of
exceptionally heavy wild-plum bushes that grew nearby
completely obstructed my line of vision. Moreover, the ground
sloped steadily downwards from the direction in which the tigress
was coming, and this probably caused her to spot my machan
while she was still some distance away, being on a level with her
eyes from the higher ground down which she was approaching.
 Or it might have been the extraordinary sixth sense, with which
I have noticed some carnivora are particularly gifted, that put her
on her guard. Whatever it was, that tigress sensed something
suspicious in the surroundings and that danger lurked nearby, for
she gave vent to a shattering, snarling roar and began to encircle
the whole area repeatedly, roaring and snarling every little while.
The unfortunate goat almost died with fright, and the last I could
see of it as darkness fell was a huddled, trembling patch crouching
close to the ground.

That extraordinary tigress made the night hideous with her

roars until 9 p.m., when, with a final snarl, she walked away.
Thereafter nothing happened, except for a sharp drop in
temperature towards the early hours of the morning, when it
became intensely, miserably cold. My teeth chattered in the tree,
while those of the goat chattered below me, to a slower rhythm,
but more audible—or so I believed.

Dawn found us both exhausted after a sleepless night in the

freezing cold. The goat was, moreover, so hoarse after its vigorous
bleating of the night before, followed by the exposure, that
although it opened its mouth in an effort to make some noise, no
sound was forthcoming.

I spent two hours at midday looking for the tigress, without

finding a trace. I then selected another tree, this time of a leafy
variety and overlooked by no rising ground, where I erected my
machan, into which I ascended by 4 p.m., with another goat
tethered below me. But this goat was as insensitive or as callous as
the one of the night before had been sensitive and nervous; for
with the departure of the villager who had tethered it, it settled
placidly down on the ground to chew heaven knows what, which
it continued to do until darkness hid it from view.

This time I had clad myself more warmly, and by midnight,

closely wrapped in my blanket, I fell into a deep and dreamless
slumber, to awaken at dawn to see that most placid of goats still
chewing, again heaven knows what, as if there was not a single
carnivore in the whole, wide world.

Again I searched for the tigress at noon, and again I failed; and
again by 3 p.m. I was up in my machan, this time with a young
bull as bait below me.

It was 7 o’clock and almost dark, when unexpectedly a party of

villagers, carrying a lighted lantern, came from the village to tell
me that the tigress had killed another cow only half-an-hour
earlier, near the bund (or embankment) of a small tank, a furlong
from the village, but in the opposite direction, and was engaged at
that very moment in eating it.

Considering it a waste of time to remain, I therefore descended

and, instructing the men to leave the bait where it was on the off-
chance of the tigress passing in that direction later in the night,
hastened after them towards the village and the tank. Once we
reached the village I instructed them to extinguish the lantern. I
then took only one of them as guide and advanced towards the
tank. My companion whispered that the cow had been killed on
the left of the road, hardly food. fifty yards from the verge and just
a furlong from the village.

It was pitch dark by now, and, with the villager close behind
me, and walking down the centre of the road, I switched on the
torch which was mounted on my rifle, and began to direct it to my
left.

There was a snarl and a woof, and then two large, red-white
orbs shone back at me from a distance I judged to be within 200
yards and at a slightly higher level. I was puzzled by this last
factor, till the villager whispered that the tigress was standing on
top of the bund of the small tank.
 Walking along silently in my rubber shoes, with the villager
following bare-footed behind, we made no noise whatever.
Meanwhile the tigress stared back at the light. In this way I
advanced down the road for more than 100 yards, till I reached the
place where the tank-bund joined it. We then turned left, and
commenced the slight ascent to the top of the bund.

The tigress was now about 100 yards away and began to growl. I
stopped, and was in the act of raising my rifle to my shoulder for a
shot, when her courage gave way, and she turned tail and bolted
along the top of the bund in three or four leaps, after which she
descended to the right on the far side of the tank and was lost to
view.

We then walked along the top of the embankment, shining the

torchlight down into the tangle of scrub. A large, solitary banyan-
tree grew there, and great was our surprise when the eyes of the
tigress reappeared at a fork in the tree, quite fifteen feet or more
above the ground and level with the top of the tank-bund on
which I was standing. It was surprising, because tigers generally
do not climb trees to such heights, especially when followed by
torchlight.

I could now make out her form clearly, squatting dog-like in the
crotch of the tree. Taking careful aim between the shining orbs, I
fired. There was a loud thud as the tigress hit the earth, followed
by a coughing grunt and then silence.

We walked along the tank-bund for some distance, shining the

torchlight into the tangle of bushes below the bund to our right,
but not another sound did we hear. Knowing that my bullet had
struck ‘the hermit’, I decided to get some sleep and return next
morning. Accordingly we retraced our steps to the village and to
the spot where I had left the car, a mile away and beyond where
my bait was secured. At Tumkur I ate a light dinner, washed down
with some strong tea and a pipe-load of tobacco, after which I
turned in for the night with the highest hopes of being able to pick
up the tigress in the morning.

I was back at the village at day-break and, collecting my

assistant of the night before, we were soon on the tank-bund, from
which we very cautiously descended the sloping ground to the foot
of the solitary banyan tree, in which the tigress had been sitting
when I fired my shot.

Our attention was immediately arrested by blood splashed over

a wide area where the animal had hit the ground in falling off the
tree. Looking about, we then found a segment of bone, about a
square inch in area, in which a part of the lead of my .405 bullet
was imbedded.

By the sharp claw-marks on the tree-trunk we saw the way in

which this extraordinary tigress had pulled her great weight up
the tree to attain the fork. My companion soon climbed up nimbly
to the same place, and found a few drops of blood in the fork itself.

We then began very cautiously to follow the blood-trail from the

banyan tree, and it was soon apparent that the tigress had been
hit in the head and was severely hurt. The blood-spoor zigzagged
about aimlessly, going in a narrow circle and recrossing itself
several times. She was obviously in a stunned condition, or
perhaps blinded, and did not know what she was doing or where
she was going.

Frequently we came on large pools of clotted blood, and finally

to a spot where the tigress had fallen, or probably lain on the
ground for part of the night. The whole circle, roughly ten feet in
diameter, was red with blood. When she had moved away,
evidently in the early hours of the morning, bleeding had almost
stopped, and only an occasional drop marked thereafter a
wayward path into the dense undergrowth of lantana, grass and
wait-a-bit thorn, that clothed the foot of the embankment.
 First of all, we encircled this belt of undergrowth, right to the
end of the long embankment some 200 yards away, and back again
along its upper end, but there was no blood-trail in any direction,
or trace of the tigress having left this cover. She was obviously,
therefore, somewhere in this belt of dense undergrowth, which, as
I have just said, was about 200 yards long and varied in width from
about seventy-five yards to barely ten. But was she dead or alive?
That was the question, and on the answer depended the lives and
limbs of my companion and myself.

Returning to the spot where the last drop of blood indicated the
place at which the tigress had entered the undergrowth, we then
began systematically to beat the area. My companion and I,
standing close together, hurled stone after stone into the massed
vegetation, but only complete silence and stillness greeted our
efforts.

We progressed in this fashion along the edge of the belt of

undergrowth. In hopes of getting the tigress to show herself, I fired
five rounds in all into the lantana, but without response from the
tigress. About three-quarters of the way along this belt, a low tree,
a dozen feet in height, stood out from the surrounding bushes. My
companion slipped towards this, and began to climb it with the
view to obtaining a better view, when, without warning, out
came the tigress with a single roar and scrambled up behind him.

The man screamed with fright, while from my position, barely

twenty yards away, I fired three rounds into the tawny form
before it toppled backwards into the lantana. ‘The hermit’ was
dead at last.

The tigress, as I had judged, was an old female with blunted

fangs. Her age had probably forced her to seek easier living in the
proximity of man, where there would be goats, dogs and cattle for
easy killing. Hunger and old age probably accounted for her quick
and vicious temper, but lack of courage, and an inborn aversion to
man, had prevented her from actually becoming a man-eater,
although I have little doubt that she would have eventually
turned into one had she been allowed to continue her career
unchecked. Incidentally, my bullet of the night before had struck
her on the bridge of the nose, but rather high up, removing the
piece of bone we had found, but at the same time not entering the
head of the animal deep enough to kill it. Indeed, it had actually
richochetted off, carrying the piece of bone with it, so that it was
just possible the old ‘hermit’ might have recovered after all,
despite the vast quantity of blood she had lost, had she not
disclosed herself by attacking my companion as he climbed the
tree.
 10

Byra, the Poojaree

E WORE only a lungoti when I met him, a strip of cloth some

H three inches wide that passed between the thighs and
connected, before and behind, to a piece of filthy knotted string
that encircled the waist; but he was a gentleman to his fingertips,
and he was, and is, my friend.

Twenty-five long years have passed since first I met Byra, and it
happened this way.

The false dawn was lighting the eastern sky above the hills that
encircle the little forest bungalow of Muthur, nestling at the foot
of the lofty hill of Muthurmalai, that caused the winding jungle
stream known as the Chinar River to alter its leisurely course
through the dense jungle in a sharp southerly bend to complete
the last seven miles of its journey through the wilds, before it
joined the Cauvery River in rocky cataracts at Hogenaikal. It was
midsummer, and the Chinar was at that time bone dry.

I had come out early and was padding noiselessly down the
golden sands of the Chinar in the hope of surprising a bear, large
numbers of which were accustomed, at that time of the year, to
visit the banks of the river and gorge their fill on the luscious,
purple, but somewhat astringent fruit of the ‘Jumlum’ tree, which
grew to profusion in the locality. If not a bear, I hoped to meet a
panther on his way home after a night-long hunt. These animals, I
knew, favoured closely skirting the undergrowth along the banks
of the river on their look-out for prey that might cross the stream.
Deer, in the way of sambar, jungle-sheep and the beautiful chital
were fairly plentiful in those bygone days, but such graceful
quarry were not my objective that morning.
 I had gone about a mile from the bungalow, and the light of the
false-dawn was rapidly fading into that renewed period of
darkness before the real dawn was to be heralded by the cry of the
jungle-cock and the raucous call of pea-fowl, when I suddenly
heard a surreptitious but distinct rustle from a clump of henna
bushes that grew by the stream to my left.

That day I carried no torch, so cautiously approached the henna

to within about ten feet and stopped. Then immediately before me
I noticed that a large hole, about three feet in diameter and
equally deep, had been dug, into which about a foot of water had
trickled through the dry sands by sub-soil percolation. This, I
knew, was the work of a poacher, to attract parched deer to
quench their thirst, when a well-delivered ball or hail of slugs
from a muzzle-loader would end their existence. And the noise I
had heard had undoubtedly been made by the poacher himself,
perhaps upon seeing me, or perhaps just stirring in his sleep after a
night-long vigil.

Calling out in Tamil for the man to come out or I would shoot, I
at first received no answer. Upon advancing a few paces, a
diminutive figure stood up from the undergrowth and, stepping
forward on to the river sand, prostrated itself before me, touching
the earth with its forehead in three distinct salutes.

Telling him to stand up, I asked who he was. ‘Byra, a Poojaree’,

came the simple answer. ‘Where is your gun?’ I demanded. ‘Gun,
what gun? How can a poor, simple man like me own a gun? I can’t
even shoot, master. I am a traveller and lost my way last night,
and being very tired, fell asleep in these bushes. Your honour, by
calling out just now, awoke me, and you ask for my gun! I have
never even seen such a thing.’ Tick it up and bring it here,’ I
ordered. He hesitated a few seconds, then stooped down and
brought forth an ancient matchlock, some yards in length, with a
butt hardly three inches across at the widest point.
 And that is how I met Byra, the Poojaree, and my friend for
twenty-five years, who has taught me most of all I now know
about the jungle and its wild, carefree, fierce, but lovable and
most wonderful fauna.

‘What have you shot?’ I asked him. ‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘No

animal came to the water last night.’ ‘What did you shoot?’ I
demanded in a sterner tone. Bidding me to follow, he walked
diagonally upstream towards the opposite bank. I saw a dark heap
lying on the river sand, which, upon approach, turned out to be a
sambar-doe, a great gaping hole in her neck, from which the blood
had flowed to stain the fair white sands.

I looked at Byra witheringly, anger and indignation in my

glance. ‘Master, we are hungry,’ he said simply, ‘and if I do not
hunt we cannot eat, and if we do not eat, we shall die.’

Squatting on the sands a few yards away, I invited Byra to sit

beside me, and taking out some pipe-tobacco from my pouch,
handed it to him. Receiving the tobacco from me on to the palm of
his hand, he sniffed it suspiciously, and then, beaming with
pleasure and satisfaction, introduced the lot into his system, by
the simple process of tilting back his head and pouring it down his
mouth. The next few minutes were spent in silence, Byra being
too busy chewing my tobacco!

‘Master will not tell the forest-guard about my gun,’ he then

ventured anxiously. ‘It is my only way of living, and if the guard
knows, he will come and take it away. Also I will be sent to jail,
and my wife and four children will starve.’

Here was a pretty conundrum for my solution. My duty as a

forest licence-holder was to hand over poachers to the authorities.
Indeed the terms of the licence actually authorised me to help in
arresting such individuals. Moreover, my conscience urged me to
have no sympathy for this rascal, who was ruthlessly murdering
female deer by the most unsporting method of slaughtering them
when they came to slake their burning thirst during the hot
summer months. And yet, there was something likeable about the
little fellow, and the degree of confidence he was now beginning
to bestow upon me after our short acquaintance. Or perhaps my
strong tobacco had induced this trust.

Avoiding the question and a direct answer, I asked him where he

lived. ‘We have no homes, no hut, no fields’ he replied. ‘All day
we wander in the forest in search of beehives. If we find one, we
are lucky, for we gather the precious honey which we take to
market at the village of Pennagram, seven miles away. For a small
pot of honey we may get one rupee. With this we shall buy ragi (a
foodgrain), which may perhaps feed us for four days. If we don’t
find honey, we may be able to catch an “Oodumbu” (a large
snake-lizard). This is even greater luck, for not only will we eat
the “oodumbu”, whose flesh is very good for our strength, but we
shall sell its tail to the native doctor at Pennagram. He is a
wonderful man, that doctor is. He cooks the tail and mixes with it
some wonderful medicine. Then he mashes the whole thing into a
fine powder, which he divides into paper packets and sells at eight
annas a packet. These packets are sold to lovers, and are very
efficacious. If a man sprinkles just a pinch of this powder on to the
left shoulder of the girl he loves, she will not be able to resist him.’

Here he looked at me sideways. ‘If your honour cannot capture

the heart of the lady you love,’ he continued confidentially, ‘I will
get some of this powder for you from this native doctor, free of
charge, as he is a great friend of mine, and, moreover, beholden to
me for the continued supply of oodumbu’s tails. All you have to do
is to sprinkle a little of it on the left shoulder of the mem-sahib
you love, and she is yours, forever and ever.’

Hastily telling him that I was not so much in love just then as to
have to resort to oodumbu’s tails, I bade him to continue about
himself.
 ‘Sometimes, when we are very hungry, we dig for the roots of
the jungle yam, which in these parts grows as a creeper with a
three-pronged leaf. These yams, or roots, when roasted in a fire, or
boiled with salt-water and currypowder, are very tasty and good to
eat. At night my wife and children and I sleep in a hole that we
have dug in the banks of the Anaibiddahalla River, a small
tributary of the Chinar River, as you may know, Sir. In the hot
weather I go shooting, like I have done tonight. At such times my
wife or one of the children, by turns, remain awake all night, to
give the alarm should elephants approach, when they will then
leave the hole and scramble up the bank or the big tree that grows
beside our shelter. For these elephants are very dangerous and
sometimes attack us. Only a year ago one of them pulled a
Poojaree woman out of a similar shelter, while she was asleep, and
trampled her to pulp. Should we shoot anything, we eat some of
the meat, and dry some by smoking. The rest we sell at Pennagram
and perhaps get fifteen rupees for it. With the money we can
purchase enough grain to feed the family for a whole month.
Knowing this,’ he concluded, coyly, ‘I am sure you, the Maharaj,
will not divulge the fact of my possessing the matchlock to the
forest-guard. Incidentally, it belonged to my father, and his father
before him, who, we are told, purchased it in those days for thirty
rupees.’

The rascal then looked at me winningly, a happy smile about

the corners of his mouth, although there was an anxious look in
his eyes. My sense of duty as a licence holder vanished; I strangled
my conscience then and there and replied in a voice which I tried
unsuccessfully to make non-committal, but it was distinctly
sheepish instead, ‘No, Byra, I shall not tell, I promise you.’

He sprang to his feet and prostrated himself before me, his

forehead again touching the ground three times in the only form
of salutation the Poojarees know. ‘I thank you from my heart,
master, and on behalf of my family,’ he said simply.
‘Henceforward we are yours to command.’
 Having extracted a promise from Byra to call at the forest lodge
later that day, as I wished to question him about the presence and
movement of carnivora in the locality, I went my way,
assiduously avoiding a second glance at the murdered sambar-doe,
for fear my conscience should come to life again and cause me to
regret my hasty promise to this plausible adventurer.

True to his word, Byra turned up at about ten that morning, and
close questioning disclosed that just two nights earlier a tiger had
passed within five feet of him when sitting up for sambar at a spot
about two miles downstream, called Aremanwoddu, where
another tributary joined the Chinar. He said that this animal lived
in the locality, was an old tiger, and that his beat was very
restricted, probably due to his age.

Then he related an unusual story, to the effect that a month

earlier he had been in hiding close to this very spot, when a Chital
had appeared, which he had successfully accounted for with a
single shot from his matchlock. It had been a bright moonlit night,
and the chital having fallen in its tracks, Byra had reloaded his
musket and was preparing to spend the rest of the night in sleep,
when a large tiger had walked out of the undergrowth, passed the
dead chital, stopped, sniffed at it, and finally calmly picked it up
and walked off with the prize. Byra had not dared to dispute
ownership with the tiger, in consideration of the fact that he was
armed with a muzzle-loader, which took a considerable time to
reload.

I had no live bait with me at the time, and to procure a heifer

meant sending to Pennagram, and probably a delay till the next
day. So I decided to sit that night with Byra on the banks of
Aremanwoddu, after telling him definitely that, at least as long as
he was in my company, no deer poaching of any sort would be
condoned.
 By 6 p.m. we were seated in an excellent and very comfortable
hide that Byra had set up in the rushes clothing the confluence of
the two jungle streams. The nights were warm and Byra wore
nothing more than his lungoti. It was a lesson in patience I
learned that day, for from the time Byra had first squatted in the
rushes, he never moved as much as his forearm that whole long
night. Nothing came that night, and by 2 a.m. I became impatient
and finally fell asleep, to awake at dawn with Byra still squatting
immovably beside me.

Seeing my disappointment, he offered to accompany me on a

tracking venture later in the morning. So after returning to the
bungalow for a bath and breakfast, we were back again at
Aremanwoddu shortly before 9 a.m. With Byra in front we walked
upstream, and had gone perhaps half a mile when we came upon
the tracks of a large male tiger that had crossed the sand during
the night and was making up the rocky incline of the Panapatti
Ridge, a little over a mile away. The ground was too dry for
tracking, but Byra said he thought he knew some likely spots
where the tiger might be lying up.

So we continued, crossing ridge after ridge, exploring the little

valleys of undergrowth and dense bamboo that lay between. Once
we heard the rumbling sound produced by the digestive process
taking place in the cavernous stomach of an elephant. Giving the
spot where he was resting a wide berth, we continued our
peregrination, climbing upwards continuously to the Panapatti
Ridge.

We had now reached shrub-jungle level, and outcrops of rocky

boulders appeared on all sides. Byra said that the tiger lived in one
of the many caves that existed among the huge, piled rocks, as did
bears too. Handicapped by the stony, sun-baked earth that did not
show tracks of any kind, I was for turning back, but my
companion had become really interested by now, and advocated
pushing on, over and across the ridge.
 Streaming with sweat from exposure to the mercilessly blazing
sun, we at last reached the summit and began to descend the
opposite slope. On this face the ridge was even more boulder-
strewn than was the one we had just climbed At last we came to a
series of massive rocks, forming many caves. Byra advocated that I
sit in the meagre shade offered by an overhanging rock, while he
explored the vicinity. I gladly assented and sat down to cool-off
with a smoke, while my companion slipped away amidst the sea
of boulders.

Within ten minutes he was back, saying excitedly that he had

smelt the tiger and was sure it was hiding in one of the caves close
by. By this time I was distinctly disgruntled and incredulous, and
told Byra, in a few terse words, to cut out the bluff. He looked at
me with amazement, and then I could see condescending pity
written plainly across his pudgy countenance. ‘Come and see for
yourself ’ he said shortly, and without waiting for my reply,
moved off the way he had come.

Following with my rifle, we approached a number of cavernous

openings between piled boulders. Creeping within twenty yards of
the nearest one, Byra halted and beckoned me to approach
silently. ‘Can you smell it,’ he whispered. I sniffed carefully, but
could smell nothing. There was certainly no odour such as one
gets in a zoo or animal circus. I shook my head to indicate a
negative reply. Stealing some distance closer, Byra halted again.
‘Surely you can smell it now?’ I exercised my olfactory organ to its
utmost, and thought I could detect a peculiar odour, which for
want of a better term I can only describe as ‘greenish’—that very
indefinable smell of slightly decaying vegetable matter. Only after
many years have I now learned to associate this smell as that of a
passing tiger.

Byra looked upwards, scanning the five distinct openings that

now showed between the huge boulders. He studied them in
silence for a while, and then, indicating the fourth in line from us
—and almost the most unlikely in my opinion—whispered, ‘I
think the tiger is in there.’

I looked at him in evident disbelief, but ignoring my incredulity,

he beckoned me to follow him, till at last, by working our way
forward soundlessly, and with infinite caution, we reached a
stony ledge immediately below the opening he had indicated,
which was just above the tops of our heads. Standing on tiptoe to
peer in, I saw nothing, and then the very next second, soundlessly
and as if by magic, appeared the massive head of a tiger, mild
surprise written on its countenance.

My bullet struck it fairly between the eyes at a range of perhaps

eight feet. The tiger slid forward in a queer gliding motion, and
came to rest level with our faces, his massive head in repose
between his forepaws, his yellow-green eyes half-closed with the
approach of death, and the drip, drip, drip of a thin, dark-red
blood-stream that spouted from the hole in his forehead.

That was the first of my very many experiences of Byra’s

knowledge of jungle-lore. To say that I was immensely pleased at
having discovered him would have been to put it very mildly, and
as the years rolled by and our mutual confidence in each other
increased, I have never regretted that occasion in the far distant
past when I lulled my conscience to sleep.

I shall now tell just two of the many adventures we have

experienced together, namely that of the bears of Talavadi, in
which Byra so nobly offered his life for mine, and the story of the
man-eating tiger of Mundachipallam.

Talavadi is the name given to the wide valley, through the

centre of which trickles the mountain stream known by the same
name. It is situated some eleven miles north of the spot where I
first met Byra, and is quite one of the wildest spots of the Salem
North Forest Division.
 The Talavadi River takes its rise in the forest plateau of Aiyur,
whence it dips sharply into a mountainous gorge, locally known
as Toluvabetta gorge, but rechristened by me as ‘Spider Valley’,
because of the species of enormous red and yellow spiders that
weave their monstrous webs across the narrow jungle trail. These
webs are somewhat oval in shape and sometimes reach a width of
over twenty feet. In the centre hangs the spider itself, often nine
inches from leg-tip to leg-tip. Despite its size, it is a very agile
creature and extremely ferocious, and its prey—the large night
moths and beautiful butterflies and insects of the forest stand no
chance of escape once they become entangled in the huge web.
These spiders are equally cannibalistic, and will not tolerate the
presence of another member of their tribe within their own web. I
have sometimes amused myself by transporting one of these fierce
creatures at the end of a stick to the web of another of its kind,
when a battle-royal immediately ensues, often lasting half an
hour, but always ending in the death of one or other creature,
whose blood is then thoroughly sucked by the victor, till the
loathsome insect is so gorged that it can only just crawl back to
the centre of its web.

The Talavadi Stream passes down this gorge and then bifurcates,
the lesser portion flowing southwards, bordered by the towering
peak of Mount Gutherayan and the small hamlet of Kempekarai,
to join the Chinar River in the stream of Anaibiddahalla. This
area was once the stamping ground of the notorious rogue-
elephant of Kempekarai, which killed seven humans, two or three
cattle, smashed half-a-dozen bullock-carts and overturned a three-
ton lorry loaded with cut bamboos. However, that is another story.
The main portion of the stream flows westwards for some miles
and, bordering the forest-block of Manchi, then turns south-
westwards, crossing the forest-road leading from Anchetty to
Muthur and Pennagram in the afore-mentioned valley of
Talavadi.
 As may be imagined, all this area is densely wooded, clothed on
its higher reaches by miles upon miles of towering bamboo, and
towards the lower levels by primeval forest, interspersed with
rocky stretches, till it finally flows into the Cauvery River near
the fishing village of Biligundlu. The whole area, from source to
estuary, forms the home of herds of wild-elephant, a few bison,
and invariably a tiger or two, which use the line of the stream as a
regular beat. The Talavadi Valley itself, abounding in rocks and
very long grass, is the habitat of large panthers, many bear, and
wild pig, sambar, barking deer, and more pea-fowl than I have met
anywhere else.

My story begins at the time when Byra had sent word to me, in a
letter written by the postmaster of Pennagram, that a panther of
exceptional size had taken up its abode in the valley and was
regularly killing cattle all along the Muthur-Anchetty road from
the nth to the isth mile stone. The letter asserted that the panther
was of enormous proportions, ‘much bigger than ordinary tiger’.

Having some five days to spare, I motored by the shortcut road

through the forest from Denkanikota to Anchetty and past
Talavadi Valley to Muthur, where I met Byra. From there we
returned to the 15th milestone, which was right in the valley
itself. The road was really execrable, with many streams to be
crossed, ruts made by cart-wheels, and interspersed with boulders
galore, taxing the car and its springs severely. After pitching
camp, we went down to the nearest cattle-patti, some three-
quarters of a mile distant, where I was able to hear for myself
about the depredations of this panther. The story told was that it
generally attacked the herds on their homeward journey to the
pens about 5.30 p.m., and that it would select the largest cow
among the stragglers for its victim. Several herdsmen had actually
seen the animal and attempted to drive it from its kills, only to be
met with snarls and a show of ferocity quite exceptional for a
panther. The animal was not known to live in any particular spot,
but as I have said, ranged for about four miles along the road.
 It was difficult to persuade these herdsmen to sell me live baits,
as although they realised the slaying of the panther would benefit
them directly, their caste and religious obsessions were such as to
oppose absolutely the practice of deliberately sacrificing a life in
this way. Albeit, by various methods I finally succeeded in
purchasing two three-quarter grown animals, one of which I
secured on the bank of the river itself, about a mile downstream
from the road, and the second not far from the 14th milestone.

There was now nothing to be done but wait, and as I did not
deem it wise to disturb the countryside by shooting the pea-fowl
and jungle-fowl that abounded, I contented myself by strolling in
the forest in other directions, both morning and evening, in the
hope of accidentally meeting the panther or perhaps a wandering
tiger from the Cauvery.

As luck would have it, I received news at about 7 p.m. on the

third day that the panther had that very evening killed a cow
belonging to another cattle-patti three miles away, as the herd
was returning home. A runner had been sent to inform me as soon
as the loss was discovered, which had accounted for the passage of
time.

Grabbing rifle, torch and overcoat, Byra and I hastened to the

spot, and when still some furlongs away I extinguished my torch,
creeping forward in the wake of the herdsman who had brought us
the news, Byra following at my rear. A half-moon was just raising
its silver crescent above the ragged line of jungle hills that formed
the eastern horizon, when we turned a sharp bend in the cattle-
track and came upon a panther, crouched behind the dead bullock
that lay across the track.

I had armed myself with my .12 shot-gun for work at close-

quarters, while Byra, behind me, carried the Winchester, but
before I could raise the gun the panther bounded off the carcase
and into the undergrowth beyond.
 Hastily whispering to Byra and the herdsman to return slowly
the way we had come, talking to each other in a normal tone to
give the panther the impression we had departed, I dived behind a
wild plum-bush that grew some twenty paces away, hoping the
animal would return.

The panther did not take long to advertise its presence, for
within a few minutes I heard its sawing call from the forest before
me. The sound gradually receded in the direction Byra and the
herdsman had taken, by which I interpreted that it was following
them at a distance, probably to ensure that they had really
departed. Afterwards there was tense silence, unbroken by any
sound for perhaps the best part of an hour. And then, as if from
nowhere, and unheralded by even the faintest rustle of dried
leaves or crackle of broken twig, appeared an enormous panther,
standing over its kill, but still looking suspiciously down the track
we had just traversed.

Aiming behind the shoulder as best I could in the halflight, the

roar of the gun was followed by the panther leaping almost a yard
into the air. Without touching earth again it convulsed itself into
a spring and was gone before I could fire the second barrel. Its
departure was heralded by the unmistakably low, rasping grunts of
a wounded panther. Waiting for a few minutes, till the sound died
away, and realising that nothing further could be accomplished
that night, I retraced my steps to the cattle-patti and to camp.

By dawn next morning, Byra and I were at the place of my

encounter. Casting about where the animal had disappeared, it
did not take long for Byra to detect a blood-trail on the leaves of
the undergrowth through which the animal had dashed away.
Heartened by the fact that at least some of my L.G. pellets had
found their mark, I took the lead, this time armed with the rifle,
Byra following close behind and guiding me on the trail. In this
formation, it was my business to keep a sharp lookout for the
animal, and deal with it should it charge, while Byra, in the
slightly safer position behind me, could concentrate on his
tracking.

Within the first 100 yards we came to a spot where the animal
had lain down, as revealed by the crimson stain that covered the
grass and the unmistakable outline of the body. From here the
animal had slithered down the banks of a narrow nullah, densely
overgrown with bushes on both sides, where following up became
terribly difficult and hazardous.

As we tiptoed forward, with many a halt to listen, I scanned

each bush before me, striving to penetrate its recesses for a
glimmer of the spotted hide, alive or dead now, we did not know. I
strove to pierce with my eyes the rank undergrowth of jungle-grass
that grew between the bushes, and to look behind the boles of
trees and rocks that fortunately were few in number just there. We
had advanced a comparatively few paces in this way when
suddenly, from out of a hole in the ground before me, rose a
shaggy black shape, a smaller similar shape tumbling off beside it.
We had stumbled upon a mother-bear with her young, asleep in
the hole she had dug overnight in the bed of the nullah, in her
assiduous search for roots!

I could see the white V mark on her chest distinctly as she half-
rose to her feet, surprise and then fury showing in her beady, black
eyes. Down she went on all fours again, to come straight at us.
Thrusting the muzzle of the Winchester almost into her mouth, I
pressed the trigger. Then occurred that all-important moment,
which balances the life or ignominious death of the hunter: a
misfire !

The she-bear closed her jaws on the muzzle, and with one sweep
of her long-toed forepaw wrested the weapon from my grasp, so
that it hung ludicrously from her mouth for a moment before she
dropped it to the ground. Involuntarily I had stumbled backwards,
and as the bear rose to her feet to attack my face— which is the
part of a human anatomy always first bitten by these animals—
Byra attempted the supreme sacrifice.

Nimbly throwing himself between me and the infuriated beast,

he shouted at the top of his lungs in a last-minute attempt to
divert its further onslaught. He was successful only to the extent
that it turned its attention upon him. seemingly to forget my
existence for the moment.

As he ducked his head in the very nick of time, the bear buried
its fangs in Byra’s right shoulder, while the long talons of its
forefeet tore at his chest, sides and back. Byra went down with the
bear on top of him. I sprang for the fallen rifle. Working the under-
lever to eject the misfired cartridge, I found to my horror that,
with the force of its fall, the action of the rifle had jammed. All
this took only a few seconds. Byra screamed in agony, while the
bear growled savagely. Stumbling forward and using the rifle as a
cudgel, I smote with the butt-end with all my might at the back of
the animal’s head. Fortunately my aim was true, for the bear
released Byra and like lightning grabbed the rifle in its mouth, this
time by the butt, again tearing the weapon from my grasp. It then
started to bite the stock savagely. By an act of Providence the cub,
which during all this time had remained in the background, a
surprised and obviously terrified witness, at this juncture let out a
series of frightened whimpers and yelps. As if by magic the
attention of the irascible mother became focussed on her baby, for
she dropped the rifle and ran to its side. There she sniffed it over to
assure herself that all was well, and as suddenly as this
unwelcome pair had appeared on the scene, they disappeared, a
few last whimperings from the now reassured youngster forming
the last notes to that unforgettable scene of horror, from which it
took me days to recover.

Byra, was on his hands and knees, streaming with blood and
evidently in great pain. Going across to him, I removed my coat
and shirt, tearing the latter into strips and attempting to bind up
the more serious of his wounds and to stem the bleeding. Then,
hoisting him on my back and carrying my damaged rifle, I
staggered back to the cattle-patti, where I placed him on a
charpoy. Four herdsmen carried him to my camp, where I poured
raw iodine into the wounds. Camp was struck and in a few
moments my car was jolting the fifteen miles to the village of
Pennagram, where at the dispensary rough first aid was rendered.
By this time the poor man was faint with the loss of blood and
almost unconscious. Replacing him in the car, I covered the sixty-
one miles to the town of Salem, where there was a first-class
hospital, in almost record time.

Penicillin was unknown in those far-off days, and the first week
that Byra spent in hospital, hovering between life and death, with
me at his side, was an anxious time. But his sturdy constitution
won through and after the first few days the doctors definitely
pronounced him out of danger. I returned to Pennagram, where
Byra’s wife and children had come and were anxiously awaiting
news. Giving them some financial help, I also received a surprise
when I was presented with the worm-eaten skin of the panther,
which I had quite forgotten in the excitement and pressure of
subsequent events. It appeared that the sight of vultures on a
carcase had attracted some of the herdsmen of the cattle-patti at
Talavadi, who had found the body of the animal within 200 yards
of where the adventure with the bear had occurred. It was stated
to have been an outsize specimen, but as I have said, the skin was
worm-eaten and beyond preserving.

Returning to Salem, I left sufficient money to cover Byra’s

treatment, expenses and final return to his native haunts at
Muthur, but it was over two months before he could go back to his
family with a slight permanent limp in his right leg due to the
shortening of a damaged muscle, and with many permanent scars
on his body as reminder of the incident.
 My rifle needed a new stock, and to this day, six inches from the
muzzle, it bears the marks of the she-bear’s teeth. Thus ended the
adventure which formed the blood brotherhood, so to speak,
between Byra and myself, founded on his attempted cheerful
sacrifice and almost literal fulfilment of the words ‘greater love
than this hath no man, than that he should lay down his life for
another.’

Many years passed after this occurrence to the occasion of my

next story, that of the man-eating tiger of Mundachipallam.

Mundachipallam or to give it its literal Tamil translation, the

hollow, or stream, of Mundachi is nothing more than a rivulet
skirting the base of the Ghat section, half way between the 2,000
foot high plateau occupied by the village of Pennagram and the
bed of the Cauvery River, only some 700 feet above sea-level. This
stream crosses the Ghat Road, which drops steeply from
Pennagram to the Cauvery River at a point just about four miles
from the destination of the road where stands the fishing hamlet
of Ootaimalai above the famed waterfalls of Hogenaikal. The
Forest Department has constructed a well on the banks of
Mundachipallam, beside the road, to facilitate the watering of
cattle, especially buffaloes and bullocks, drawing heavily-laden
cans of timber and bamboo, before they begin the remaining six
miles of steep ascent to Pennagram.

This little well, surrounded as it is by dense jungle, except for

the narrow ribbon of road and the small width of
Mundachipallam, which cross at right angles, is the spot where
my story begins and, strangely enough, ends, though only after
many deaths, and the narrow escape of Ranga, my shikari.

It was early morning, about 7.30 a.m., and droplets of dew

twinkled on the grass like myriads of diamonds cast far and wide,
as they met, scintillated, and reflected the rays of the newly-risen
sun, filtering through the leafy branches of the giant ‘muthee’
trees and the tall straight stems of the wild-cotton trees that
bordered the shallow banks of Mundachipallam.

One man and two women, carrying round bamboo baskets,

laden with river fish netted during the night on the Cauvery River,
approached the well and laid down their heavy burdens on the
low parapet wall that encircles it. The man unwound a thin fibre
rope, coiled around his waist, and slipping one end of it over the
narrow neck of a rounded brass lotah, carried by one of the
women, let the receptacle down the well, from which he presently
withdrew a supply of cold, fresh water. In accordance with the
normal village custom, where a man comes before a woman, he
began to pour the contents down his throat in a steady silvery
stream, not allowing his lips to touch the mouth of the vessel, for
to do so was considered unhygienic.

The fish were being taken to market at Pennagram, and this was
the last water available before tackling the stiff climb to their
destination. After drinking his fill, the man returned the lotah to
the well and twice refilled it, for the benefit of the two maidens
who accompanied him. They were in their twenties and wore
nothing above their waists beyond the last fold of their graceful
sarees, which passed diagonally across one shoulder. Their smooth
dark skins glistened with sweat despite the coolness of early
morning, due to the heavy load of fish they had carried for four
miles from the big river.

After drinking, the party sat down for a few minutes, each
member producing a small cloth bag, from which were taken some
‘betel’ leaves, broken sections of areca-nut and semi-liquid
‘chunam’ or lime of paste-like consistency. Some sections of nut
were placed in an open leaf, which was liberally smeared with the
chunam, and then chewed with evident relish. In a few minutes
the mouths of all the members exuded blood-red saliva, which was
freely expectorated thereafter in all directions.
 Just then, rustling and crackling was heard from the
undergrowth bordering the well. These sounds ceased and began
again at intervals. There was no other sound.

The trio conjectured among themselves as to the cause of these

sounds, and reached the conclusion that it was some member of
the deer family, probably injured by gunshot wounds or wild-dogs
or some other animal, and struggling to get to its feet. Urged on by
the hope of obtaining easy meat, and undoubtedly in order to
impress the females of the party, the man got up and, with a stone
in his hand, walked into the jungle.

The noise had momentarily ceased, and he penetrated further to

try to find the cause of the disturbance. Rounding a babul tree
that grew in the midst of a clump of bushes, he was petrified when
he almost walked into a pair of tigers, probably engaged in the act
of mating.

Now a normal tiger is a beast with which very wide liberties

may be taken. When once out fishing, I was surprised by a tiger
that broke cover hardly fifteen paces away; it was difficult to tell
which of us was more alarmed by the presence of the other at the
time. Anyhow, that tiger simply sheered off the way he had come,
and although unarmed at the time, curiosity and natural
excitement urged me to follow it, to ascertain if possible the
presence of a kill. But it just kept running before me like any
village cur, till I eventually lost it among the many bushes that
grew around.

But there are certain moments with tigers when even they with
tigers when even they demand privacy. Or it may have been the
urge to show off to the female of the species, an urge which I have
known affect otherwise quiet men in a very surprising manner.
Anyhow, this tiger definitely resented the intrusion and with a
short roar he was upon the unfortunate fish-seller, burying his
fangs through the back of his neck and almost severing the spinal
column. Not a sound escaped the man as he fell to earth, the tiger
still growling over him. The two women had heard the short roar
and, recognising the sound as that of a tiger, fled the way they had
come to Ootaimalai. The victim was not eaten on this occasion,
the effort having been but a gesture of annoyance at being
disturbed at the wrong moment, but it had taught that particular
tiger the obvious helplessness of a human being.

Some weeks later, a woodcutter, carrying his burden from the

forest, encountered the same tiger on turning a bend in the path.
Again that short roar, followed by the deadly spring, and another
man lay dead, killed for no reason at all. Again the tiger did not
eat.

Two months passed, and a party of women had gone into the
forest to gather the fruit of wild tamarind trees that grew in
profusion throughout the valley. One of them had strayed a little
away from the rest. She had stooped down to lift the basket to her
head, when, looking up, she met the glaring eyes of the great cat.
A single shrill scream escaped her before that short roar sounded
for the third time and the cruel fangs buried themselves in her
throat. This time the jugular was severed and the salty blood
spouted into the tiger’s mouth; thus was born the man-eating tiger
of Mundachipallam. The woman was dragged away to some
bushes and there devoured, except for her skull, the palms of her
hands, and the soles of her feet.

Three more deliberate kills followed in quick succession, one at

the 7th milestone of the road itself, the other by the banks of the
Chinar River near to its confluence with the Cauvery, and the
third but a mile from the village of Ootaimalai itself. In all three
cases the victims were eaten, or partly eaten.

It was this last kill that caused the greatest consternation,

leading the villagers of Ootaimalai to come in deputation to
Pennagram to beg the authorities to take some action to rid them
of the menace that now threatened their very village. Ranga, my
shikari, was there at the time and promised them that he would
persuade me to help, and having made the promise, travelled the
hundred odd miles to Bangalore by bus, arriving late in the
evening to present his report.

Now a few words about Ranga will not be amiss at this stage.
Strangely enough, I had also met him at Muthur, where I had met
Byra some years earlier. Ranga was the hired driver of a buffalo-
cart, used to haul cut bamboo from the forest to Pennagram. He
had initiative, however, and in his spare time was given to
poaching, like Byra, with a matchlock that he hired for the
occasion. He was a very different man from Byra, however, in both
physical and personal attributes. For he was tall and powerful
compared with Byra’s somewhat puny build, and showed a
forceful and distinctly positive character in all his undertakings.
He had spent a year in jail for the attempted murder of his first
wife, whom he had stabbed in the neck in a jealous quarrel. After
returning from jail he had married again, and at the time I first
met him had three children. Not being content, he later took one
more wife and now had a dozen children in all, and was a
grandfather besides. He had better organising capacity than Byra
and got things done when required. I have known him to thrash a
recalcitrant native thoroughly for not obeying instructions. He
has also a lucrative side to his character, trade in liquor illicitly
distilled in the forest from Babul bark and other ingredients. I have
sampled some of his produce and can tell you it is the nearest
approach to liquid fire that I have known. Lastly, he is a far more
dishonest man than Byra and given to petty pilfering, especially of
.12 bore cartridges. He despises Byra, whom he looks down upon as
a semi-savage. Secretly, I think he is jealous of my affection for the
little Poojaree. But Ranga is a brave man, staunch and reliable in
the face of danger, who certainly fears no jungle animal or forest-
spook, as do the vast majority of other native shikaris.
 Unfortunately, Ranga came at a time when I was very busy and
could not possibly leave the station for another fortnight. So I sent
him back to Pennagram with a number of addressed envelopes and
instructions to write to me every second day, regardless of events.

My inability to answer Ranga’s first summons was perhaps

indirectly responsible for two fresh tragedies that occurred before I
was able at last to pick Ranga up in my car at Pennagram, motor
down to Muthur for Byra, and arrive at Ootaimalai, where I was
joined by a third henchman, an old associate named Sowree. This
Sowree, like Ranga, was quite a versatile fellow, and had himself
spent three months in jail for shooting and killing a wild elephant
with his muzzle-loader while on a poaching trip. The elephant
was a half-grown cow and had approached the hide in which
Sowree lay concealed. Fearing that it might really tread upon
him, Sowree had aimed his musket behind its left ear. The solid
ball had only too effectively done its work, and the elephant
dropped in its tracks. Unfortunately for him, he was caught red-
handed. I had been shooting on the Coimbatore bank at the time,
and had seen and photographed the elephant, which incidentally
was how I met Sowree.

I was extremely fortunate in being able to obtain the services of

these three men, as in their varied spheres and capabilities, they
presented a vast store of jungle experience and ability. Byra at
once volunteered to scout around the neighbouring forest, and
along the Coimbatore bank, in an effort to ascertain the
immediate whereabouts of the tiger. This I emphatically forbade
him to do, as being suicidal. We finally compromised by agreeing
that he should be accompanied by Sowree, armed with my .12
bore gun, and another man who, very surprisingly, bore the name
of Lucas and was a ‘Watcher’ in the employ of the Government
Fisheries Department. Ranga was given the job of obtaining three
baits and tying them out in likely spots. The usual difficulty in
obtaining animals was met, but the resourceful Ranga quickly
overcame it by threats and other expedients, of which I was not
supposed to know.

The first of the three baits was tied a mile up the Chinar River
from where it joined the Cauvery and the second some three miles
further on, where Mundachipallam met the Chinar. The third was
tethered within 100 yards of the well where the first tragedy had
occurred. On alternative days, Byra and his party would scour the
forests on one bank of the Cauvery, while I, with a local guide,
combed the opposite bank. Ranga, as I have said, attended to the
feeding and watering of the baits.

In this way we spent four days, while nothing happened. Tiger

pugs were discovered at several localities, but they were not fresh,
and nobody could tell with certainty whether they belonged to
the man-eater or some other animal.

There was no possibility of driving the man-killer to cattle-

killing to avoid starvation, by prohibiting the villagers from
entering the forests or using the road to Pennagram. To begin with,
considerable traffic existed along this road, as it formed a main
artery to the many hamlets lying on the opposite bank of the
Cauvery. In addition, the forests, particularly on the Coimbatore
side, were plentifully stocked with game, to which the tiger could
always turn in necessity.

In the meantime I endeavoured by every possible means to

spread the news of my presence and purpose to all surrounding
hamlets, in order that I might hear of any fresh kill with the least
possible delay. There was then some hope, with Byra’s expert help,
of being able to track the animal to where it was lying up, or
perhaps even to its lair. Beating was out of the question, even if
there had been volunteers for the task, of which there were none,
as we were dealing with a very bold and clever animal, who
would as likely as not add one more victim to his list from among
the beaters themselves.
 Early in the morning of the fifth day, I received news that a man
had been killed at Panapatti cattle-pen, some four miles away,
late that previous evening. He had gone out of his hut for 100
yards to call his dog, which was missing, and had not been heard
of again. We hurried to the spot and Byra was successful in
discovering the spot at which the man had been attacked: the
great splayed-out pugs of the tiger were soon clearly visible across
the sandy bed of the Chinar River as he had dragged his victim
across and through the intervening reeds to the borders of the
sloping bamboo forest beyond. Here we discovered the remains,
almost totally devoured.

No trees were available, except for a mighty clump of bamboo

that grew some thirty feet from the remains. Inside this I
instructed Byra to make me a suitable hide by the simple
expedient of removing some eight or nine of the stout bamboo
stems, cutting through them about four feet from the ground and
again at the ground level, and then taking out the intervening
four-foot lengths. The upper parts of the bamboo stems being in
the centre of the clump, would not fall to earth, so entangled were
the tops with the fronds of neighbouring stems and those of other
clumps.

After completing his work, Byra had succeeded in making a sort

of hollow cave for me in the midst of the clump. Seated in the
middle of this I knew I would be quite safe from attack by the
tiger, either from behind or from either side, as he could not get at
me owing to the numerous intervening stems. The only way he
could reach me was from in front, and this I felt quite capable of
countering provided I kept myself awake throughout the night.
The faithful Poojaree persisted in his wish to sit with me, till I was
compelled to order him peremptorily to go. I would, indeed, have
been glad of his company, but the space we had cleared in the
midst of the bamboo-clump offered only restricted
accommodation to one individual. To cut more steins to increase
this space meant that we were reaching the outskirts of the clump
and the unsupported bamboo stems would then fall to earth, not
only causing much disturbance by the crash, but littering the
surroundings with debris, which might quite possibly frighten the
tiger away.

The night would be dark, with no moon, so I took the

precaution of clamping my spare shooting light to my shotgun,
which I carried into the hide with me, in addition to the
Winchester, with its own lighting arrangement. Being in the midst
of the bamboo, I knew I was almost completely sheltered from the
dew and the cold jungle air, and fairly safe from snakes or so I
thought.

I was in position by 1 p.m., and sent my followers away, Byra

still protesting, with instructions to call to me from the bed of the
Chinar next morning before approaching. With their departure I
was left to my own devices for the next seventeen hours.

You will appreciate that from my position in the midst of the

bamboo-clump my view was entirely restricted on all sides except
for the narrow lane of jungle right in front of me, with the human
cadaver in the foreground. Much as I would have preferred a wider
range of vision, I knew I would be thankful once the hours of
darkness fell, as the more I could see by day the more I would be
exposed to the man-eater after dark, when the tables would be
turned and he could see while I could not.

The human remains, being hidden from the sky by the canopy of
overhanging bamboos, were not troubled by vultures. Flies,
however, covered it in hordes and the stench soon began to get
painfully noticeable.

I will not burden you with descriptions of the sounds of a jungle

evening and the close of a jungle day, beyond mentioning that
they were practically all present on that occasion and offered
sweet accord to my jungle-loving ears.
 Nothing happened before darkness set in, which it did both
earnestly and rapidly, till I was left in Stygian blackness,
intensified by the additional shadows cast by the towering
bamboo stems above me. It was so dark that I could not see my
own hands as they rested on my lap; I would have to feel for the
trigger and the torch switch, and indeed, everything. All that was
visible was the luminous dial of my wristwatch showing that it
was a quarter to eight. Ten long hours before daylight came.

I knew that during this time I would have to strain myself to the
utmost in pitting my poor, human, and town-bred skill against
that of the king of the jungles, at which he was a past-master,
with decades of skilful ancestors behind him; namely, at listening
and hearing. For I could not see an inch before me, while he could
see clearly. Nor could I smell him at all, but neither could he smell
me. For success I would have to depend entirely on my hearing the
sound of his soft approach, and I well knew from long experience
how soundless the approach of a cautious tiger can be. I would
have to remain absolutely silent myself; worse, the slightest
movement or sound from me would betray my presence to those
ever-acute ears, and once he knew I was there, only one of two
possible things could happen. Either his courage would fail him
and he would desert the kill, or he would attack me by a sudden
pounce through the opening in front of me, before I was aware of
his coming. I certainly had no wish to become the next item on his
menu.

Therefore, I could do nothing but sit absolutely and completely

still. Mosquitoes found their way even inside that clump, and
tortured me acutely. Once some cold creeping thing passed across
my lap. It had length but no legs and was undoubtedly a snake.
Movement at that time meant a bite and, if it was a poisonous
snake, possibly death. With extreme difficulty I controlled my
twitching nerves, and the snake glided away. I could just sense its
rustle as it slipped between the intervening bamboo stems and was
gone.
 By and by my throat began to tickle and I had an overpowering
desire to cough. I counted sheep to divert my thoughts from this
urge till it eventually died away.

At 10.25 p.m. I heard a distinct sound in the jungle behind me.

A faint rustle, then all was still. The minutes dragged by. Then it
came again, on my right and in line with the very clump where I
was sitting. Heavy breathing was clearly audible. A very faint
grunt, silence, another grunt, and then the quick rush of a heavy
soft body before me. Was it on the kill, or was it staring me in the
face from the inky darkness, perhaps even at that instant drawing
the powerful hindlegs below the supple belly to catapult itself
upon me? And I could not see even the end of my own nose.

I had already cocked my rifle, and had slowly raised the muzzle,
finger on trigger, to meet the coming onslaught at point-blank
range. The perspiration poured down my face in sheer terror, and
my whole body trembled with nervous suppression.

I depressed the torch switch and the brilliant beam blazed out
upon a large hyaena, standing above the kill, growling to find out
it was a dead man that lay there. He stared blankly at the light for
seconds and was gone. I could have laughed aloud with relief and
the thought that I was safe once more at least for the present.

Anyhow, my position had been temporarily revealed and I could

only hope the man-eater was not in the vicinity to become aware
of it. Hastily I took advantage of the disturbance to swallow a
mouthful of hot, refreshing tea from the flask I had brought, and
quickly move my cramped limbs before resettling myself for the
remainder of my vigil. I was in Stygian darkness again, but
considerably refreshed and relieved of the morbid nervous tension
that had threatened to overcome me a few minutes before.

At ten minutes to twelve I heard the moan of a tiger in the

distance. This was repeated again at intervals of five to ten
minutes, the last being at twelve-twenty, and from a spot I judged
to be a quarter of a mile away. It was difficult to gauge the exact
distance of sound in this densely wooded locality, but I thanked
Providence and my lucky stars that the tiger had decided on
making a noisy approach rather than the silent one I had dreaded.

A quarter of an hour slipped by without further sign. In the

meantime the usual mid-nightly jungle-breeze had sprung up, to
cause the bamboo stems to groan and creek against each other
weirdly. This aroused a fresh and ominous thought in my mind.
Supposing one of the several cut bamboo stems, balancing upright
above my head, was to become dislodged and slip downwards
under its own weight. The cut end would impale me to the
ground, like some rare beetle in a collector’s box. The thought was
not very pleasant and for a moment it eclipsed even the thought of
the man-eater and its proximity.

And then I heard the crack of a bone on the cadaver lying in the
darkness before me. Slowly I lifted the rifle to shoulder-level,
steadied it and depressed the torch-switch for the second time that
night. But nothing happened. I depressed the switch again and
again, but still nothing happened. Undoubtedly the bulb had
burnt out or some connection had come loose. I had now the
choice of sitting very still till the tiger fed and departed, or
changing my rifle for the smooth bore and attempting a shot. I
quickly decided to use the gun. Ever so gently I lowered the rifle to
ground level and then groped silently in the dark for the .12 bore.
Finding it, I drew it towards me and then began manoeuvring the
weapon to shoulder-level. I could only hope that the tiger was
looking away from me, or was too engrossed in his meal to notice
all the movement that was going on in the midst of the bamboo-
clump. And then misfortune befell me. Slightly, but quite
distinctly, the muzzle of the gun came into contact with a
bamboo stem and there was an audible knock.
 The sounds of feeding stopped abruptly, followed by a deep-
chested and rumbling growl. Hastily I got the gun into position
and pressed the switch of the new torch. Luckily it did not fail,
and the beam burst forth to show clearly a huge striped form as it
sprang off the cadaver and behind the bamboo clump next to
mine. From there a succession of earth-shaking roars rent the
silence, as the man-eater demonstrated in no uncertain manner
his displeasure at being disturbed, and his discovery of a human
being in the near vicinity.

Keeping the torch alight, and a sharp lookout for his sudden
attack, with one hand I groped for the spare bulb I always carried
in my pocket. I extracted it and kept it on my lap. Still working
with one hand, I unscrewed the cover of the torch on my rifle,
extracted the faulty bulb and substituted the new one.
Fortunately, the torch was one of those focussed by adjustment
from the rear and not the front end, and as the rifle torch was now
functioning again, I extinguished that on the smooth bore, though
I kept the gun ready across my knees for any further eventuality.

The tiger was still demonstrating, but had moved to a position

in my rear. I knew I was safe enough, except from a frontal attack.
To guard against this I would have to keep the torch alight
continuously, but as over five hours still remained till daylight,
there was the certainty the batteries would run low, even on both
torches, if burned incessantly. So I switched off the light and relied
on my hearing. When things became too silent for a long stretch, I
would switch on the beam, expecting to see the creeping form of
the tiger approaching me. But this did not happen and he kept his
distance, demonstrating frequently till past 2.30 a.m., when I
heard his growls receding in the distance. No doubt he was
disgusted, but by this time I welcomed his disgust.

You may be certain I kept a sharp lookout for the rest of the
night against the tiger’s return, for the habits of a man-eater are
often unpredictable; but the chill hours of early morning crept
past without event, till at last the cheery cry of the silver-hackled
jungle-cock made me grateful for the dawn and the light of
another day, which on more than one occasion during the terrible
hours that had just dragged by I had not thought of seeing.

Soon the halloa of nay followers from the bed of the Chinar
River fell like music on my tired ears, and I shouted back for them
to advance, as the coast was clear. With their arrival I staggered
forth from my night-long cramped position, to finish the tea that
remained in my flask and to smoke a long-overdue pipe, while
relating the events of the night.

All three of the men knew me most intimately, but although

they did not say as much, it was clearly evident they were
surprised to see me alive, for the roars and demonstrations of the
frustrated man-eater had been clearly audible to them, where they
had spent the night with the shivering herdsmen of Panapatti.

Byra now said that he would like to take a quick walk up the
Chinar to Muthur, just four miles away, and fetch his hunting
dog, which he felt would be of considerable help in following the
trail of the tiger. This dog was a very non-descript white and
brown village cur, answering to the most unusual name of Kush-
Kush-Kariya. How it happened to possess this strange name I had
never been able to fathom. In calling the animal, Byra used the
first two syllables in a normal tone, but would accentuate the
third into a weird rising cry resembling that of a night-heron. I had
never been able to emulate him in this, and had contented myself
in the past with Kush-Kush alone, which the dog would obey
without hesitation.

Insisting that he at least took Sowree as company, I returned

with Ranga to Ootaimalai and had a hot breakfast, and a bath in
the Cauvery, followed by a long-overdue sleep. I awoke at 2 p.m.
with the return of Byra, Sowree and the much-prized Kush-Kush-
Kariya, who wagged his tail at me in joyful recognition and
nuzzled his cold snout against my shoulder.

Swallowing a hasty lunch and plenty of hot tea, were turned to

the spot of my night’s adventure, accompanied by the relatives of
the dead man, who yearned to bring away his remains but were
far too afraid to visit the spot unprotected.

As may be imagined, the corpse was by this time smelling to

high heaven, so they decided to carry it only as far as the Chinar
River and bury the remains on the bank. With their departure,
poor Kush-Kush made a brave attempt to follow the cold trail of
the tiger but was not very successful in going even 100 yards.
Probably the stench that still pervaded the atmosphere and
lingered on the quiet evening air had overpowered all faint smell
that might have remained in the tiger’s tracks over the hard
ground. We returned to camp just before nightfall, a very
disappointed group.

The following day nothing happened, but on the morning of the

day after, Ranga nearly met his end.

Each day, as I have already said, Byra, Sowree and I scoured the
forest in opposite directions in the hope of locating the tiger, while
it was Ranga’s duty to feed and water our three baits, none of
which had been killed up to that time. He had made an early start
that morning, with another villager for company, and had already
visited the bait at the well on Mundachipallam, which was found
untouched, as expected. After depositing some of the straw carried
by his companion, Ranga watered the animal and then the two
men moved down Mundachipallam itself, to look to the second
bait tied at its confluence with the Chinar River. The villager was
leading, Ranga bringing up the rear. They had come about a mile
from the road when, standing fifty yards from them in the middle
of the dry stream, was the tiger.
 The villager dropped his bundle of straw and shinned up the
only tree at hand. For the few seconds it took him to climb a
reasonable height, he blocked Ranga’s progress, and within those
few seconds the man-eater had reached the base of the tree, reared
up on its hind legs, and with a raking sweep of its forepaw
removed the loin-cloth around Ranga’s waist, the end of which
had hung downwards, while he climbed. The tiger halted
momentarily to worry the cloth, while Ranga, minus his
loincloth, climbed energetically, overhauling and almost
knocking his companion off the tree, in his efforts to reach the
higher terraces and safety. The disappointed tiger remained below,
looking upwards and growling savagely, while Ranga and his
companion shouted loudly for help, telling the world at large that
they were being killed and eaten.

Fortunately, a party of people, travelling in large numbers for

safety’s sake, happened to be coming from Pennagram and were at
that time in the vicinity of the well, from where they heard the
shouts and recognized its message. At the double the whole group,
men, women and children of all ages, covered the remaining four
miles to reach me at Ootaimalai with the news.

Not knowing it was Ranga who had been attacked, and Byra
and Sowree not having yet returned, I jog-trotted the distance
alone, arriving at the well in record time. From here I could
plainly hear the shouting myself. By this time the tiger had left
the foot of the tree and vanished into the forest, but the two men
were afraid to descend, for fear it might be in hiding and rush forth
on them. Hoping to surprise the man-eater, I refrained from
answering them while hastening forward as swiftly as caution
permitted. When I reached the tree, however, it was only Ranga
and his companion who were surprised at seeing me, till I
explained the circumstances. We then attempted to follow the
tiger, but no signs of him were evident on the hard ground; so we
desisted and turned back to visit the remaining baits. I
accompanied the men, and we found both animals unscathed. It
was past midday when we returned to Ootaimalai with the
despairing knowledge that the leery tiger we were after apparently
was not going to kill any of our baits. Nor, with the experience I
had had with him, was he ever likely to return to a kill again. To
say I was exceedingly crest-fallen and despondent would be
putting it too mildly. The wily man-eater of Mundachipallam
looked like being one of those tigers that would stay put for a long
time to come, if it did not go away of its own accord to continue
its depredations elsewhere.

And then, about 7 a.m. two days later, came the event that
brings this story to an end. As I have mentioned, in coincidence it
remarkably resembled the events with which the tale started.

Again a group of persons, except that they were ten in number

for the sake of safety, had placed their baskets, laden with fish for
Pennagram, on the ground, to water at the well beside
Mundachipallam and to rest awhile.

Women being in the party, one of the men stepped behind the
nearest tree to ease himself. There was a short roar, an elongated
golden body with black stripes hurled itself as if from nowhere,
and the squatter had disappeared. By good fortune, Byra, Ranga,
Sowree and myself had set forth in company to visit our baits and
were hardly a mile behind the party of ten. Soon we met the nine
who were returning with the sad news of the one who was not.
Running forward as fast as we could, we reached the well, where I
whispered to Ranga and Sowree to climb up adjacent trees and
await my further need. Byra and I crept forward and, behind the
tree chosen by the unfortunate man to answer the call of nature,
we picked up the trail of his blood as it had ebbed away in the
jaws of the tiger.

With Byra tracking, and closely in his wake with rifle to

shoulder, and scanning every bush, we had penetrated only a short
hundred yards when we heard the sharp snap of a bone in the
mouth of the feeding tiger. The sound had come from a half-left
direction ahead of us. Laying my straining hand on Byra, I
motioned him to remain where he was, while I crept cautiously
forward, knowing well that under such circumstances a
companion becomes an additional life to care for.

The forest was still and breathless, and the sound of gnawing
and crunching could now be heard more clearly. Very carefully
and silently edging closer, with downcast eyes watching each
footstep, for fear I should rustle a leaf, snap a twig, or overturn a
loose stone, it took me a considerable time to advance a mere
fifteen yards. From there I thought I could see the slayer, crouched
on the ground. A few paces nearer, and suddenly he arose and
faced me, a dripping human arm, torn off at the shoulder, held
across his mouth. The wicked eyes gazed at me with blank
surprise, then a snarl began to contort the giant face, rendered
more awful by the gruesome remains it carried.

The 300 grains of cordite, behind the soft-nosed Winchester

bullet, propelled the missile with upwards of thirty-five tons to the
square inch, correctly into the base of the massive neck. The
human arm dropped into the grass with a plop. The animal
lurched forward with a gurgling grunt. Quick working of the
underlever of the old, trusted rifle, and a second missile buried
itself in that wicked heart. It beat no more. The man-eating tiger
of Mundachipallam lurched forward to his end in almost the same
spot where he had begun his wicked career months before. A large
male, he was without blemish. Undoubtedly a wicked tiger by
nature, he had evidently turned man-eater through an unlucky
chance. On such trivial circumstances often hang the threads of
fate.

Anxious about my welfare, my wife surprised me by arriving

that same afternoon in her car from Bangalore to ask me whether I
ever remembered I had a home and family, and if it was not about
time I thought of returning to it.
 We motored Byra, via Pennagram, back to his dug-out near
Muthur, where we were just in time to be present at the happy
arrival of his fifth progeny. And the arrival was in this fashion. A
shallow hole, hammock-shaped and about of the same dimension,
had been scooped in the sands of the Chinar River, the hollow
then being liberally filled with soft green leaves, freshly separated
from their stalks. In this hammock the mother, about to give birth,
lay when the pains of child-birth began. The husband acted as
midwife. No medicines, no ergot, no hot water, no cotton wool!
Only tender green leaves, and the sharp edge of a flint, to saw
through the navel cord, the bleeding stump of which is staunched
with ashes from an ordinary wood-fire. A couple of hours after
giving birth the mother got up with her baby and went to the hole
on the banks of Anaibiddahalla where they lived. The husband
filled in the hammock-like hollow; leaves, placenta and all, with
the loose sands of the Chinar River. In such simple and hardy
fashion are the Byras of the forest born. So do they live and so do
they die, true children of nature and of the jungle. Long may they
continue to exist, untrammelled and untarnished by civilisation,
happy and free to roam as they will over mountain, fen and forest
glen, till death claims them and they return unostentatiously to
mother earth, from which they have so unostentatiously sprung.

On the morning of that day I had shot a peacock, and this we

had for dinner, prepared in the jungle fashion. All feathers are
removed, with the entrails, head and neck. Incisions with a knife
are made in the flesh of the bird, into which are inserted salt,
spices, cloves and ‘curry-powder’ to taste. The whole is then
plastered over with fresh, clean mud from the river bank to a
thickness of well over an inch, so that it finally resembles a ball of
wet mud. A fire of embers is built, the ball placed on it, and
surrounded on all sides and above with still more embers. The fire
is kept continuously alive by the addition of more wood, but the
aim is to have glowing embers, rather than a blazing fire. After
some time the mud begins to crack, and finally falls away in
sections. Then is the time to remove the bird before it is burnt.
With a little practice in the art of mud-roasting, a truly superb
roasted peacock or jungle-fowl can be prepared for dinner, the
finished product putting many a housewife to shame.
 11

The Tigers of Tagarthy

F YOU travel to the western limits of the District of Shimoga in

I the State of Mysore, you will at once be struck by the difference
of scenery from that prevailing around Bangalore and the eastern
parts of the state. For here you are within the belt of evergreen
forests, fed by torrential monsoon rains, averaging above 120
inches a year west of Shimoga town itself and reaching over 250
inches at the village of Agumbe, the extreme limit of Mysore State
on the Western Ghats. Giant trees, their leafy tops reaching to
high heaven, and colossal tree-ferns, grow along the numerous
streams that gush from forest and glen and border the roadside
with a perennial supply of fresh water. Vegetation of the rankest
description, among which the thorny varieties of the jungles of
central and eastern South India are conspicuous by their absence,
is to be seen everywhere. But little wandering in these jungles is
possible, for trails do not exist, since the undergrowth densely
covers every open space and struggles ever upward to reach a ray
of sunshine. Beneath the towering trees everything is damp and
dark; the chirp of the wood-cricket and croak of the bull-frog are
the only sounds you will hear. Leeches, their bodies attached to
the undersides of leaves, stretch out elastically to fasten a grip on
any living creature that may brush by. They will penetrate your
clothing, worm their way between the interstices of your boots,
putties or stockings, and suck your blood without your being
aware of their presence, for they give you no pain, until, looking
downwards, you will find some part of yourself oozing blood.
Attempt to pull them off, and they will leave a nasty wound that
generally festers into a sore. Apply a little of the common salt you
should always carry on your person in these parts, or a little
tobacco juice, and they will curl up and fall off of their own
accord. The wound will then heal without any attention.

This is the home of the Hamadryad or King Cobra, ‘Naia

Hannah’, as he is known, that giant snake of the Cobra family
that reaches a length of fifteen feet and more. Dark olive green in
colour, with faint yellowish white circles around his body, he
boasts of no visible mark on his dark, oval hood. Of amazing speed
despite his great length, he feeds on other snakes, is aggressive and
is said to attack on sight, a female guarding her young being
reputed to be particularly bad tempered. I have twice met the
King Cobra on his own grounds, once when collecting specimens
for an aquarium of the beautiful red and green fish, spotted along
their sides, which inhabit the forest streams outside Agumbe; and
on another occasion, when out collecting orchids. But at neither
time did they behave aggressively. Both specimens stopped upon
seeing me, raised their heads about four feet above ground and
partly extended their oval hoods while gazing at me attentively
and inquisitively with their beady black eyes. Then they
harmlessly glided on their way.

The higher treetops are the homes of beautiful orchids, the

stick-shaped branches of the Dendrobium family being
particularly represented. In summer their clusters of pink, yellow,
white or mauve blooms festoon the higher terraces in colourful
array.

This district embraces the Shiravati River, whose waters fall

gracefully and grandiosely in four distinct streams, a sheer 950 feet
at the falls of Gersoppa or Jog. Here, on a moonlit night, can be
seen that rare phenomenon against the steaming spray of the
waters a rainbow by moonlit.

The village of Tagarthy, eleven miles south-east of the little

town of Sagar, is situated on the eastern limits of the evergreen
forests, where they have been felled and cultivation has been
undertaken. Because of the heavy rainfall and fertile earth,
agricultural ventures in this area are extremely profitable. The
grass also grows lusciously on the more open glades, and vast herds
of cattle are kept in the bordering villages and hamlets, due to the
abundant grazing.

Relatively few wild animals, beyond bison, inhabit the

evergreen forests, owing to the denseness of the undergrowth and
the presence of leeches and ticks, which annoy them. For the same
reason, and due to the scarcity of game, carnivora are seldom
encountered in those dark places. But as the area opens out, and
the vast herds of cattle appear, carnivora collect in large numbers
to feed on them and grow fat.

Tagarthy was such an area, and at no time in all my many visits

were there less than four separate tigers in permanent residence.
In February 1939 the peak figure of my experience was reached,
with eight cattle killed in one day at various points of the compass
around Tagarthy. This indicated eight separate tigers operating,
since the kills were reported from widely distant places.

Due to the number of tigers in the locality, panthers are rarely

met with, the one or two ekeing out their existence doing so in the
immediate vicinity of the villages, and living on dogs, goats and
sometimes domestic fowls. For the tiger does not tolerate his
smaller cousin and will without compunction kill and
occasionally eat him, if the panther gets within striking distance.

Except for spotted deer, game is comparatively scarce around

Tagarthy, and the tigers in that area are mainly cattle-lifters.
Most of them are heavily-built animals and fat, lacking the sleek,
trim appearance of the true gamekiller.

Let me tell you the story of Sham Rao Bapat of Tagarthy, and of
the tiger that he shot in his garden, quite close to his house. Sham
Rao was but a lad at the time, about twenty-two years; but as the
sole male heir, he managed the estate that surrounded his home
with efficiency and with the true love of an agriculturist. Rice
grew in the lower, muddy areas, while the dry crop of ragi was
cultivated on higher levels. He also had a grove of areca and
cocoanut palms, up the stems of which clambered the betel-leaf
vine. Moreover, Sham Rao had cattle and other livestock, and
indeed was a prosperous landlord.

One day a fat tiger decided to share in this prosperity and

commenced killing Sham Rao’s herd, one by one. Sham Rao
possessed a smooth-bore gun and nothing else, and loaded with
ball, sat over the kills for the tiger’s return. But for one reason or
other this never happened, till it came to be surmised this
particular tiger was an old hand, who had probably been shot at
before and therefore would not return to his kill a second time.

And then the tiger grew bolder. One dark night it leapt the fence
surrounding Sham Rao’s garden and attempted to dislodge the
stout bamboo screen that had been closely drawn across the
entrance to the cattle shed. Sham Rao had wakened at hearing the
restless snorting and stamping of his cattle. He had then detected a
scratching sound and going outside met the tiger as it leapt away
after having tried to force an entrance.

The next night Sham Rao placed small cut branches on the roof
of his cattle shed, where he lay prone on his stomach, six feet
above the ground at the entrance to his shed. This entrance had
been closed. At ten o’clock the tiger presented itself and began
scratching the door. Sham Rao fired both barrels of his smooth
bore at point-blank range, and the marauder sank almost
noiselessly to earth. He was a fine example of the heavy type of
cattle-killing tiger.

The scene changes. It was 11.30 a.m. and the sun shone
brilliantly down on the little forest bungalow, situated some two
and a half miles from Tagarthy itself. Early lunch was nearly
ready, and my wife was busy with the few finishing touches. Just
then a kakar voiced his grating call from the forest that bordered
the bungalow-fencing. Again and again the call was repeated, the
excited note of the small deer betraying his intense alarm.
Slipping on a pair of rubber boots and carrying the rifle, I crossed
the forest fireline and penetrated the leafy depths of the jungle.
The kakar was still calling and I went forward as fast as was
possible, making the minimum of noise. I came upon a clearing, in
the midst of which stood the little kakar facing away from me and
voicing his intermittent bark. Slipping back into the jungle, I
tiptoed around the clearing, careful not to place myself within the
direct vision of the alarmed deer. Some teak trees had been
planted here and their huge leaves, dry and brittle at this season,
lay where they had fallen, carpeting the forest floor. I knew that
to attempt to cross them would be to give myself away. So I hid
behind the trunk of a stout fig-tree, growing on the edge of the
teak and strove to penetrate the shadows under them. Stare as I
could, for a while I saw nothing. Then a little distance away
something stirred, and in doing so gave itself away. I focussed my
eyes on the spot and there I saw a tiger, lying unconcernedly on
his back, all four feet in the air and apparently fast asleep.
Periodically the tip of his tail would twitch, and it was this
movement that had caught my eye and betrayed his presence.

It would have been unsportsmanlike to shoot the animal in his

sleep. Besides he was doing no harm beyond killing his lawful
food, and so I was not disposed to cause him any hurt. I learnt my
rifle against the tree and myself also, and for quite twenty minutes
I watched that tiger sound asleep on his back. And then from the
forest-lodge floated my wife’s voice, calling me for lunch. The
tiger heard it and sat up, turning his head towards the sound, his
eyes still half-closed with sleep.

Silently I stepped from concealment, the rifle ready for all

eventualities. The tiger heard me, leapt to his feet and whisked
around to gaze in blank surprise at this human, who had come so
close to him undiscovered. Then with a lazy snarl he began to
walk casually away. I let him go peacefully and soon he was lost
to sight.

On another occasion my wife and I had hired a bullock-cart,

and had gone out at night shining torches, to see what we could
see. We had travelled a mile and were half-way down a deep
declivity, where the cart-track crossed a stream, when she picked
up a pair of eyes reflecting her torch-beam, deep in the jungle to
our right. Halting our cart, we dismounted, she leading the way
with the torch, with me behind with the rifle. The eyes had
disappeared, so we followed a narrow footpath that led at an
angle in the general direction of the spot where the eyes had been.
Shortly we picked them up again, large reddish-white orbs,
glowing distinctly against the background of night. Fortunately
the undergrowth was thin just there and we were able to advance
directly towards the eyes. A few steps further and out stepped a
tiger, who looked at us and then back at the place from which it
had just emerged. The mystery of this strange behaviour was soon
unravelled, for two cubs, the size of retrievers, broke cover and
gamboled up to their mother.

She now gazed at us fixedly a few moments and then crossed

into the jungle, uttering a low mewing sound, a call to the cubs to
follow. They did so, and the trio were lost in the forest except for
the rustle of the undergrowth that occasionally marked their
progress through the bushes.

My wife kept her torch beam in the general direction where we

could hear them moving, for fear that the tigress, resenting our
intrusion, should change her mind and launch a flank attack.
Then we both heard a distinct growl before us. Turning the beam
towards this new sound, we were shaken at seeing another tiger,
this time a large male, at almost the spot where the tigress had
stood a few seconds before. Quite evidently we had come upon a
family party returning from quenching their thirst at the stream. I
might observe that it is quite unusual, however, for a male tiger to
accompany a tigress with cubs of the size we had just seen.
Generally she will not trust her offspring near her lord till they are
fairly well grown.

The situation was now decidedly tense, as there was every

possibility of one or other adult animal attacking us. My wife kept
her head with commendable calmness, however, and the tiger,
growling in a low tone, followed his family into the undergrowth.

At that time occurred an amusing sequel to the story, which

might have had an unpleasant ending but happily did not. The
unfortunate cart-driver, left alone in the dark, had heard the
mewing of the tigress followed by the growl of her mate. Perhaps
his bullocks then scented them, or even saw them, for suddenly
they bolted with the cart, to rush pell-mell down into the bed of
the stream, where the wheels stuck fast in the soft sand and water.
Hearing the shouts of the cartman, and thinking he or his bulls
had been attacked, we ran to the spot, to discover all was well
except for the severe fright he had received. We were both glad
that circumstances had not forced us to harm any of the members
of that happy family party.

For some time my friend, Dr Stanley of the Mysore Medical

Service, was stationed by his department at Tagarthy, principally
to attempt to stem the tide of malaria, which was rife and
affecting practically everyone of the inhabitants. The doctor was
an enterprising man, keen on shooting, and has shot quite a few
tigers during his service.

Late one night he received a maternity call from a hamlet called

Bellundur, about six miles away. True to his profession, he set
forth by bullock-cart, armed with his bag of medicines, injections
and bandages; his ‘Geco’ smooth bore and a five-cell torch added a
touch of shikar to his duty.
 They were traversing an intervening valley when a tiger leapt
across the track, and sitting on its haunches by the wayside,
turned to watch the passing cart. Stanley fired ball at the animal,
which received the lead with a loud roar and disappeared.

Calmly he went on to his destination, relieved the mother of her

baby and spent the rest of the night with the patient, returning
next morning with a small boy of his acquaintance to help him
and the cartman to follow up the tiger he had wounded the night
before.

Coming to the spot, they soon picked up a blood-trail, which

they began to follow, the cartman turning back to his cart on the
plea he could not leave his bullocks alone. Stanley and the boy
had gone some distance and entered a hollow, when they
unexpectedly came upon the tiger lying on its side before them.
Thinking it was dead, but to make certain, Stanley fired an L.G.
into its rear, when the tiger came to life, turned round and
charged them. As it leapt, Stanley fired his remaining barrel, this
time ball, into the mouth of the tiger. Then it was on him,
knocking him down and laying bare a portion of the back of his
skull. At this moment the boy fled screaming, thus undoubtedly
saving Stanley’s life, for the tiger left him and chased the boy,
whom in turn it sprang upon, biting into his side. Dazed from the
wound in his head, Stanley scrambled to his feet and fumbled to
reload his gun, when, unexpectedly, the tiger left the boy and
jumped into the jungle.

The youngster had been badly wounded in the back and side,
and blood was bubbling out of the gaping holes made by two of the
great fangs. In addition, three ribs were broken. Using his torn
shirt for bandages, Stanley patched him up as well as possible and
carried him to the bullock-cart and the long journey of seventeen
miles was begun to the town of Sagar, the doctor himself being in
a bad way all the while. From there they entrained for Shimoga,
about thirty-five miles away, where was a district hospital.
 It is sufficient to record that both of them recovered from their
adventure, Stanley to receive a severe wigging from his medical
superior, who reminded him he had been stationed at Tagarthy as
a doctor and not to shoot tigers.

Their fortunate escapes were undoubtedly due to the fact that

the tiger had been severely wounded. Stanley’s last shot into its
mouth had very probably smashed the lower jaw, for it was
noticeable that in both attacks thereafter it had used only its
upper canines. Had the lower jaw been serviceable, there is no
doubt whatever that both Stanley and the boy would not have
lived to see another sunrise.

As it was, many villagers heard the wounded animal for a week

thereafter, roaring night and day in agony. Then there was silence,
and there is every likelihood that it crawled away into the depths
of the forest to die, for the carcase was never found.

Stanley also told me of two other experiences at Tagarthy. Once

while sitting on a machan over a kill, nearing sunset, a
hamadryad climbed the tree in which he was stationed. He
frightened it away; but as darkness descended, thinking the great
snake might come back and feeling very uneasy, he returned to
the village. On another occasion, while sitting imperfectly
concealed over a kill, the tiger had seen him and had
demonstrated all night until the early hours of morning, circling
the tree and roaring continuously. This had become a nuisance, as
a drizzle set in, but the good doctor, very wisely, had not risked
returning alone in the dark when he had such an aggressive tiger
to deal with.

When wandering in the few areas around Tagarthy where the

forest is at all penetrable, I have myself come upon a three-quarter
grown tigress lying dead in a clearing, with twenty-three
porcupine quills embedded in her face and chest. One of them had
completely penetrated and extinguished the right eye. The tigress
was in an extremely emaciated condition. A few feet away was
the half-devoured carcase of a panther. The tragedy was not
difficult to piece together. Evidently the tigress had attempted to
make a meal of a porcupine, which had charged backwards into
her face, as these animals do, embedding its quills in her head and
chest and putting out one eye. Blinded, starving and still carrying
the quills from the last encounter, the tigress had wandered
desperately in search of food. Then she had come upon the
panther, whom she had attacked, fought, killed and begun to eat,
when death had overtaken her, for some unaccountable reason,
perhaps through stomach or other injuries caused by the panther
itself, not clearly evident to me from her decomposed carcase.

In the hamlet of Bellundur lived a mysterious individual named

Buddiah, accredited by local inhabitants with great powers of
witchcraft and black magic. He was reputed to have bewitched
people and brought about their deaths. He was a great friend of
mine and, after one of our many intimate talks late one night he
presented me with a circle of plaited creeper stems, four inches in
diameter, made from mysterious plants that grow, he said, deep
inside the forest. He asked me to keep this with me always, on my
hunting trips, and said that if any time I was in an area where
game did not show up, I was to wait till the sun had set, and then
pass the circle three times up and down the barrel of my gun.
Within twenty-four hours, he guaranteed, I would kill something
with that weapon. I still have that circle, and am ashamed to
confess have used it, more than once, where game has been scarce,
in accordance with the directions of its giver. Call it coincidence
or luck, as you wish, but it has never failed to produce results.

Alas, old Buddiah is now no more, having succumbed to the

dread scourge of malaria, from which even his powers of magic
could not protect him.

Now, let me tell you about the Tiger of Gowja. Gowja is another
tiny hamlet, over six miles from Tagarthy, and half-way to the
forest Chowki of Amligola, situated on the borders of the great
tiger preserve of Karadibetta, carefully protected by His Highness
the Maharaja of Mysore for his own shooting. Tigers are not so
clever as to know that they should remain within the limits of
certain boundaries. Most important of all, no cattle are permitted
into the Karadibetta Preserve and tigers like eating cattle
immensely. Just outside the hallowed precincts are cattle by the
hundred, so what more natural than that there should be more
tigers outside of the preserve than within it.

About 1938 a particularly enterprising tiger walked out of the

preserve and started killing cattle around Amligola, returning
afterwards to the preserve where he was safe and sound from
molestation. In this manner he waxed fat, while his fame as a
devourer of sleek cows spread throughout the area.

Then, as happens with humans, continued success induced

greater daring, disregard for consequences, and finally that rank
carelessness and overconfidence that brings undoing to both tigers
and men.

Our tiger had not yet reached this last stage, though he was well
on the way, for he wandered farther and farther from the
protecting fastnesses of Karadibetta and disdained to return there
during the daytime, as had been his custom hitherto. In this way
he came to Gowja, where he took up his temporary abode on the
banks of a deep nullah that scored the countryside about a mile
and a half from the hamlet. From this shelter he raided the cattle
herds, harrying them morning and evening, never failing to kill at
least two fat cattle each week.

Letters had been written to me about this slayer, but I had never
bothered unduly about his activities, for after all tigers must eat to
live and this old fellow was doing no harm to humans. A few less
cattle mattered little to those vast herds.
 With the passage of time, however, his daring increased still
more, and the last reports showed that he was loth to leave his
kills, demonstrating loudly by roaring and making short rushes at
the herdsmen when they attempted to drive him off. True it was
that hitherto he had not hurt anyone, but I knew from the
preliminary indications that this would happen almost any day
now. Sooner or later another maneater would appear.

At 9.30 a.m. one morning, therefore, I alighted from the mail

train from Bangalore at the wayside railway shed of Aderi. From
here a walk of three and a half miles brought me to Tagarthy. I
was greeted by old friends and hospitably treated to coffee while a
hot meal was being prepared. I occupied the time by gleaning all
the news I could, but this did not amount to much beyond the
usual account of the presence of tiger in all directions; the daring
old tiger of Gowja having earned particular notoriety. After the
meal I set forth by car to cover the six odd miles to Gowja, which,
because the track was in a very bad way, we did not reach till 6
p.m. While talking with the inhabitants, my tent was erected
about three furlongs away, on the banks of a smaller nullah that
fed the main stream. The tiger lived a mile or so beyond.

I was told that the tiger had killed two days before. Nothing had
happened since, but the next kill was undoubtedly due within the
coming forty-eight hours.

Sure enough, word was brought at 1 p.m. next day that the tiger
had just claimed another victim. Hurrying to the spot, I found the
tiger had attacked a cow in the middle of an open field, quite 300
yards from the nearest cover, killed it and carried it away to its
hiding place, which proved to be the very same nullah as that in
which my tent was pitched. The soft sand of the nullah revealed
tracks where the tiger had crept along the bed and then dashed
over the bank towards the cow. The cow had run a short distance
in an effort to escape, but had been overtaken and slain. The tiger
had then lifted the cow across its back and returned to the ravine,
as was evident by the absence of any drag mark, though the tiger’s
pugs were firmer and had sunk deeper into the rough clods of the
ploughed field, due to the weight he was carrying.

I cautiously followed the tracks in the hope of encountering the

animal or his kill. This I eventually did, but he did not
demonstrate and show himself, as I expected he would. That
indefinable sixth sense, which warns the jungle folk in the nick of
time, evidently impressed this tiger that here was a human being
to whom he should not show himself. While still some yards away
in the undergrowth and invisible to me, he became aware of my
presence, growled in a low tone and slunk away.

There was a suitable tree nearby and I arranged the erection of

my charpoy machan. I was in position by 4 p.m. The tiger came at
eight, but stood directly under my machan and beside the tree on
which I sat. I knew of his approach by the subtle sound of his
tread. No dry leaves crackled to betray his coming, but in the
stillness of the silent night there was no mistaking that soft heavy
footfall. He began to lick himself, his rough tongue running over
his glossy coat, making the faintest of rasping sounds. Then he
arose on his hind legs and began to clean and sharpen the claws of
his forefeet against the bole of the tree. In so doing, he saw the
machan above. A low growl and he was gone, nor did he return
that night.

The following day nothing happened, so in the afternoon I

tethered a heifer in the bed of the main nullah where he was
reputed to have his abode and sat up on a machan in a tree
overhanging the nullah at an angle of 60 degrees.

I was in position at 3 p.m. At 5.30 p.m. I heard a dragging sound

and there was the tiger hauling down the bank another cow he
had taken from one of the herds. He was quite eighty yards away.
Aiming at his neck, I fired, but as I did so the tiger moved forward,
receiving the bullet much further back than was necessary for a
fatal shot. He responded to the impact with a coughing grunt and
catapulted to the bottom of the nullah and was gone. I descended
the tree, released my bait and returned to Gowja in the opposite
direction, feeling confident I would locate and bag him next
morning without undue trouble. But I was very much mistaken, as
events were to show.

At dawn I was back at the scene of action, accompanied by two

reliable locals from the hamlet. We picked up the tiger’s blood-
trail at the foot of the nullah, which traversed its bed for some
considerable distance before climbing the opposite bank. We
followed with every caution, but soon found that the animal had
kept going, for there was no evidence that he had sat down to rest
from his wound. It was almost two miles before he had eventually
halted for the first time, feeling the effects of the bullet. He had
then got up and continued, and I guessed that he was making for
Amligola and the Tiger Preserve beyond. Once he reached this, I
knew he was lost, since to carry firearms into the preserve, even in
pursuit of a wounded tiger, was strictly prohibited. He had had a
full night’s start of us, and despite his wound it looked as if he
might gain the sanctuary of the preserve after all.

Pressing forward, we came upon two more places where he had

rested. At the first of these there was considerable blood, and the
grass was flattened where he had been lying. At the second there
was much less blood, and thereafter the trail became more
difficult to follow. Evidently the flow of blood was stopping;
perhaps the layer of fat beneath the outer skin had worked itself
into the bullet-hole and had stopped the profuse bleeding.

We soon found ourselves in the precincts of Amligola and I knew

the tiger had now but a mile to go before reaching the forest fire-
line that marked the western boundary of the preserve. Here
fortune favoured us, for we encountered a stream, at that time
holding pools of water. The pugs of the tiger on the soft sand
showed that he had now changed his mind about heading for the
preserve and had gone upstream instead in search of water. We
followed and came upon the first pool, at which he had drunk and
had lain up for quite a considerable time thereafter, for the tracks
leaving this place were comparatively fresh and had been made
within the hour. This fact renewed our flagging hopes and we
continued for a furlong before coming upon a second pool, where
the tiger had also halted. Water still seeped through the
indentations of the pugs, and it was now clear he was but a little
distance ahead. He might even have heard us coming and had just
moved forward.

I determined to try strategy rather than follow in his wake, for I

greatly feared that he might turn tail and bolt for the sanctuary
which lay so close to this spot. Motioning to my two companions
to climb into a tree, I ascended the bank of the nullah soundlessly,
and doubled forward in a detour as hard as I could go, parallel to
the line of the nullah. I rejoined the nullah half a mile down its
course and tiptoed backwards in the hope of surprising the tiger.
But I was doomed to disappointment, for he heard or saw me and
scampered up the bank and towards the preserve, as I had feared.

I followed his blood-trail to where he had entered a patch of

dense scrub, which I circled, halting behind the trunk of a tree at
the far end. Here I waited, but nothing emerged. If I attempted to
summon my men I would alarm the tiger, and I was in a quandary
as to what to do next. Very obligingly he provided the solution by
moving, as I noticed the grass before me wave to his forward
motion, although not a glimpse of his body was visible. The grass
continued to wave as he crept away at an angle, so I left my
protecting tree and stole forward myself. The grass began to thin
then, and at last I saw him, just as he saw me. I fired at his flank
and with a roar he charged. But within five paces his courage
failed and he turned to receive a third shot, which took him pell-
mell into the thicket from which he had just emerged.
 I whistled to the men, who had heard the shots and were
themselves bravely coming forward. When they had joined me I
explained the situation and told them to climb to the tops of the
neighbouring trees in an effort to locate the tiger. This they did,
but signalled that they could see nothing. I then posted them up
two separate trees about fifty yards apart, after telling them to
whistle if they saw our quarry, and returned to the nullah myself,
in case the tiger should have gone back.

It was a nasty business negotiating that narrow ravine, not

knowing at what moment the tiger might spring upon me from the
bank above or from behind one of the boulders which strewed its
course. One of the fundamental principles in following a wounded
tiger is never to negotiate the bed of a stream alone, when the
wounded animal might be lurking above. But I was desperate,
having spent the whole day in following this wounded beast, and
feared that yet, at the last moment, it might escape me by
dragging itself away to die in Karadibetta.

So with bated breath and rifle cocked, and with my finger closed
around trigger, I negotiated that stream, to find the tiger had not
recrossed it and was still inside the thicket into which it had
jumped. How to dislodge him was now the problem.

Returning and summoning the men, we held a council of war.

To follow the tiger into the midst of the thicket without knowing
at least its approximate location would be suicidal. And then
came inspiration. Returning to the stream, I removed my shirt,
knotted the sleeves together and tied up the neck. Using it as a
bag, we filled it with pebbles to breaking point. Then one of the
men carried it back to where I had last fired at the tiger. With this
store of ammunition, we began stoning the thicket in all
directions, till at last we were answered by a warning growl from
the bushes to the right of the point where we stood and about
thirty yards away.
 Evidently the tiger was severely wounded and could not move,
for he did not rush out at us, but continued to answer each stone
that fell near him with a series of growls.

Whispering to the men to stone intermittently to hold his

attention, I made a detour of the thicket and began to enter it
from the direction of the nullah. I could hear the tiger growling
before me, and the occasional fall of the river stones that were
hurled by my henchmen. As long as I could hear the tiger I made
progress, although the thicket was dense, for I knew his attention
was otherwise held. But then, as I drew nearer, he heard me, for
his growling stopped. My followers also noticed this and guessed
that he had heard or sensed my approach from the rear. In an
effort to distract him they threw the stones higher, further and
faster, but without result, for the tiger would not give himself
away.

I knew I would have to be extremely careful, as he might now

attack me at any moment. I halted, every sense alert, straining my
ears to hear the faintest rustle preliminary to the last great bound
that would bring him upon me. Nothing happened, and as the
seconds rolled by in silence, broken only by the sound of the
dropping stones, my nervous tension mounted and I became
oppressed by an overpowering sense of impending danger. I
glanced in all directions, but could detect no movement. I strained
my ears, but could hear nothing. Still that sense of approaching
peril grew stronger and stronger, till I could have shouted aloud to
break the unnatural silence, or have turned tail and run.

And then I glanced behind me. There between two bushes was
the wounded tiger, reddened with its own blood as it crawled on
its belly to surprise me with its last great spring. Our eyes met, it
roared and launched itself into the air, while the Winchester
cracked twice, hurling its powerful bullets right into the face of
the oncoming fury. I sidestepped as the heavy body crashed before
me, kicked wildly in the air and then lay still, as I sped yet
another bullet into its heart at point-blank range.

The troublesome old tiger of Gowja had failed to reach the

sanctuary of Karadibetta and was now no more.
Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. The Marauder of Kempekarai
2. Alam Bux and the Big Black Bear
3. The Mamandur Man-Eater
4. The Crossed-Tusker of Gerhetti
5. The Sangam Panther
6. The Ramapuram Tiger
7. The Great Panther of Mudiyanoor
8. The Mauler of Rajnagara
 Introduction

IME and civilisation march inexorably onward, bringing in

T their wake industrialisation, higher standards of living, and
greater amenities and comforts, but at the price, it seems, of an
ever-diminishing appreciation of Nature. Her face has been
scarred and furrowed by man-made projects and constructions.
Every minute of the day hoary trees, the giants of the forest, some
of them centuries old, crash to earth, felled by the hand of man,
either for the sake of the timber they provide or to make room for
the constant expansion of a mechanical culture: a condition in
which only a few are happy and which is occasionally punctuated
by the most barbaric atrocities.

With the crash of the forest giants, other things take their
departure too: the wild animals, the birds and all the living
creatures that once beautified our lands. They are all
disappearing, and very rapidly too!

Such was the case long ago with the American prairies, once the
home of countless bison and now completely cleared of its ancient
tenants. Africa is rapidly following suit. Where are those myriad
heads of game that once covered the face of that wonderful land?
Some still remain; but long ago the bones of the vast majority lay
bleaching in the hot African sun, scattered across those thousands
of miles by the bullets of avaricious, unscrupulous and money-
making hunters—men who sometimes shot the mighty elephant
for commercial ends, literally by thousands.

India, too, has lost much, for the decrease in the variety and
number of her wild life has been alarming. I know localities where
until 1930 the moaning sough of a tiger or the guttural sawing of
the panther were normal sounds in the night, followed always by
the warning call of sambar and other members of the deer family.
Now the night passes without a sound, except perhaps for a
persistently chirping cricket. Where once the pug-marks of a tiger
and other wild-animal trails would tell their morning story of the
creatures that had passed that way during the night, the tiny
tracks of a few rabbits might today indicate that they at least have
not been exterminated.

I do not wish to enter into argument as to how and why a

country loses so much with the disappearance of her wild life.
Anyone who has never come to know and love the jungle, its
solitude and all that its denizens signify, could never appreciate
such sentiments, nor the sense of irreparable loss and sorrow felt
by those who look for the once familiar forms that are no longer
there, or listen vainly for those once familiar sounds that were
music to their ears, only to be greeted by a devastating silence.

One cannot doubt that the time will come when even the few
living creatures that today remain in their natural state will have
vanished, and man may then, and only then, realise too late what
a priceless asset he has wantonly allowed to be thrown away.

I write these stories not only in the hope that they may afford
some degree of pleasure to the adventurous, but that they may
also indicate what the conditions of living, in and near the great
forests of India, were once like, and to show too that one of the
greatest opportunities that any individual could desire, of showing
his skill and perseverance in the fine sport of ‘Shikar’, is now in
the process of vanishing forever.

—Kenneth Anderson
 1

The Marauder of Kempekarai

F YOU try to imagine two parallel ranges of lofty hills,

I averaging four thousand feet and more above the sea, with a
valley between them about five miles across, covered with dense
forest except for the craggy summits, you will have in your mind’s
eye the background of my story. It is set in the North Salem district
of the Presidency of Madras in southern India.

The hills run from north to south, and the easterly range is the
more lofty of the two, culminating at its southern point in the
peak of Gutherayan, which is over 4,500 feet high. On its slopes
stands a lovely little forest lodge, known as Kodekarai Bungalow,
amidst some of the finest scenery in the world. Rolling hills and
jutting cliffs are to be seen in every direction. The sun rises in
shades of rose-pink above the billowing clouds of morning mist, to
set eventually in the orange-bronze reflections behind the western
range. Then the moon comes up in pallid splendour, tipping the
hill-tops, and later the deep valleys, with her luminous wand.
Through the night she rides the heavens, silent witness of many a
jungle tragedy in the dark forests below. The scream of a dying
sambar or the shrill shriek of a spotted stag have often gone forth
in vain to that same full moon as they spilled their life-blood on
the forest floor beneath the paws of a hungry tiger.

More than twenty years ago I had the honour of meeting the
brother of King Amanuallah of Afghanistan, who was exiled from
his native country and lived at Kodekarai Bungalow, which was
his favourite abode. He told me that he loved the place, that its
scenery reminded him of his beloved Afghanistan, except that the
hills of Kodekarai were forest-clad while those of his country were
bare. But both of them exemplified space and freedom.
 Kempekarai is a small hamlet standing on the lower slopes of
the western range. Around it lie a few fields and beyond the fields
the forest of dense bamboo, intersected by a rocky stream that
flows down the centre of the valley.

This valley, which I called ‘Spider Valley’ because of the

immense spiders that spin their webs across the narrow footpath
that runs beside the stream, broadens out toward the south into a
larger tract known as the Morappur Valley where the rocky stream
finally joins the Chinnar river at a spot called Sopathy, some ten
miles from the Cauvery river.

I have described the area at some length so that the reader may,
with a little imagination, share the stirring beauty: the dank smell
of rotting vegetation, the twilight of a dense jungle, the distant
half-roar, half-moan of a man-eating tiger searching for its prey,
the eerie and deathly silence that follows those thrilling calls, and
finally that faint rustle in the undergrowth, the indefinable
creeping something that is the man-eater, watching as he becomes
aware of your presence and pits the age-long hunting skill of his
kind against the civilised intellect of man.

But let me begin my story.

Kempekarai was in a state of great fear, for a man-eating tiger

had appeared, and three of its few inhabitants had already gone to
fill his bill of fare.

The first victim, an old poojaree, had left Muttur, eleven miles
away, to come to Kempekarai one month ago. He was never seen
again. Elephants infest these areas, and very occasionally kill
men, so when the poojaree failed to arrive at Kempekarai, a
search-party set out towards Muttur. Perhaps the men who
composed it expected to come upon the plate-like spoor of an
elephant, and to find the squashed remains. But they found
neither. About five miles from Kempekarai they did come upon
the tracks of a male tiger, a little blood by the path- side, the old
man’s staff and his loincloth —and, nothing more.

Some ten days later, near sunset, a woman went down to the
community well to fill her water-pot for the night. She never
returned. At eight p.m. her husband and some of his friends,
carrying lanterns and staves, visited the well to look for her. The
brass water-pot, half-filled with water, lay on its side some twenty
feet from the well, where it had been dropped by the woman on
her return to the village. Of her there was no trace.

Next morning, a search-party was instituted, which duly came

across the woman’s saree, later a silver anklet, and finally her
remains. Her head lay under a bush; her hands and feet were
scattered about; of the remainder of her body, a goodly number of
gnawed bones showed the tiger had indeed been hungry and had
done full justice to a succulent repast.

A month dragged by. Kempekarai assumed the air of a fortress

besieged. Nobody came in, and nobody went out. The immediate
precincts, and in some cases interiors, of the few huts stank with
human filth. Was there not a killer nearby, waiting for the first
victim who was bold enough to even venture outside to answer
the call of nature? The matter was particularly perilous at night;
human beings, with their cattle and sometimes their dogs, were
barricaded together within their cramped huts behind doors that
were kept shut with logs of wood or rounded boulders from the
stream. The huts became more filthy every day, under the force of
the terrible circumstances in which the people were placed.

But the very best of precautions sometimes fall short of

attaining their desired results. Mara, one of the sons-in-law of my
old friend Byra, the poojaree, had spurned to live in such
insanitary conditions. He had told his wife that, man-eating tiger
or not, he for one would not soil the inside of his house. Nightly he
had gone outside to answer the calls of nature, and nightly he had
returned. Then one night he went out as usual for the same
purpose, but this time he did not return. His wife, anxiously
waiting inside, admits she heard a dull thud, a rasping gurgle, but
nothing more.

After fifteen minutes she raised an alarm. Nobody would come

to her rescue, for nobody dared. The inhabitants of the barricaded
huts heard her shrieks for help. They knew that by this time Mara
was beyond human assistance. He was dead, but they were alive!
What was the use of going outside to join him among the dead! So
they remained indoors, and listened to her screaming for the
remainder of that long night.

Next morning, a half-hearted attempt was made to find what

was left of Mara, and it would have been unsuccessful but that the
tiger had boldly eaten his fill among the bushes within two
hundred yards of the village. A little more was left of Mara than
had been left of the woman who had gone to the well. Perhaps his
flesh was tougher, or perhaps the tiger was less hungry. Who
knows? His head and torso, at least, were still in one piece.

Because of the fate that had befallen his son-in-law, my old

friend Byra, who happened to be at Kempekarai at that time,
undertook the hazardous eighteen-mile journey to the village of
Pennagram next day. He came by himself, as nobody would
accompany him, and made the journey without sight or sound of
the man-eater. At Pennagram he sought out his old acquaintance,
Ranga, and the two of them came by bus to Bangalore. At 9 p.m.
that night voices called me to the front door, and, going outside, I
was surprised but delighted to see my old jungle companions once
more.

The Salem district had meanwhile adopted ‘prohibition’ as a

guiding policy towards physical, moral and, no doubt, spiritual
uplift. But my two visitors, being simple, honest forest-folk, with
no such high physical, moral or spiritual pretensions, enjoyed a
shot of good spirits in the form of half a tumbler of neat brandy,
each. Thus refreshed, they began at the beginning, or rather Byra
did, and related the brief history of the coming and doings of the
man-eater, as I have told it to you, closing with the flat statement
that his son-in-law, Mara, must be avenged and that I was to do it.

In the face of that argument and his childlike confidence in me,

I could find no very convincing reply. Three days later I was on the
road to Pennagram, where I left the Studebaker. We bought
supplies at the local market, and within a few hours the three of
us were trudging those eighteen miles to the little hamlet of
Kempekarai, where the car could not go.

A couple of miles before our destination we found fresh pug-

marks of a tiger on the footpath. No human traveller had passed
along this track for many days, and the spoor was clear. I made
careful measurements and noted that the pugs belonged to a male
tiger of average size. This gave no indication whether the maker
was an old animal, or of normal adult age, nor could any of us say
at that time whether he was the man-eater, or just another
passing tiger.

The few inhabitants of Kempekarai were unable to add much

material information to that which had already been given to me
by Byra. They thought the man-eater was an enormous animal,
but, of course, all simple folk, when keyed up to a state of sheer
terror bordering on panic, as had been the case with these poor
people for the past few weeks, are given to attributing
superhuman cunning and wholly impossible bodily strength and
size to their oppressor.

The problem now was: how to proceed, and what to do? The
answer was: wait for a kill, or present a live-bait. This particular
tiger had not killed a single cow or other domestic animal
belonging to the villagers. So far, at least, it had killed only
human beings. The question was: would it kill an animal bait, or
should that bait be human? To which the only answer was, that in
the event of a human bait, it could be nobody but myself, an
answer which I thoroughly disliked even to think about.

Byra, Ranga, and myself went into close conference, over

successive mugs of tea, and eventually an answer began to take
shape. I thought we should try animal baits, but they thought a
human bait—myself, of course—would produce immediate
results. I heartily wished they had reached a different conclusion.

In a three-man committee, any two of them form an

overwhelming majority. The odd man must give in but I managed
to force my point to the extent of agreeing that together with the
human bait, there would be no harm in trying out a couple of
young bullocks at selected spots as an additional attraction.

No buffaloes were available at Kempekarai, so I bought two

bullocks, one of which we tied at the spot where we had found the
pug-marks, and the other on the bed of the stream that meandered
along the bottom of the valley. I sat on the stone parapet of the
well, my back resting against one of the wooden uprights that
supported the pulley-wheel, through which ran a rope for drawing
water. I arranged for a metal pot to be tied to the end of this rope,
which I kept beside me on the parapet. Fresh water is always nicer
to drink than that from a water-bottle.

The jungle began some fifty yards from the well in all directions
except one. Here somebody had planted a dozen or more papaya
trees. With the occasional watering from the well that these trees
received, an undergrowth, mainly of grass with a few shrubs here
and there, had sprung up around the papaya tree. In daylight this
undergrowth appeared negligible, but with twilight and
approaching darkness, I began to feel it presented an admirable
line of approach for the man-eater, which could easily crawl
through it on its belly and come within almost springing distance
of where I sat, without my being aware of its presence.
 When this thought came to my mind, I changed my position to
the other side of the well, using the opposite wooden upright as a
back-rest, so that I now faced the papayas.

I had only decided to expose myself in view of the fact that we

had fortunately come at a time just before full moon. Moonrise
almost synchronised with sunset, but I had forgotten that the
moon still had to top the range of hills to the east before it could
cast its brilliance on that benighted well. This would only happen
after 8 p.m. and I spent one of the worst ninety minutes of life
awaiting—I cannot hope to express how eagerly and anxiously—
the first rays of that longed-for moon.

The experience brought me back to the terrible hours I had

spent before the huts of Gummalapur, awaiting that horrid
panther, and to the day I had sat with my back to the teak tree, in
the far distant Chamala forest range, hoping for a glimpse of a
similar man-eater;1 and I wondered what had made me so foolish
as once again to place myself in such an awkward predicament.
Then common sense told me that perhaps it was the only way.

The darkness was deathly still, and not even the familiar
nightjar came anywhere near me. A few bats flitted down the
well, to sip the limpid water in a series of flying-kisses, as they
quenched their thirst after the hot day. I strained my eyes, not
only towards the papaya trees, but also in all directions.
Imagination created the form of the man-eater, slowly creeping,
stealthily stalking me, from just outside my range of vision. I sat
glued to the parapet, my .405 cocked, my thumb on the torch-
switch.

The thoughts that spring to a man’s mind at such times are often
strange and unaccountable, but why should I burden you with
them? The tiger first assumed the role of possible avenging fate. At
other times it practically faded from conscious thought.
 Shortly after eight o’clock the skyline above the eastern range
grew more distinct; a pale glow diffused itself against the sky,
dimming the stars, and then the moon appeared, lightening both
the surroundings and my nervous condition. As the moon rose
higher in the heavens, the scene became brighter, until I could see
almost clearly between the stems of the papaya trees. Not a sound
disturbed the silence of my vigil for practically the first half of the
night.

Shortly after 11 p.m. a sambar stag voiced its strident call from
the bed of the stream where I had tied one of my bullocks. I
recognised the note of alarm and fear in its voice, as the call was
repeated over and over again, to die away at last in the distance,
when the stag ascended the rampart of the opposing range of hills
to safety.

Again silence fell, and the night dragged out its last hours. It
then struck me that I might perhaps be able to catch the tiger’s
acute hearing, if he was anywhere within a mile, by operating the
pulley-wheel above the well, which, I had noticed earlier in the
afternoon, creaked and squealed loudly as it revolved about its
uncoiled axle. Perhaps he would hear and be attracted, thinking
another prospective victim was drawing water from the well.

So I went around the well to where the water-pot rested on the

ground. First of all I stood the firearm up against the wall, and
then let the pot down till it touched the water, drawing it up and
letting it down in slow succession thereafter. The pulley screeched
loudly in the silence of the night, and I continued for nearly an
hour, stopping every now and again to survey my surroundings
intently, particularly the deep shadows cast by every bush. But
nothing stirred, and in the breathless air not a leaf moved, nor did
even a belated rat rustle the dried debris that carpeted the ground
beneath the adjacent papayas. To all intents and purposes, I was
the only living thing in that area, apart from the inmates of the
huts, secure behind barricaded doors.
 After 3 a.m. the moon began to sink behind the western range of
hills, and the same conditions presented themselves as in the
previous evening. It grew darker and darker, and soon I could see
only a few yards around me, and that by the radiance of the stars
that came to life, and twinkled overhead, with the disappearance
of the setting moon.

There were only ninety minutes of darkness left, and I felt

terribly sleepy. Still I had now to redouble my guard. Had I not
been trying to attract the tiger for the past hour? As he had not
passed that way all night, it was just possible he might do so now.
Moreover, conditions for a surprise attack were all in his favour, as
the papaya trees themselves now became undefined, except as a
darker blur among the other shadows in my line of vision.

I realised that the man-eater had me completely at his mercy if

he chose to attack. Should he roar as he charged, I could at least
discharge my rifle at point-blank range. On the other hand, if he
crept silently upon me, I would not be aware of his coming until
actually struck down.

At the same time, all the rats and rabbits, and other small
animals, which had been conspicuous by their absence all night,
appeared to select this moment to rendezvous near the well. They
scurried hither and thither, and rustled the dead leaves, sometimes
noisily, sometimes barely audibly, while my excited imagination
telegraphed the urgent message ‘the man-eater is coming’.

Altogether I had a dreadful time. The false dawn came and

went, and then at 5.45 a.m. the brightening of the skyline once
more, above the eastern range, told me that daylight was at last at
hand and that the tedious vigil was nearly over. It was well past
seven before the sun peeped over the eastern hills, and I arose and
dragged my wary, sleepy steps to the tent I had pitched at the
southern end of the village.
 Hot tea and a nap till ten-thirty. Then, accompanied by Ranga
and Byra, I first visited the bait tethered in the streambed. It was
alive and well. Closer inspection showed that a tiger had
approached to within 15 feet of it and had passed on after a
cursory inspection.

The sambar stag I had heard during the night had doubtless seen
or scented this tiger and had voiced his loud alarm. The tiger’s
pug-marks were clearly identified as having been made by the
same animal as had been those I had seen while coming along the
path on the western range, where the ground was firmer and
dimensions not exaggerated. Nevertheless, I had little doubt that
this was the real man-eater, for a normal tiger will not readily
leave a tempting, unguarded bait alive.

We then went to see the other bullock, where a surprise awaited

us. It had been killed by a tiger, whose pug-marks were identical
with those I had carefully measured the previous day, near the
very same spot on the pathway.

The question now was this: were there two tigers in the
vicinity, or had the second bullock been killed by the man-eater? If
the latter was the case and there was only one tiger— and that the
man-eater—why had he not killed the bullock which had been
tied in the streambed instead of just looking at it and choosing to
kill the other?

I formed the definite opinion that there were two tigers in the
vicinity, and that it had been the man-eater which had ignored
the bullock at the stream. Ranga agreed with me, but Byra would
not commit himself to either opinion. He suggested that the man-
eater might be the only tiger in the area, that it had not killed the
first bullock, possibly because it was a white one. The second,
being dark brown, had been above suspicion.
 On the question of the colour of a live-bait I have a very open
mind. In my own experience, colour makes little or no difference
to a tiger, and he will kill your bait provided certain other
conditions also exist. He must be hungry, for a tiger rarely, if ever,
kills wantonly. Moreover, he must not suspect a trap of any kind.
In these days when tiger-hunting is becoming intensified, tigers
are learning their lessons quickly. Nature makes an effort to try to
preserve a species which is rapidly becoming shot-out.

Thus a bait secured around the neck by a rope stands a very

good chance of not being touched by a tiger. He cannot reason, but
his instinct, or sense of self-preservation, tells him that it is
unnatural of villagers to tie up their cattle for the night in a forest.
A bait secured by a rope tied around the horns stands more chance
of being killed, for it is possible for an animal to get entangled in
the under-growth by its horns. A bait secured by its hind leg is also
readily taken. The main point to be remembered is that both tigers
and panthers attack the throats of their victims, and there should
therefore be no visible obstruction to prevent this method of
attack, or the attacker becomes suspicious.

Panthers are generally less careful than tigers in this respect,

and take greater risks. Personally, I dislike tethering dogs as bait
for a panther; I feel the practice is extremely cruel, for the dog is a
very sagacious animal and knows well the purpose for which he is
being tied. This being so, he must suffer terrible mental torture till
his attacker arrives. When I was younger, and, I must confess, had
fewer scruples, I tried to salve my conscience by protecting the
dog’s life. To achieve this I made a collar about four inches broad,
using two pieces of leather, with numerous two-inch-long,
sharpened nails in close array, protruding outwards, the heads of
the nails coming between the two strips of leather. It would amuse
me, in those bygone days, to watch the panther grab at the dog’s
throat, only to spring backwards in obvious dismay as the sharp
nails pierced his mouth. Before he could solve the puzzle, of
course, he was shot. But such elementary tricks cannot be played
on a tiger.

Tying up a sickly live-bait is also fatal to success. The Badaga

tribe, who inhabit the Nilgiri mountains, are very averse to selling
healthy animals for bait, no matter what price is offered for them.
They feel it is a sin to sacrifice the life of a good bullock.
Invariably, they will offer only a sickly animal, whose days are
numbered anyhow, for this purpose. I well remember tying up a
bullock in the last stages of foot-and-mouth disease. For three
nights in succession, as tracks in the sand revealed, the tiger came
to the spot, walked around the bait, even squatted before it, and
then decided it was too diseased to kill. On the fourth night, my
son sat up over the sick animal, but by eight o’clock its allotted
span of life was running out. It collapsed and took the whole night
to die. That night the tiger did not even appear.

Hunters of experience vary in their opinions regarding the

colour of a live-bait, and I have met a few who avoid using white
animals, either cattle or goats, because they claim that these are
the least likely to be taken. A famous panther-hunter of days gone
by, who had shot over a hundred panthers, was very averse to
tying up a black goat, which, he claimed, made the panther extra
wary in its approach.

I have digressed at some length on these points, as I feel many of

you who read these stories will be interested to learn what might
be called some aspects of the technique of tiger and panther
shooting. In drawing-room circles we often hear of the
extraordinary degree of ‘good luck’ that attends a certain shikari
or big-game hunter. Actually, much of this ‘good luck’ is due to
his previous experience of the innumerable factors that combine
to make, or mar, a successful hunt.

Returning, to my story. There was obviously only one thing to

do, and that was to fix a machan above the partly eaten brown
bullock. Through experience both our baits had been tethered
near suitable trees; so while I went back to the tent for a further
nap, Ranga and Byra, both highly qualified in such matters, made
a good job of slinging up the canvas camp-chair I had brought,
neatly folded, with me. Next to a charpoy, or Indian rope-cot, a
folding chair makes a good machan. It is not nearly so comfortable
or roomy as the charpoy, but has an advantage in being easily
taken to pieces and folded up.

Returning by 5 p.m., I took up my position, prepared for an all-

night vigil.

The pathway, situated as it was on the western range above the

village of Kempekarai, received the rays of the rising moon far
earlier than did the village and the well, where I had spent the
previous night. So it was that, soon after the sun sank below the
western hill-tops, the moon peeped over the eastern range, and
visibility was good all around me.

Nothing happened, till shortly after eight, when I became aware

that the tiger stood directly beneath me. How or from where it had
come, I never knew. Certainly not along the path which was
clearly visible in both directions as it stretched away into the
forest. I knew the tiger was below me by the soft noise it made as
it rubbed its body against the trunk of the tree in which I was
sitting, and in doing so looked up and became aware of my
presence!

Things then began to happen quickly. With a snarling growl, the

tiger began at once to claw its way up the tree trunk. Fortunately,
we had selected a tree with fairly straight trunk till the first crotch
was reached at about fifteen feet above the ground—where I was
sitting on the camp chair. I knew that this was the man-eater, for
normally a tiger would have decamped at once on becoming
aware that a human being sat above him.
 Instinctively I drew up both legs as high as possible, while
leaning over the chair sideways and to the left, to get in a shot.
Unfortunately, I had learnt in the wrong direction, for the tiger
was trying to climb the tree on my right side. I quickly corrected
myself, but now had to hold the rifle to my left shoulder.

It took you longer to read the preceding two paragraphs than

events actually took that night. As I have said, I was sitting about
fifteen feet above the ground. A normal tiger is about nine feet
long from nose-tip to tail-tip. Subtracting the length of his tail and
adding something in compensation for an outstretched forepaw,
we may come by a working figure of almost 8 feet to cover the
‘stretching range’ of man-eater, or for that matter, of any tiger.
Deducting these eight feet from the original height of fifteen feet,
we get a difference of about seven feet, which was about the
distance that the tiger succeeded in climbing the tree-trunk that
night. In his eagerness to get hold of me he stretched out a
forepaw, and as the sharp claws drove through the canvas of the
camp-chair seat, and incidentally partially through my pants, the
tiger lost his balance and fell backwards to earth, while
instinctively, in my anxiety to protect my rear, I half-levered
myself out of the chair. I was lucky not to drop my rifle and follow
in the wake of the tiger.

Now it is a peculiar fact about man-eaters, both tigers and

panthers, that they appear to be craven creatures, although they
attack and devour human beings. Almost without exception, such
attacks are made from behind, and when the victim is not aware
of the presence of his attacker. Very rarely, indeed, has any man-
eater been known to carry out frontal attack or rush a person who
is aware of his presence and faces him.

So it was that night, for, as he fell backwards to earth, the man-

eater realised his presence had been disclosed, and no sooner had
he landed on the ground than, with a bound and a snarl, he
disappeared in the surrounding lantana.
 I cannot say to which of our good fortunes it was that he did so,
for, although I had now become aware of his presence and was
prepared for him, I might easily have overbalanced, or dropped the
rifle, in trying to get a downward shot at that very awkward
angle, directly below me. Be that as it may, he was gone in a
flash, and as suddenly and as unexpectedly as he had come.

My presence having been discovered, there was now no point in

remaining motionless or silent. Reviewing the damage done, I
discovered three claw-marks through the canvas of the chair, each
about five inches long, where the tiger’s forepaw had swept. Of
these, two had penetrated the seat of my pants — and myself
inside them to a lesser extent. The flesh certainly smarted, to
remind me of the fact.

Normally, the incident would evoke some mirth in the minds of

mirthful people, but I would remind them that the claws of all
carnivores are full of poisonous bacteria from the decomposed
flesh at which they tear, and a man-eater is no exception to this
rule, because the flesh happens to be human. The canvas of the
chair, and the cloth of my pants, were not sufficiently thick to
absorb all this poisonous material, so that there was some chance
of my wound becoming infected.

I had brought with me a variety of first aids, including a good

stock of procaine penicillin and my five c.c. hypodermic syringe.
But all these were in my tent at Kempekarai, some two miles
away. I had therefore to choose between returning immediately
and taking medical precautions, or remaining till morning—
which was at least ten hours ahead—by which time the poison
might have spread in the wounds. In the one case I had to face the
chance of an attack by the man-eater, which might be launched
anywhere along the path for the distance of the two miles it
extended up to Kempekarai. On the other hand, I had to face
perhaps the more certain danger of sepsis, and a long period of
incapacitation from pursuing the man-eater.
 So I chose to risk the tiger, as the lesser of the two evils, and
quickly letting my rifle down on the rope brought for the purpose,
I quickly scrambled down myself, praying fervently that the man-
eater would not choose that very moment for a second attack.
Reaching the ground, I stood with my back to the tree-trunk,
while I freed the rifle from the rope by which I had lowered it. All
was as silent as the grave, and not a sound came from any part of
the forest to give me any indication of the whereabouts of my
recent attacker. For all intents and purposes he might be ten miles
away, or behind the nearest bush! The brilliant moonlight bathed
the jungle in its ethereal glow, making visible each leaf and grass-
blade as they gracefully vibrated to the soft currents of the night-
breezes that gently wafted the scent of night flowers along the
glades of the forest, or blew in gusts between the aisles of its
myriad trees.

After a few moments, I set forth along the path on the two-mile
walk to Kempekarai. Now this path varies in width according to
the nature of the soil, and the character of the vegetation, from
fifteen feet at the maximum to hardly a yard. At certain spots it is
fringed with long grass and at other places by lantana
undergrowth. Several small streams have to be crossed, where
bamboos grow in profusion, their tall swaying stems creaking to
the gentle breeze, while the fronds, in obliterating the moonlight,
cast ghostly, chequered patterns on the ground in front.

In such circumstances your heart thumps in your chest almost

audibly and as if to leap from its cage; your nerves are frayed to
breaking-point and every faint rustle heralds the man-eater’s
charge. The inclination is to hurry, if not break into a run. Your
nerves signal you to look to one side or the other, for the tiger may
be making an attack from behind or from either side!

All these emotions must be held under close restraint, for to give
way to them in the least would mean panic, and panic will cause
you to lose your presence of mind, with ultimate but certain
destruction to follow.

The thing to make certain of is that the tiger is not in front,

lying in ambush till you come abreast of him. To attack

from the rear, he has to make at least some noise in the

undergrowth in order to catch up with your normal stride as you
walk forward.

It is wisest, therefore, to look in front, although your eyes must

search every shadow before you come abreast of it, rather than
keep turning the head from side to side. Keep your rifle cocked and
held in the crook of your arm, for you will have to fire from your
hip, and make certain of your shot. There will be no time to raise
the rifle to your shoulder and aim, for the tiger is a killer, and it is
not the habit of killers, either animal or human, to go about
advertising their presence. For if they did, they would soon cease
to be the killer—and become the ‘killed’ instead.

If your quarry is wounded, you may perhaps hear a snarl or

growl, but most likely that unnervingly awful, earth-shaking
‘woof’ as he charges. If he is not wounded, and a man-eater, you
may expect to hear just nothing, for he will be upon you in the
twinkling of an eye.

Hardly a quarter-of-a-mile before Kempekarai there is a low

outcrop of boulders on both sides of the path. This is the most
dangerous spot in the journey home, as the tiger could be behind
any one of those boulders. However, seeing him head the other
way when he made off, I felt he had not had enough time to
retrace his steps. With this mental assurance, I negotiated the
rocks, and soon came to Kempekarai and my tent.

Ranga and Byra were awake, as they always remained when I

went out alone, in case I should require their sudden assistance.
Telling them to make a fire and heat some water, I drank some
coffee that had been kept ready, and got out my hypodermic,
which I sterilized in the hot water. Thereafter, mixing two phials
of eight-lakh units of procaine penicillin, I gave myself a shot with
the syringe.

I got Ranga and Byra to wash the wounds with a strong solution
of potassium permanganate dissolved in the rest of the hot water,
followed by a dressing of sulphonomide ointment. The spot was
one that could not be bandaged, or plastered, so I went to sleep
hoping that no ill effects would develop with my wounds.

I was tired after my sleepless nights, and it was nearly nine

before I awoke next morning. This is a very late hour for rising in
any jungle, where one is usually up and out before sunrise. The
wounds, I was glad to note, were not unduly painful.

Taking another four lakhs of penicillin, and after redressing the

wounds, I breakfasted excellently on porridge, bacon and eggs,
and an enormously large, ripe papaya fruit from the grove by the
well-side, where I had spent the first night.

Then I set off to visit my bait on the streambed, which I found as

alive and well as on the previous morning. Returning the two
miles up the path to where I had sat the previous night, I found the
tiger had not come back nor touched the bullock he had killed two
nights before. His pug-marks, as he had approached the tree,
identified him as the tiger whose prints I had seen first.

The forests of Salem, unlike those of the Nilgiris, Coimbatore

and Chittoor districts, are mostly thorny in nature, lantana and
the ‘wait-a-bit’ thorn predominating. Along the valleys and
streambeds these give way to clumps of bamboo, massed in close
array. In either case, the effect is the same, namely, to make
roaming or stalking unprofitable, if not impossible.

A carnivore moves silently, and the secret of its success as a

hunter lies in the animal instinctively watching where it places
its front paw in order to make no sound. Next it places its rear paw
in exactly the same spot, as the front paw moves forward again to
take the next step. The human stalker must move silently, too. He
must watch carefully where he places each step, for the smallest
dry leaf will crackle when trodden upon; the smallest twig will
snap. Those clutching ‘wait-a-bit’ thorns must be avoided, too, for
a single thorn is strong enough to halt your progress if it catches in
any part of your clothing, while it will rip your flesh in no
uncertain manner if you are foolish enough to wear shorts.

All this will distract your attention from being on the lookout
for the tiger, and if that tiger is a man-eater, who will not be
deterred by thorns, you are at a distinct disadvantage.

The jungle at this spot was extremely thorny, so we returned to

Kempekarai to hold a council of war with the ‘greybeards’ of the
village. The facts, as far as we now knew them, showed that:

The man-eater was a male of average size.

He particularly frequented the path on the western range.

He did not particularly care for bullock meat.

We were still uncertain whether or not there was a second tiger

in the vicinity.

The obvious conclusion reached after this discussion was much

the same as that reached by Ranga, Byra and myself on the first
day we had come to Kempekarai: either await the next human
kill, or offer a human live-bait, preferably somewhere along the
pathway to Kempekarai as it descends the western ridge. A couple
of bullocks could also be tied out elsewhere in the jungle to tempt
the man-eater, but more to find out if there was another tiger
operating in the same area.
 The scratches which the tiger had inflicted, being located where
they were, made it impossible for me to sit still for more than
fifteen minutes at a stretch. This fact precluded all chances of
‘sitting-up’, in the literal meaning of the word. True, if I was to
act as a bait there would be no necessity for me to sit still. In fact,
movement would be a necessary factor in helping to attract the
tiger. On the other hand, the very act of sitting would not only be
agonising, but would also retard the healing of the wounds, which
I was naturally anxious to hasten.

The alternatives left were either to stand or lie down. The

former course was naturally not advisable for a night-long vigil, so
the only practical method under the circumstances was to lie
down.

We did a lot of thinking that day and eventually came by what

we all thought to be a very ingenious plan. How ingenious it
actually turned out—or rather did not turn out to be—you will
very soon come to know.

I have already explained that the footpath down the western

range to Kempekarai was crossed at several places by streamlets,
bordered by dense undergrowth and clumps of bamboo. The beds
of these small rivulets were rocky and admirably suited the
purpose I had in mind.

It so happened that the first of these small streams to be crossed

on the way down to Kempekarai, from the tree on which I had sat
the night before, was the broadest of the lot, and was, moreover,
closely covered with rounded boulders of all sizes. My plan was to
detach a cart-wheel from one of the only two bullock-carts in the
village of Kempekarai, dig a pit in the stream-bed, get inside it,
place the wheel above, and anchor it securely around the
circumference with big boulders. Smaller boulders, and a
camouflage of dry leaves, would help to conceal the cartwheel. I
would also make a human dummy and seat it somewhere on the
footpath, where it crossed the stream. The cartwheel would be
raised off the ground at one end, facing the dummy, to allow me a
range of fire in that direction.

This was my general plan. For the benefit of those who have not
been to India, I would explain that the wheel of an Indian
bullock-cart—I am referring to the large type of cart—averages
five feet in diameter. The circumference is of wood, some six
inches wide by three inches thick, shod with a hoop of iron to
serve as a tyre. There are a dozen stout wooden spokes, all
converging on a massive central wooden hub. The central hole in
the wooden hub rotates around an iron axle, some one-and-a-half
inches thick. The wheel is kept from falling off by a cotter-pin in
the form of a flat iron nail, passing through the axle at its outer
extremity. Similarly, the wheel is prevented from moving towards
the frame of the cart by the axle itself, which is made suddenly
thicker immediately beyond the bearing surface of the axle on the
hub, which is perhaps a little over a foot in width. In what may be
called deluxe models, a better bearing surface is provided by lining
the hole in the wooden hub with a piece of iron or galvanised
piping. ‘High-grade lubrication’, from the village viewpoint, is
provided by applying old motor oil, perhaps once a fortnight, on
the ends of the axle, after removing the cotter-pin and the wheel
to do so. The oil is carried permanently on the cart in the shell of
an old bullock-horn, suspended somewhere beneath the cart, and
is applied to the axle at the end of any piece of stick that may
happen to be lying handy, when ‘servicing time’ comes up.

It was too late to set the cartwheel that day, so we busied

ourselves gathering old clothing from the villagers. Pants are
unknown in such parts, so I contributed a pair of mine, into which
we stuffed two ‘legs’, made of bamboo and wound around with
straw. In case the pants might strike the tiger as being unfamiliar,
we draped a ‘dhoti’ (which is a cross between a sarong and a
loincloth) over the pants. The body of the dummy consisted of
straw rammed into an old gunny sack, over which we draped a
couple of torn shirts, and a very ragged coat. The head of the
dummy was a work of art; it was made from a large-sized coconut,
complete with its coir fibre.

On dress occasions Indian women sometimes augment their

natural hair with ‘false hair’, which they twist into a ‘bun’ or
‘coonday’ behind their heads, into which they stick flowers,
particularly jasmine. Fortunately there was a ‘belle’ in
Kempekarai who was vain enough to be the owner of a coil of such
hair. This we borrowed, combed out, and fixed around the
coconut, to emulate the long hair of a villager. An untidily-tied,
‘yokel-pattern’ turban was then wound around the nut and a pair
of ‘chappals’ or sandals were put on the dummy’s feet.

Tigers, as I have said, have no sense of smell, so the dummy

looked realistic enough to attract a man-eater, if only he did not
watch it long enough to begin wondering at its uncanny stillness.

That night I applied fresh dressing to my wounds, and next

morning helped myself to another shot of penicillin. I was
thankful to note that so far no undue inflammation had occurred.

By 8 a.m. half-a-dozen willing helpers and myself had trundled

the cartwheel to the crossing I had in mind. Here we busied
ourselves excavating a hole nearly four feet across by about four
feet deep. This was easily done, for we were digging in the soft
sand of a streambed. Some grass was then cut and thrown into the
hole to absorb, to some degree, the dampness of the sand which
naturally increased with the digging of the hole.

Sitting inside, I found I could adopt only a semi-crouched

position, which was going to be very uncomfortable indeed, the
only recommendation it offered being that it saved me from a
sitting position, which, as I have said already, would have been
most uncomfortable in view of my recent wounds.
 The dummy we placed with its back to a tamarind tree, some
fifteen feet away, which stood on the western bank of the stream
where it was crossed by the track to Kempekarai; it was so
arranged that its legs stuck out on the track at an angle of forty-
five degrees. Thus, it would at once be visible to the tiger from any
point along the streambed or on either section of the track, if he
happened to pass in any of those directions. Lastly, we collected
some of the larger boulders, and, as I stood guard with my rifle,
Ranga and Byra gathered brushwood and debris for camouflaging
the wheel.

When eventually I got into the hole, the wheel was just a couple
of inches above the top of my head. There was a space of six
inches between the ground level and the wheel through which I
could fire in the direction of the dummy; it was made by placing
two stones of that size about three feet apart under the
circumference, leaving the central portion open to the sky for the
purpose of ventilation. Brushwood and debris were scattered and
intertwined among the boulders; it would also give me warning if
he came up from behind, when the debris would crackle as he
brushed against it or trod on it.

For safety’s sake, I had arranged that the men should return to
Kempekarai in a body, and only come back next morning, again
in a body. I would be imprisoned all night in the hole, as the
weight of the cartwheel with the boulders above it was too great
for me to lift unaided from inside.

It was 4.30 p.m. when I entered my voluntary prison. It had

taken nearly another half-hour to position the boulders on the
wheel and arrange the camouflage, so that it was almost five
when I found myself alone. The heat inside the hole, despite the
opening above, was stifling. I removed my coat and shirt, and
would have removed the remainder of my clothes but for the fact
that I did not want the sand to get into my wounds.
 Peeping above the level of the ground, I could clearly distinguish
the dummy and quite a wide extent of the background. A clump
of ‘henna’ bushes grew halfway down the sloping bank behind the
dummy. A slight movement in that direction caught my eye,
which I found was due to the twitching, outstretched ear of a
beautiful spotted stag that gazed in curiosity at the motionless
dummy. The value of sitting still in a forest was then made
apparent to me, for the stag gazed a full ten minutes at that still
dummy. Then it appeared to lose interest in the curious object,
came out on to the open track, which it eventually crossed,
vanishing into the jungle on the other side. The distance between
the dummy and the stag could not have been much more than
twenty feet, and yet the latter was quite unalarmed. Had a human
been seated in place of the dummy, he would surely have moved,
even if it was an eyelid that flickered, and this would have sent
the stag crashing away in alarm.

A pair of peafowl then came strutting along the track. The cock-
bird stopped, fanned out his tail and rustled the quills in display to
his admiring spouse. Female-like, she kept one eye on him and the
other elsewhere! Anyway, she saw the dummy, took a short run,
and sailed into the air. The cock, chagrined at her failure to
appreciate his beauty, lowered his tail and saw the dummy too. A
much heavier bird than the hen, he flapped wildly and desperately
in an effort to take off, his wings beating loudly on the still
evening air, before he finally managed to rise just clear of the
surrounding bushes and follow his more wary partner to apparent
safety.

‘Kuck-kaya-kaya-khuck’ crowed the grey junglecocks in all

directions, as they came out along the streambed to peck a few
morsels before darkness fell. ‘Kukurruka-wack-kukurruka-wack’
cackled the smaller spurfowl, belligerent little birds, as male
fought male in little duels throughout the jungle for the favour of
an accompanying hen. Drab and uninteresting as she looks, to
gain her favour was for them the only interest in the world that
evening.

Darkness fell, to the farewell call of the pair of peafowl, as they

roosted for the night on some tall tree in the forest, perhaps a
quarter-of-a-mile away. ‘Mia-a-oo-Aaow’ they cried, as the sun
sank behind the western range.

Those of you who have been in an Indian forest will remember

the almost miraculous switch-over that takes place at sunset, as
the birds of the daylight hours cease their calls, and the birds of
the night take up theirs. ‘Chuck-chuk-chuk-chucko’ cried the
nightjars, as with widespread wings they sailed overhead in search
of insect morsels, or settled on the ground, resembling stones
against a background of sand.

It was pitch-dark where I sat and even the dummy was hidden
under the shadows of the tamarind tree beneath which it was
propped. I reckoned the moonlight would not reach that spot till
after ten. At nine I heard the noisy snuffling and deep-throated
gurgle of a sloth bear, as it wended its clumsy way down the
stream in my direction. It almost fell over the outlying debris we
had placed on the streambed to give me warning of the tiger’s
approach, and then saw the newly-heaped boulders placed upon
the cartwheel! I could have read the thoughts that crossed the
little brain beneath the shaggy black hair! ‘Here’s a chance to find
some luscious fat grubs, or a beetle or two; perhaps a nest of white
ants, or, most hopeful of all, a beehive built by the small yellow
bees that can hardly sting a big bear like me.’

With those thoughts, the bear fell to work on the task of

clearing away the boulders that so carefully anchored my
cartwheel.

‘Shoo!’ I whispered in an undertone. ‘Get away, you

interfering…!’
 The bear heard my voice, and stopped. ‘Where did that come
from?’ he was thinking. A few minutes’ silence followed, and then
he started at the stones again. ‘Out! Shoo!’ I whispered. The bear
stopped, climbed over the boulders, and looked down between the
spokes at me.

‘Aa-rr, Wr-rrr!’ he growled. ‘Get out, you idiot!’ I growled. ‘Wr-

oof! Wr-oof! Wr-oof’ he answered, as he scrambled, helter-skelter,
over the boulders, stumbled over the debris, scampered up the
bank and crashed away between the dried bamboos.

Hardly ten minutes had passed after the bear’s noisy departure
when I heard the most infinitesimal of noises, the soft tread of the
padded foot of some heavy animal. It is almost impossible to
imitate that noise in speech, and less so on paper. The nearest
description I can give is the very muffled impact of a soft cushion
when it is thrown on to a sofa.

The tiger had come and in his silent way was negotiating the
fringe of the debris we had scattered on the streambed behind me.
He was picking his way carefully across it.

Would he attack the dummy? Would he pass in front of me?

These were the questions that raced through my mind as I awaited
developments. My nerves were taut with anticipation.

The moon had already risen, but its beams had not yet reached
the shadows cast by the heavy foliage of the tamarind tree. The
dummy was not visible to me, but I knew that the tiger could
clearly see it.

There was silence for a time—how long I could not say. Then
came the clink of a stone as it rolled above my head. Nobody had
anticipated an attack in that direction; but my recent visitor, the
bear, had already shown that the unexpected could happen. Now
the unexpected was being repeated by the presence of the tiger
above me. What had caused it to ignore the dummy, and come
straight to the spot where I lay, was a mystery. Very likely, the
tiger had been watching the bear, had seen its strange behaviour,
had noted its hurried departure and had come to investigate. Even
more likely, the behaviour of the bear had caused the tiger to
suspect human agency, which he had come over to find out
himself. Or perhaps the wheel just happened to be situated on the
shortest line of approach which the tiger was following to get at
the dummy.

Whatever be the reason, the tiger was now barely two yards
away, and above me.

As these thoughts raced through my mind, I heard the vague

sound caused by the tiger’s breathing. Then he stepped gracefully
over one of the big boulders that held down the wheel, and peered
down at me.

In the meantime I had not been idle. Screwing myself around, as

best as I could, I now lay half on my back, gazing up at the tiger.
The rifle I had drawn inwards and backwards till the butt came up
against the side of the hole. I have already told you this hole was
about four feet across, and about the same in depth. Hence it was
impossible to get the rifle to point completely upwards. The most I
could manage was an angle of a little more then sixty degrees
with the bottom of the hole. Unfortunately, the tiger was not in
the direction in which the muzzle was pointing, but was standing
behind it, and directly above the spot where the butt of my rifle
was stuck against the side of the hole.

Then events moved quickly. The tiger did not react quite as the
bear had done. His features, dimly visible above me, contorted
into a hideous snarl. A succession of deep-throated growls issued
from his cavernous chest, and, lying down upon the cartwheel, he
attempted to rake me with the claws of a foreleg, which he
inserted between the spokes of the wheel.
 I knew those talons would rip my face and head to ribbons if
they only made contact, so, sinking as low into the hole as
possible, I struggled desperately to turn the muzzle of the rifle
towards the tiger.

All this took only seconds to happen. The tiger growled and
came a little farther on to the wheel. The muzzle of my rifle
contacted his shoulder and I pressed the trigger.

The explosion, within that confined space, was deafening. The

tiger roared hideously as he catapulted backwards. During the
next thirty seconds he bit the boulders, the wheel and even the
sand, as he gave forth roar after roar of agony. Then I heard him
fall amidst the debris, pick himself up, fall again, get up and
finally crash into the bushes that bordered the little stream. He
was still roaring, and continued to do so for quite fifteen minutes
more as he staggered away into the jungle.

Finally silence, total and abysmal, fell over the forest. After the
pandemonium that had just reigned, every creature, including the
insects, decided it was wise to hide till with the passage of time
they could forget their fright.

The hours passed. At one in the morning a stiff breeze began to

blow over the hills, dark storm-clouds scudded across the sky,
completely hiding the moon, and soon the distant sound of falling
rain across the western range fell upon my listening ears. Not long
afterwards, large raindrops penetrated between the spokes and
splashed down upon me.

Then the deluge began, such as can only be experienced in

tropical countries, and particularly forest regions with dense
vegetation. I was soaked to the skin, and the water began to
trickle down the sides of the hole. With that came the sudden
realisation that the stream, which had been dry, would soon be
flowing with the spate of rain-water that was running into it from
all directions along a hundred tributaries. I would be drowned like
a rat in a hole.

Jerked into frenzied action, I got on my hands and knees, placed

my back to the wheel and pressed upwards with all my might. The
wheel did not budge an inch! My helpers had done their work of
protecting me from the tiger only too well! They had placed the
heaviest boulders they could find around the circumference of the
wheel and I was unable to move them unaided.

There was but one chance left, and that was to dig myself out
through the six-inch-wide gap we had made for me to fire through.
Desperately, with both hands I scooped the earth downwards into
the hole, which was already half filled with water and sand; the
damp sides were collapsing, making it very obvious that within
the next few minutes, unless I got out quickly, cartwheel and
boulders would all come down together on top of me.

When I judged there was sufficient room for my body to pass, I

pushed the rifle between the spokes of the wheel and then rested it
across them. Next I started squeezing myself through the opening I
had just dug, wriggling in the sand and water like a stranded eel,
till I finally struggled free onto the streambed.

The rain continued to fall in torrents. I had no idea how far the
tiger had gone, or in which direction, so, picking up the rifle, I
first carried the dummy off the streambed and placed it high up on
the western bank. Then I started to recross the stream on the
return journey to Kempekarai, and as I did so, I heard the dull roar
of the spate of rain-water descending the streambed from the
direction of the hills.

Within a few minutes it arrived, a wall of foaming water over

three feet high, carrying all before it. Logs of wood, uprooted trees,
dead bamboos and flotsam and jetsam of every description
mingled with the crested, frothing waters. They reached the
cartwheel and covered it; then the cartwheel and boulders were
swept away downstream along with the torrent. In less than five
minutes the stream had become a raging river, over four feet deep.

Thankfully appreciating the escape I had had, I began the return

journey to Kempekarai. No other sound could possibly be heard
above the splatter and swish of the rain. The darkness was intense,
my torch throwing a circle of light before me. Moreover, the
ground was extremely slippery to the soft rubber shoes that I was
wearing. I had to cross three other streams, slightly smaller that
the one where I sat, but all were raging torrents of water.

Half-way to Kempekarai, I saw the flicker of an approaching

light. A little later, I met the party of men that were carrying it—
Ranga, Byra and a few stalwarts from the village. They had
realised the danger I was in when the waters rose and had risked
encounter with the man-eater to come to my rescue.

Next morning the sun shone brightly on the saturated forest. We

returned to the site of my adventure the night before. All streams
were flowing briskly, although they were now no more than two
feet deep. There was no trace of the cartwheel anywhere near the
crossing. Evidently it had been borne downstream by the spate
and probably smashed to bits. We combed both banks thereafter,
without finding any signs of the tiger. The torrential rain had only
too effectively obliterated any blood-trail or pug-marks.

Two hours later, a depressed and disappointed group, we

returned to Kempekarai. There I remained for three more days,
hoping to hear news of the tiger, only to be doomed to
disappointment. Both Byra and Ranga felt it had died of its
wounds, but I doubted this very much, as I knew I had not been
able to aim sufficiently well to score more than a mere raking
shot.
 My period of leave, taken for the purpose of shooting this
animal, had now elapsed, so I left Kempekarai on the morning of
the fourth day, instructing Ranga to remain behind to assist Byra
in reconnoitring. They were then to come to Pennagram, and
thence to Dharmapuri, where there was a telegraph office from
which they could send me a message. They were to await my reply
there.

Ten days after returning to Bangalore, the hoped-for telegram

arrived, stating that a pack-pony belonging to a Forest Guard of
the Kodekarai Forest Lodge had been killed. Calculating from the
telegram that the kill would be four days old by the time I reached
it, I sent a reply, telling my henchmen to return to Kempekarai
and wait there for any further events, which were to be reported
by telegram in the same way.

Six more days passed, when I received a second telegram stating

that a tiger had attacked the driver of a bullock-cart that was the
last of a convoy travelling from the small hamlet of Morappur
towards Sopathy on the Chinar River.

This, no doubt, was the man-eater again. Within an hour I was

on my way by car to Dharmapuri, where I picked up my two
henchmen. We continued to Pennagram, where we left the car
and made a cross-country trip of about twelve miles to Morappur,
passing the Chinar river and Sopathy on the way.

I had meanwhile learned that the cartman, who had been

attacked by the tiger, had saved his life by jumping from the cart,
in which he was travelling, on to the yoke and then between the
two bulls that were hauling his cart. He had yelled vociferously
and his yells were taken up by the other cartmen in the ‘convoy’.
The tiger had then made off.

I spoke to this cartman at Morappur. He said that the tiger had

suddenly appeared behind his cart, which was the last in the line,
and had attempted to leap into it from the rear, when he had
dived between his bulls for protection. Asking him why the tiger
had not succeeded in the comparatively easy task of getting into
the cart, the man said it had jumped half-in, and he had not
waited to see any more.

Meanwhile, a party of travellers who had followed us from

Sopathy brought the news that they had come across fresh tiger
pug-marks, made the previous night, leading down the Chinar
River.

Hearing this, we hurried back to Sopathy, and it did not take us

long to find the pug-marks. The water was running in the Chinar
as a silvery stream, meandering from bank to bank, and in the
soft, wet sand we clearly noticed that the tiger which had made
the marks must have been limping badly. The weight of the body
fell almost entirely on the left forefoot, the right being placed very
lightly on the sand at each step.

I have said that, ‘Spider Valley’ met the Chinar river at this
spot. A half-mile downstream, and in the direction in which the
tiger had gone, was a small longish rock in midstream. It rose some
four feet above the bed of the river and was about forty feet long
by eight feet wide. I decided to sit on top of that rock that night, in
the hope the tiger might make his way back up the Chinar and see
me in my elevated position.

Borrowing Ranga’s turban, old brown coat and dhoti, I donned

all three, the two latter above my own clothing, and seated myself
on the rock by 5.30 p.m. As Ranga and Byra were afraid to return
to Morappur alone, they elected to spend the night on comfortable
crotches, high up in the huge muthee trees that border the Chinar
in this locality.

The nights were dark at this time, but from my position on the
rock, and as the Chinar was about 100 yards wide at this spot, I
relied upon the white sand to reflect the starlight and to reveal the
form of the tiger from whatever direction it might come. Apart
from being handicapped by its lameness, I knew the tiger would
not charge its prey from a distance of fifty yards, but would try to
stalk as close to me as possible before launching the final attack.

After testing my lighting equipment, I carefully loaded and

cocked the .405, which I laid on the rock to my right, where it
could not be seen by the tiger and create suspicion. I had also
taken the precaution of bringing my .12 bore double-barrel Jeffries
with me as a spare weapon. With L.G. slugs in the choke barrel,
and lethal-ball in the right, I laid the Jeffries on the rock to my
left. My flask of tea, some chappaties to satisfy my hunger towards
morning, and my pipe completed my creature wants for the night.
I sat on my great-coat, for the cushion it provided against that
hard rock; I would wear it if the night should become too cold.

The usual animal and bird calls from the forest bade farewell to
the day, while the denizens of the night welcomed their turn of
activity with their less melodious, and more eerie, cries.

At seven-thirty it was dark; the reflecting whiteness of the sands

of the Chinar surrounded my rock as if it were an island.

Just after nine there was a loud bustling and crashing and a
tusker came down the bank, walked along the sands, passed the
rock where I sat motionless, and continued beyond. There he met
the current of breeze blowing down the river and caught scent of
me. Banging the end of his trunk against the ground, and emitting
a peculiar sound as if a sheet of zinc were being rapidly bent in
half, he turned around, smelled more of me and hurried up the
bank into the cover of the thick undergrowth that grew there.
Such is the behaviour of an elephant when it is not a rogue.

At eleven I was still keeping my watch in all directions, as I had

been doing since sunset. Then, half to the rear and my left, I
sensed rather than saw a movement. Looking more intently, I
could see nothing. No, wait! Was that not a blur against the faint
greyish-white carpet of river sand? I looked away and then back
again at the spot where I had just noticed the blur. It was not
there!

‘That’s funny’, I thought. ‘Are my eyes playing tricks, or are

they just becoming tired?’

Staring hard, I saw it again. Only it was much closer to me this

time than when I had seen it first. Indeed, it was halfway between
the further bank and the rock on which I sat.

I could not now risk looking in any other direction until I

succeeded in defining this strange object. And as I looked it
seemed to stretch, to float towards me, growing longer and shorter
at intervals, but making no sound whatever.

Then in a flash I realized what it was. The tiger was crawling

towards me on his belly, silently, in quick, short motions, till he
judged he was within range to make his final, murderous assault.

Perspiration poured down my face and neck; I trembled with

terror and excitement. But this would not do; so taking a deep
breath and holding it, to allay the trembling, I offered a silent
prayer to my Maker and drew the rifle on to my lap, raising it to
my shoulder.

The tiger, now some twenty yards away, saw my movement and
seemed to guess that his presence had been discovered. A thin
black streak, his tail moved behind him. The blur became
compact as he gathered himself for the charge. My torch-beam fell
full on his snarling, flattened head. Then the rifle spoke, a split-
second before he sprang.

With my bullet he rose and bounded forward. I owe my life to

the fact that the torch did not go out, and I was able to fire a
second shot. Then he had reached the rock.

Because of his earlier wound, or my recent shots—at that

moment I could not tell which—he failed to climb up. My third
bullet, fired at point-bank range through the crown of his skull,
stopped the charge that had all but succeeded in reaching me, and
he rolled back on to the sands of the Chinar, his career at an end.

Whistling on my way back to Sopathy, I gathered Ranga and

Byra from the muthee trees on which they were sitting. Hearing
my shots, and seeing my approach along the riverbed, they
gathered I had killed the tiger.

Next morning we found him to be an average-sized, somewhat

thin, male. My shot from beneath the cartwheel, fired seventeen
days earlier, had done more damage than I had thought, for it had
passed through his right shoulder, splintering the bone, and out
again. But the wound was in good condition, and I have little
doubt, would eventually have healed, although the tiger would
have remained a cripple. My first shot of the night before had
passed through his open mouth, and out through the neck,
blowing a gaping hole. Still, he had come on. The second shot had
gone high, entering behind the left shoulder, passing downwards
through the lungs, and out again. And still he had come on. It was
only my last shot, through the crown of his skull, that had
shattered the brain that impelled his indomitable spirit.

What had made this tiger a man-eater? This is the riddle that
every hunter tries to solve when he kills a man-eater, be it tiger or
panther, not only for his own information, but for the education
of the general public. And this beast proved to be no exception to
the invariable rule that it is the human race itself that causes a
tiger to become a man-eater. It had an old bullet wound in the
same leg—the right —as had been injured by me in our first
encounter, only lower down; embedded in the elbow joint was a
flattened lead ball, fired from some musket or gun a year or more
earlier.

This foreign body, embedded in that most important joint, had

not only caused the tiger to suffer intense agony, but had greatly
impeded his movements when it came to killing his legitimate
food, wild game and cattle. It had weakened the use of the right
leg, which plays an all-important part in gripping and pulling
down his normal prey. Without a doubt, this was the sole factor
that forced this tiger to turn to human beings as food, in order to
keep himself from starving.

___________

1 See Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.

 2

Alam Bux and the Big Black Bear

HE story I am now about to relate concerns a sloth bear. Quite

T a big, black and bad bear.
All bears, as I have had occasion to remark in other stories, are
excitable, unreliable and bad-tempered animals. They have a
reputation for attacking people without apparent reason, provided
that person happens to pass too close, either while the bear is
asleep or feeding, or just ambling along. So the natives give bears a
wide berth; together with the elephant, they command the
greatest respect of the jungle-dwelling folk.

This particular bear was exceptional among his kind for his
unwarranted and exceptionally bad temper and aggressiveness. He
would go out of his way to attack people, even when he saw them
a long distance away.

The reason for his unusual conduct was difficult to explain.

There were many stories about him, which were as varied as they
were extraordinary. The most unpretentious was that he was quite
mad. Other stories had it that he was a ‘she’ who had been robbed
of her cubs and had sworn a vendetta against the human race. I
think that the bear had been wounded or injured at some time by
some human being. Perhaps the most fantastic of the stories was
to the effect that this bear, almost a year previously, had
kidnapped an Indian girl as a mate while she was grazing a flock
of goats on the hill where he lived. The story went on to say that
the whole village had turned out, en masse, to rescue the girl,
which they had finally succeeded in doing, much to the bear’s
annoyance; he had then taken to attacking human beings in
retaliation.
 Whatever the reason be, this bear had quite a long list of victims
to his credit; I was told that some twelve persons had been killed,
and two dozen others injured.

Like all bears, he invariably attacked the face of the victim,

which he commenced to tear apart with his tremendously long
and powerful claws, in addition to biting viciously with deliberate
intent to ensure the success of his handiwork. Quite half the
injured had lost one or both eyes; some had lost their noses, while
others had had their cheeks bitten through. Those who had been
killed had died with their faces almost torn from their heads.
Local rumours had it that the bear had also taken to eating his
victims, the last three of whom had been partly devoured.

I had no opportunity to verify the truth of these rumours, but

felt that they might be true to some extent, as the Indian sloth
bear is a known devourer of carrion at times, although generally
he is entirely vegetarian, restricting himself to roots, fruit, honey,
white ants and similar delicacies. So fresh meat, even human
meat, might not be unwelcome.

This bear originally lived in the Nagvara Hills, which lie to the
east of the large town of Arsikere, some 105 miles northwest of
Bangalore, and in Mysore State.

It was on these hills that he had perpetrated his earliest

offences. Then, as he lost his fear of mankind and grew bolder, for
no apparent reason he came down to the plains and commenced to
harass people in their fields at dawn and dusk. He would come out
from one or the other of the numerous small boulder-strewn
hillocks that were dotted here and there, to forage for food.

I had been hearing occasional stories of this animal for about a

year, but had not paid much attention to them, as I felt that, like
nearly all the stories one hears in India of maulings and killings by
wild animals, they were greatly exaggerated. Furthermore, as I
think I have mentioned somewhere else, Bruin is quite an old
friend of mine, against whom I have no antipathy. I was therefore
most disinclined to go after him.

But there came an incident that made me do so. I have an old

friend, an aged Muslim named Alam Bux, who is the guardian of a
Mohammedan shrine situated on the main road which leads past
Arsikere and on to Shimoga. This shrine is the burial place of a
Mohammedan saint who lived some fifty years ago, and like
hundreds of similar shrines scattered over the length and breadth
of India, is preserved and held sacred by the Muslim community.
Each shrine has its own guardian, or caretaker; invariably some
old man who is quartered at the shrine itself to keep it clean and
care for it. One of his particular duties is to light a lamp over the
shrine, which is kept burning all night, to signify that the memory
of the saint burns ever brightly in the bosoms of the faithful.

I first met Alam Bux on a dark night while motoring from

Bangalore to Shimoga on my way to a tiger-hunt. The rear wheel
of my Studebaker flew off, and the back brake-drum hit the road
with a terrific jolt. I happened to be alone at the time and.
stepping out of the car, viewed the situation with considerable
disgust and annoyance. Fortunately for me, the incident had
taken place almost opposite the shrine, and old Alam Bux, waking
up at the noise made by the brake-drum striking and dragging
along the road, came out to see what it was all about. Seeing my
predicament, the old man volunteered to help me, which he did to
a very considerable extent by bringing a lantern from his abode,
gathering stones to serve as ‘packing’ while I raised the axle of the
car, and last, but by no means least, by serving me with a bowl of
hot tea. I thanked the old man, after he had replaced the truant
wheel, and promised that I would look him up whenever I
happened to pass his little hut again. This promise I had faithfully
kept, and I never failed to bring the old man something, by way of
supplies, on any occasion that I happened to pass.
 Some four hundred yards beyond the shrine is a small knoll of
heaped boulders, among which grew the usual lantana shrub. All
around this knoll, and right up to the shrine and adjacent
roadway, were fields in which the villagers grew groundnuts after
the monsoon rains. Now, bears are very fond of groundnuts and
our big black bear was no exception to this rule. The boulder-
covered hillock offered a convenient lodging, and the groundnut
fields were a great attraction. So he took up residence among the
rocks.

He made his abode in a deep recess beneath an overhanging

boulder. Hungry by sunset, he could be seen coming forth from his
cave, and, as twilight deepened into nightfall, he would amble
down the knoll and come out on to the groundnut fields. Here he
would spend a busy night, eating, uprooting, and generally
shuffling about over a wide area throughout the hours of the
darkness. Early dawn would find him replete, with his belly full of
roots and nuts, white ants, grubs and other miscellaneous fodder
which he had come across during the hours or his foraging.
Leisurely he would climb back to his abode, there to spend the hot
hours of the day in deep and bearly slumber. I forgot to mention
that a small tank, which is the Indian colloquial name for a
natural lake, was conveniently situated on the other side of the
hillock, so that our friend, this bad bear, wanted for nothing.

About this time the fig trees that bordered the main road which
ran past the little shrine came into season, and their clusters of
ripe red fruit filled the branches, spilling on to the ground beneath
carpeting the earth in a soft, red, spongy mass. Hundreds of birds
of all varieties fed on the figs during the day. At night, scores of
flying fox, the large Indian fruitbat resembling in size and
appearance the far-famed ‘vampire’ bat, would come in their
numbers, flapping about with leathern wings, screeching, clawing
and fighting among themselves as they gormandized the ripe fruit.
 These numerous visitors, both by day and night, would knock
down twice the number of figs they ate, which added to the
profusion of fruit already lying scattered on the ground, blown
down by the wind and often falling of their own weight. All this
offered additional attraction to the bear, which now found a
pleasing change to his menu. It was there in abundance, just
waiting to be eaten.

So from the fields he would visit the fig trees, and thus his
foraging brought him into the precincts of the shrine. That is how
the trouble began.

Alam Bux had a son, a lad aged about twenty-two years, who,
together with the guardian’s aged wife and younger sister, lived at
the shrine. One night the family had their meal at about nine, and
were preparing to go to bed, when the boy for some reason went
outside. It happened to be a dark night, and the bear also
happened to be eating figs in the vicinity. Seeing the human figure
suddenly appear, he felt that this was an unwarranted intrusion
and immediately attacked the youth; more by accident than
deliberately, the bear bit through the youth’s throat and not the
face, which was his usual first objective. The boy tried to scream,
and had kicked and fought. The bear bit him again, this time
through the nose and one eye, and clawed him severely across his
chest, shoulders and back. Then it let him go and loped away into
the darkness.

The boy staggered back to his parents streaming with blood. His
jugular vein had been punctured, and although they had tried to
staunch the bleeding with such rags as were available, they failed
in their attempt to save his life, which ebbed away in the
darkness, as cloth after cloth, and rag after rag, became soaked in
his blood.

The false dawn witnessed the youth’s passing while the old bear,
replete with figs and groundnuts, climbed back to his cave among
the boulders.

Alam Bux was a poor man and could not afford the money to
send me a telegram, nor even his fare to Bangalore, either by train
or by bus. But he sent me a postcard on which was scrawled the
sad story; it was written in pencil, in shaky Urdu script. It was
stained with the tears of his sorrow. The postcard arrived two days
later, and I left for Arsikere within three hours.

I had anticipated that the shooting of this bear would be an easy

matter and that it would take an hour or two at the most.
Therefore, I did not go prepared for a long trip. I carried just my
torch, .405 Winchester rifle, and a single change of clothing. I
reached Alam Bux shortly after five in the evening and it did not
take him long to tell me his story.

There was no moonlight at this time. Nevertheless the plan to

be followed seemed a simple one; namely, to wait till it grew quite
dark and then set forth to search for the bear with the aid of my
torch.

With this procedure in view, Alam Bux allowed me inside his

abode by sunset, and closed the door to give the appearance that
all was quiet. In the dingy little room we chatted in the flickering
light of a small oil lamp, while he repeatedly lamented the death
of his son. In fact, within a few minutes the whole family were
weeping and wailing. I had, perforce, to listen to this continuously
till eight, when I could stand it no longer and decided to go out in
search of the bear.

Loading my rifle, and seeing that the torch was functioning

properly, I stepped outside, Alam Bux closing and bolting his door
behind me. The darkness was intense, and as I pressed the switch
of the torch fixed near the muzzle of the rifle, its bright beams
shone forth over the groundnut fields to my left, and the dense
aisle of fig trees bordering the road to my right.
 The bear was nowhere in sight and so I started to look for him,
beginning with the fig trees. These trees grew on both sides of the
road, so I judged the best thing to do would be to walk along the
road itself, swinging my rifle from one side of the road to the
other. I walked in this fashion away from Arsikere for about a mile
and a half, but saw no signs of the bear. I then walked back to the
shrine and continued in the opposite direction for another mile
and a half, but there were still no signs of the bear. So I came back
to the shrine, and started to search the groundnut fields.

Bright glimmers of various pairs of eyes glared back at me,

reflected by the torch beam. But they proved to be those of rabbits
and three or four jackals. I circumvented the hillock and walked
along the margin of the tank on the other side; where I came
across a small sounder of wild pigs wallowing in the mud. But still
no sign of the old bear was to be seen. I then walked closer to the
foot of the knoll, and around it two or three times, shining my
light upwards and in all directions. It was a tiring work, and the
old bear did not put in his appearance. On the third occasion I
almost stepped upon a very large Russell’s viper that was coiled
between two rocks in my direct path. Engaged as I was, looking for
the reflecting gleam of the bear’s eyes, I did not watch the ground
before me. My foot was within a few inches of the viper when he
inflated his body with a loud, rasping hiss, preparatory to striking.
Instinctively I heeded his warning not to come any nearer and
leapt backwards, at the same time shining the torch directly upon
the snake, which lunged forth with jaws apart to bite the spot
where, just a moment before, my legs had been. It was a narrow
shave, and for the moment I felt like shooting the viper. But that
would have caused a tremendous disturbance and might frighten
away the bear, in addition to wasting a valuable cartridge. After
all, the snake had been good enough to warn me, and so, in
return, I threw a small stone at it, which caused it to slither away
beneath the rocks.
 By this time it was evident that the bear had either gone out
earlier in the evening and wandered far away, or else he was not
hungry and was still in his cave. I returned to Alam Bux’s shack
and decided to make another tour in a couple of hours.

This I did, and made two further tours after that, making four in
all, but the bear was not to be seen, and the false dawn found me
still vainly circling the hillock in search of the enemy.

With daylight, I told Alam Bux that I would return to Bangalore

but he begged me to stay for the day and to climb the hill and
search the cave for the bear. In the meantime his wife had
prepared some hot ‘chappaties’ —round flat cakes made from
wheat flour—and a dish of steaming tea, both of which I
consumed with relish. Then I fell asleep. At about noon Alam Bux
woke me, to say that his wife had prepared special ‘pillao rice’ in
my honour. Thanking him for this, I tucked into it too, and in a
very short time polished off the lot. Mrs. Alam Bux appeared
highly gratified that I so relished her cooking. The sun was now at
its meridian and shone mercilessly on the rocks which blazed and
shimmered in the noon-day heat. It would be a good time to look
for the bear, I knew, assuming he was at home, as he would be fast
asleep.

Alam Bux came with me up the hill and from a distance of fifty
yards pointed out the shelving rock beneath which the bear had its
cave. I clambered upwards on tiptoe, the rubber soles of my shoes
making no sound on the rocks. But against this advantage I was
soon to feel a greater disadvantage, as the heat from the sun-baked
stone penetrated the rubber and began to burn the soles of my feet.

Coming up to the entrance of the cave, I squatted on my

haunches and listened attentively.

Now a sleeping bear invariably snores, often as loud as does a

human being. If the bear was fast asleep, as I hoped he would be, I
counted upon hearing that tell-tale sound. But no sound greeted
my ear, and after sitting thus for almost ten minutes, the sun
began making itself felt through the back of my shirt. Some
pebbles lay at hand and, picking up a few, I began to throw them
into the cave.

Now such a procedure is calculated to make any sleeping bear

very angry. But I could still hear nothing. So I went closer to the
entrance and threw the stones right inside. Still nothing
happened. I threw more stones, but again with negative results.
The bear was not in his cave.

Descending the hill, I told Alam Bux the news and announced
my intention to return to Bangalore, asking him to send me a
telegram if the bear put in a further appearance. I gave him some
money, both for the cost of the telegram and to tide him over
immediate expenses. Then I left for Bangalore. A month elapsed,
and I heard nothing more.

About twenty miles across country, and in a northwesterly

direction from where the shrine is situated, the forest of
Chikmagalur, in the Kadur district of Mysore, begins. About
halfway between Chikmagalur and Kadur stands the small town
of Sakrepatna, surrounded by the jungle.

The next news that came to me was that a bear had seriously
mauled two woodcutters near Sakrepatna, one of whom had later
died. The district Forest Officer (D.F.O) of Chikmagalur wrote to
me, asking if I would come and shoot this bear.

I concluded that it was the same bear that had been the cause of
the death of Alam Bux’s son, but to look for one particular bear in
the wide range of forest was something like searching for the
proverbial needle in a haystack, and so I wrote back to the D.F.O.
to try and get more exact information as to the whereabouts of the
animal.
 After ten days he replied that the bear was said to be living in a
cave on a hillock some three miles from the town, near the
footpath leading to a large lake known as the ‘Ironkere’ also that
it had since mauled the Forest Guard, who had been walking
along this path on his regular beat.

So I motored to Chikmagalur, picked up the D.F.O., and

proceeded to the town of Sakrepatna, where there is a small rest
house owned by the Mysore Forest department. Here I set up my
headquarters for the next few days.

As luck would have it—or bad luck, if you call it that— the very
next afternoon a man came running to the bungalow, to tell us
that a cattle grazier—his brother in fact—had been grazing his
cattle in the vicinity of the very hill where the bear was supposed
to be living, when he had been attacked by the animal. He had
screamed for help. and his cries had been mingled with the growls
of the bear. His brother, who was lower down the hill and nearer
the footpath, hearing the sounds had waited no longer, but had
fled back to the bungalow to bring us the news.

Now bears are essentially nocturnal animals never moving

about during daylight. At most, they may be met with at dusk or
early dawn, but certainly not in the afternoon. Probably the
unfortunate grazier had strayed too close to some spot where the
bear had been sleeping, causing it to attack him at that unusual
time. That could be the only reason for this strange attack.

It was nearing 4.30 p.m. when he brought us this news, and I set
forth with my rifle and torch and three or four helpers to try to
rescue the grazier who had been attacked. We soon found that the
distance to the spot was much greater than we had been told by
the unfortunate man’s brother. I figured I had walked nearly six
miles into the jungle before we came to the foot of a hill that was
densely covered with scrub, including clumps of bamboo. It was
then nearly six and, being winter, it was getting dark. The men I
had brought along refused to come farther, and said that they
would return to Sakrepatna, advising me to accompany them and
suggesting that we should go back next morning to continue our
search. The brother of the missing man volunteered to wait where
we stood, but was too fearful to come farther into the jungle. The
most he could do to help me in finding his missing relative was
vaguely to indicate, with a wave of his arm, the general area
where the attack had occurred.

I went forward in that direction, calling loudly the name of the

man who had been mauled. There was no answer to my shouts,
and I advanced deeper and deeper into the scrub. By this time it
was almost dark, but I did not feel perturbed, as I had brought my
torch and began to flash it about as I sought a way through the
undergrowth.

Soon it became so dense that I could make no further progress,

and was on the point of turning back, when I thought I heard a
faint moan, away in the distance. The ground at this point sloped
downwards into a sort of valley that lay between two ridges of the
hill, and the moan seemed to come from somewhere in the
recesses of this valley.

The missing man’s name was Thimma, and, cupping both hands
to my mouth, I shouted this name lustily, waiting every now and
then to listen for a reply. Yes! There, undoubtedly, it was again! A
moaning cry, feeble, but nevertheless audible. It definitely came
to me from the valley.

Forcing my way through the thickets, I struggled down the

decline, slipping on rocks and loose stones, catching myself every
now and then on the thorns. After a couple of hundred yards of
such progress, I called again. After some time I heard a moaning
answer, somewhere to my right. I proceeded in this fashion,
following the cry till I eventually found Thimma, lying at the foot
of a tree in a puddle of his own blood. His face was a mass of raw
flesh and broken bones, and the only way of distinguishing that he
was breathing was by the bubbles of air that forced themselves
through the clotting blood. In addition, the bear had raked him
across the stomach with its claws, tearing open the outer flesh, so
that a loop of intestine protruded. He was hardly conscious when I
found him, and I soon realised that what I had taken to be a
moaning reply to my calls were just the groans he kept making,
every now and then, in his delirium.

The situation was critical, and after examination I saw that

another night’s exposure would cause him to die by morning.
There was therefore no alternative but to carry him back to the
spot where I had left his brother. Lifting him on to my shoulder
was a tricky business, in the terrible state that he was in. To make
matters worse, he was a heavily built man, equal to myself in
weight. But I managed to lift him and, using my rifle butt as a
prop, began to struggle upwards the way I had come.

I never wish to experience again so terrible a journey. I had

almost gained the ridge down which I had lately come when the
accident occurred. My left foot slipped and came down heavily
between two boulders. There was a sharp, shooting, wrenching
pain as I collapsed on the rock with Thimma on top of me, while
the rifle clattered to the ground.

I had sprained my ankle, and was now myself unable to walk.

From where we lay, I began to shout to the brother; but after
nearly an hour I realised he either could not or would not hear me.
There was no alternative but to spend the night with the dying
man.

Desiring to make the torch batteries last the night, if that were
possible, I refrained from using them more than was necessary.
The early hours of morning became bitterly cold and Thimma’s
groans became more and more feeble, till eventually they turned
into a gurgle. I realised he was dying. At about 5 a.m. he died, and
there I sat beside him till daylight eventually came, shortly after
six.

I then made a determined effort to drag myself to my feet, but

found my leg would not support my weight. I tried to crawl, but
the thorns formed an impenetrable barrier. They tore my hands,
my face and my clothing to shreds. I soon gave it up and became
reconciled to the fact that I would have to wait till a rescue party
came to search for us.

It was well past noon before the Forest department people,

accompanied by Thimma’s brother and a dozen villagers, came
anywhere near the scene. Eventually, guided by my shouts, they
located us, and that evening I was back at Sakrepatna forest
bungalow, lying on the cot with an immensely swollen ankle. The
D.F.O. turned up at about nine o’clock and drove me in my car to
Chikmagalur, where I went to the local hospital for treatment. It
was a week before I managed to hobble around. You may guess
that by this time I was extremely angry with myself at the delay,
and more so with the big, bad, black bear that had caused all the
trouble. I was determined that I would get him at any cost, just as
soon as I could walk.

In the meantime he had not been idle, but had mauled two more
men who had been walking along the path to the Lonkere Lake.

Four days later saw me back at Sakrepatna, just about able to

walk, although not for long distances. Here I was told that the
bear had taken to visiting some fields about a mile from the
village, bordered by boram trees, the fruit of which was just then
coming into season. At 5 p.m. I reached the trees in question and,
selecting the largest, which had the most fruit, decided to spend
the night at its foot, hoping that the bear showed up. I sat on the
ground with my back to the trunk, my rifle across my knees.
 Shortly after eleven I heard the grunting, grumbling sound of an
approaching bear. He stopped frequently, no doubt to pick up
some morsel, and as he came closer I heard the scratching sounds
he made in digging for roots. He took nearly an hour to reach the
boram tree, by which time I was amply prepared. Finally, he broke
cover and ambled into the open, a black blob silhouetted in the
faint glimmer of the stars.

I pressed the torch switch and the beams fell on him. He rose on
his hind legs to regard me with surprise, and I planted my bullet in
his chest between the arms of the white V-mark that showed
clearly in the torchlight. And that was the end of that really bad
bear.

Bears, as a rule, are excitable but generally harmless creatures.

This particular bear carried the mark of Cain, in that he had
become the wanton and deliberate murderer of several men,
whom he had done to death in the most terrible fashion, without
provocation.
 3

The Mamandur Man-Eater

HIS animal was a female, and young at that; so there was no

T apparent reason for her becoming a man-killer. But because
she began her depredations shortly after the death of the man-
eating tiger of the Chamala Valley—whose career I have told in
the story entitled ‘The Striped Terror of the Chamala Valley’ 1 —
and operated partly in the same locality, there were perhaps some
grounds for the local gossip that set her down as the mate of that
august killer. Another, and equally likely explanation, was that
she was a grown-up cub, who had learned the evil practice of
man-killing and man-eating from her evil sire.

Whatever her antecedents, this tigress made her first attempt at

killing a human being when she attacked a herdsman, who
attempted to succour a fine milch-cow, which she had chosen to
attack from amongst his herd of cattle, and whose neck she had
just skilfully broken. The herdsman very bravely but foolishly
attempted to frighten the tigress away from the fallen cow by
shouting and brandishing his staff in the air. Mostly such tactics
have the desired effect of frightening the tiger away, but in this
case the effect was just the reverse. Instead of bounding away, the
tigress bounded towards the herdsman, covering the short twenty
yards that separated them at incredible speed. The herdsman
turned tail and bolted, but the tigress dealt him a raking blow
with her front paw that opened the flesh from shoulder to
buttocks. The weight of the blow bore him to the ground; but in
this, her first attack on a human being, the tigress apparently
considered she had inflicted enough damage, for she turned back
to the cow she had just killed.
 With returning consciousness, the herdsman could hear the
crunch of bones a mere forty yards away as the tigress fed on the
cow. Fortunately, this man kept his head and did not attempt to
get to his feet. In all probability any such movement would have
provoked a second, and this time fatal, attack.

So he lay as he had fallen, on his face, but by stealthily moving

his head very slowly and slightly, he was able to see the tigress as
she fed.

He told me afterwards that he would never forget the next hour

for the rest of his life. Apparently, the tigress stopped eating every
now and then, raised her head and glanced in his direction. Once
she got to her feet and even took a few steps towards him. The
poor fellow almost screamed with terror, and nearly made the
mistake of moving. Perhaps his very terror saved his life by making
him incapable of movement. Fortunately, the tigress then
changed her mind and returned to the cow.

It was more than an hour, the herdsman told me, before the
tigress eventually decided she had eaten enough. She then
leisurely sat on her haunches, licked her forepaws thoroughly and
began to clean her face. With a final backward glance at his
recumbent figure, she at last got to her feet, stretched herself
contentedly and walked off into the jungle.

The herdsman lay still for another ten minutes, to make

perfectly sure she had really gone. Then he got to his feet and
dashed homewards as fast as he could run.

There is at least one other, equally remarkable, end to this

story: the deep scratches the tigress had inflicted healed
completely in spite of the absence of any proper medical
treatment, apart from some crushed herbs, mixed with cow-dung,
which the native doctor rubbed into the wounds. Perhaps the
shawl he had been wearing, draped across his shoulders, had
prevented the poisonous matter under the claws from entering the
bloodstream.

This incident had occurred scarcely four miles from Mamandur

railway station, where a rocky escarpment fell sharply for about
three hundred feet into a forest glen, through which ran a little
stream.

The next incident was also one of mauling, but this time the
victim was not so lucky. Again it was a cowherd who was
involved, an elderly man who died of his wounds. The events were
much the same as in the earlier case. The tigress had dashed into a
herd of cattle that was grazing a mile to the west of the railway
line that cut through the forest, and had once more selected a
milch-cow for her victim. As the frightened cattle stampeded past
the elderly herdsman, he ran in the direction from which they had
come to learn the cause of their alarm.

Soon he came upon the tigress, astride the dead cow. This time
no attempt was made to frighten her off; the herdsman just
stopped in his track in surprise. But evidently the tigress resented
his appearance on the scene, for she attacked and mauled him
severely. Then she walked back to the dead cow and dragged it
away into the undergrowth.

It was three hours before help came to the old man. The cattle
had stampeded across the railway line. The old man’s brother,
coming in search of him, saw that the cattle had moved and that
their owner was nowhere to be seen. Standing on the railway
embankment, he called loudly to his brother, but got no response.
Then sensing that something was wrong, he hurried back to
Mamandur village for help.

The search party, following the tracks of the stampeding cattle,

came upon the mauled man. He was unconscious and almost dead
from loss of blood. They carried him to the village and then to the
station, intending to put him in the guard’s van of a goods train
that was due in half-an-hour, bound for the town of Renigunta,
nine miles away, where there was a hospital. But the old
herdsman died before the goods train reached Mamandur.

Only at her third killing did this tigress develop man-eating

tendencies. She again attacked a herdsman, on this occasion at
about nine in the morning. How it happened was related by a
second herdsman, who was standing beside the first at the time of
the attack. The tigress dashed out amongst the herd as usual and
leapt upon a young bull. Somehow, she failed in her initial
attempt to bring the bull down. On the other hand, the bull, with
the tigress on his back, dashed madly to where the two herdsmen
were standing. One of them—the man who lived to tell the tale—
bolted. The other just did nothing, but appeared to be rooted to
the spot with surprise.

The fleeing man looked back only once, in time to see the tigress
leap from the bolting bull on to the terror-stricken herdsman. He
saw no more, for the very good reason that he turned away and
ran as fast and as far from the spot as he could.

When the rescue party turned up some hours later, armed with
sticks and matchlocks, the body of the victim was not to be seen.
So the party went back for reinforcements. Another three hours
elapsed before the rescuers, now numbering nearly a hundred
men, arrived at the scene of the attack. They followed a clear trail
and found the corpse, lying on its face in the sandy bed of a
narrow nullah. A part of the chest and buttocks had been eaten.

Three further human kills followed during the next couple of

months. Of these, one was a herdsman, one a traveller on the
Renigunta road, and the third a Lambani, who had gone out to
gather wild honey. Thereafter, all cattle-grazing stopped, as did
also the collection of wild honey. No more travellers dared to
come by road on foot. They came by train instead.
 Mr. Littlewood, the district Forest Officer at the time, wrote to
me, suggesting I might spend a few days at the beautiful Forest
Bungalow at Mamandur and try to bag this tigress. With fifteen
days’ privilege leave to my credit, I caught the night mail-train
from Bangalore; but it was 3.30 p.m. next day before I alighted
from a slow passenger train at the little wayside station of
Mamandur.

The forest bungalow lies a bare seven furlongs away on the top
of a small hillock. The path to the bungalow traverses the small
village of Mamandur, where I stopped for some time to make it
widely known that I had come especially to shoot the tigress. My
object was to get the news to spread from mouth to mouth, so that
I would not only pick up all available known details about the
animal, but, more particularly, would be acquainted with the
news of any fresh kills that took place, either animal or human. I
also negotiated the purchase of three buffalo heifers, which I paid
for in cash, placing them in the charge of the local shikari , a man
by the name of Arokiaswamy, whom I had engaged on earlier
visits to Mamandur.

The bungalow had a wide and well-sheltered verandah. From its

hillock fire-lines, or ‘forest-lines’ as they are sometimes called,
radiated in five directions. Those south and south-westwards ran
close to the village and railway embankment respectively. The
other three struck far into the forest, and the eye could travel
along them for many miles. The fire-line to the north stretched
away towards the escarpment where the very first herdsman had
been mauled by the tigress. Those to the east and southeast
travelled in almost straight lines into the labyrinth of the jungle,
like the spokes of some giant wheel. The country in both these
directions was flat.

In years gone by, when game was far more plentiful, I had spent
many a pleasant early morning or late evening, standing on the
verandah or on the plinth of the bungalow with a pair of powerful
binoculars, looking along those forest-lines. It was very common
to see sambar, spotted deer and peafowl cross from one side to
another. I had seen bear on three occasions, early in the morning,
and a tiger crossing the northern fire-line at five in the evening.
Also, although quite two miles away, I had witnessed a pack of
eleven wild dogs ‘ringing’ an old bear. I had dashed after them on
that occasion— to save the bear from the cruel fate that awaited
it—arriving just as the eleven demons closed on the harried,
exhausted, but brave, old beast. Three of the dogs lay dead before
they realised they had to deal with a new foe. A fourth tumbled to
the crack of my rifle as the pack began to run away, and a fifth
joined the other four by the time the remnants of the pack were
out of sight in the jungle.

I was using my old .405 Winchester rifle in those days, and had
emptied my magazine. Only then did I realise I had to face a
maddened bear, who had been infuriated by the dogs and the pain
of the bites he had already received.

He was then about sixty yards away, and he charged straight at

me, screaming, ‘Woof! Woof!’ I ran as fast as I could along the
forest-line, and as I did so I opened the under-lever action of the
.405, rammed home a cartridge in the breach, and closed the lever,
which automatically cocked the rifle. Whipping around I faced
the bear, which was scarcely fifteen yards away. In true bear style,
when five yards away, he rose on his hind legs to deliver the final
‘coup de grace’, which is popularly thought to be that most
fearsome of caresses, ‘a bear’s hug’, of which we have all heard so
much.

Actually, the south Indian sloth bear does not ‘hug’ his
adversary. He rises on his hind legs to tear at his victim’s face with
his formidable, three-inch long talons, or to bite him on the head
with his powerful teeth. In rising to his hind legs, the bear exposed
the broad white V-mark that all sloth bears carry on their chests.
With the one cartridge I had in the rifle, I shot him in the base of
the V. He fell forward and lay still, just two yards away!

Three of the wild dogs had been males, the other two were
females. The forest department paid me a reward of ten rupees for
each male and fifteen rupees for each bitch. As wild dogs are very
destructive to deer, their shooting is encouraged. I was sorry to
have had to kill old Bruin, but he brought it on himself.

All this had happened very, very long ago.

Another factor that made this bungalow very attractive was the
sea breeze that blew in from the east shortly after two o’ clock
each afternoon. I think, as the crow flies, the Bay of Bengal is not
less than seventy-five miles from this little bungalow; and I am no
authority to argue about the distance at which a sea breeze ceases
to be effective. I only know that, at almost two each afternoon it
turns the verandah of that little bungalow into a delightfully cool
spot on which to take a nap. If you don’t believe me, visit
Mamandur Forest Bungalow.

It was too late that evening to tie out more than one of the three
buffaloes, which only arrived at 5.30 p.m. This buffalo I took for
two miles along the northern fire-line, where I tied it at the foot of
a large and leafy tamarind tree. It was past seven when I got back,
so I kept the other two buffaloes in the garage and asked
Arokiaswamy to sleep in the kitchen.

Early next morning we were astir. First we took the bait which
we had tied two miles away the previous night, and which was
still alive, right up to the foot of the escarpment where the very
first attack had taken place. There we secured it to the roots of a
tree in a beautiful glade of rank, green grass.

We came back to the bungalow and took the second heifer along
the fire line stretching to the east, where I tied it at almost the
very spot where my encounter with the wild dogs and the bear had
taken place.

Returning for the second time to the bungalow, we took the

third and last heifer across the railway line to the west, and tied it
near the spot where the elderly herdsman had been killed.

It was past midday when I got back to the bungalow for the
third time, and blazing hot too. Taking off my sweat-soaked shirt,
I ate a belated cold lunch and awaited the advent of the sea
breeze, which I knew would start at about two. Nor was I
disappointed; for when it began, it turned that broiling-hot
verandah to the likeness of the shores of some far-distant South
Sea Island, where we read that ‘the sea-breezes forever play’.

The next two days were uninteresting. I visited all three baits
each day, but none of them had been touched. The evening of the
fifth day brought a tragedy.

The semaphores along the railway lines of southern India are lit
at night by kerosene oil lamps, except in the shunting yards of the
larger railway junctions. As you are no doubt aware, every
ordinary railway station has two sets of signals on each side of it;
the near or ‘home’ signal, and a more distant, or ‘outer’ signal, as
it is called. Normally, the kerosene oil lamps at these signals are
cleaned, trimmed, refilled and lit by a pointsman or an other
railway employee appointed for the purpose who does his job at
about six each evening. But owing to the presence of the tigress at
Mamandur, and the fact that the outer signals, both in the
direction of Renigunta to the south and Settigunta to the
northwest, were surrounded by forest, it had become the custom
to light these lamps well before five, while the sun was still up.

That evening two pointsmen had set out on this task at 4 p.m.,
one walking towards Renigunta, and the other in the opposite
direction. The second man never came back.
 Shortly before six a body of seven men came rushing to the
forest bungalow, sent by the stationmaster, to tell me what had
happened. Hastily grabbing my rifle, torch and a few other
necessities for a nightlong vigil, I sent the seven men back to the
station, and Arokiaswamy along with them, as he absolutely
refused to stay in the bungalow alone that night. Then I hurried
up the forest-line that led to the west, which I knew met the
railway track almost midway between the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’
signals.

When I reached the railway line, which here ran along an

embankment ten feet high, I looked to my left and saw the ‘inner’
signal, with its red light twinkling.

‘Stupid man’, I thought. ‘Instead of attending to the outer light

first, while it was still early, and coming back to the inner on his
way to the station, he wasted time on the inner light, and then
went to the outer, when it was considerably later.’

Turning to the right, I walked along the embankment towards

the ‘outer’ semaphore, which came into view when I turned a
corner. As I walked, I looked along and about the tracks for signs
of the attack that must have taken place while the pointsman was
approaching the outer signal. I found nothing. Then I came to the
foot of the ‘outer’, and looked up. The light was burning!

So the man had been attacked on his way back after he had
attended to the ‘outer’ signal, and not before. Added to this was
the fact that the light of the ‘inner’ signal was also burning.
Perhaps he had not attended to that light first, as I had originally
thought. Perhaps he had lit the outer, then the inner, and had
been attacked somewhere between the inner signal and the
station yard.

But was that likely in view of the fact that all the area from the
station up to the ‘inner’ signal, and even a little beyond it, was
open cultivated land? Would any tiger, even if it was a man-eater,
walk about thus boldly on absolutely open land in broad,
daylight? It was possible, but rather unlikely.

My watch showed 6.55 p.m., and it was rapidly growing dark as

I began to retrace my steps towards the inner signal, keeping now
a sharper lookout than ever. An early moon had risen, which was
indeed fortunate, or it would have become quite dark by this time.

Almost at the spot where I had first come on to the embankment

from the forest-line was a small culvert, crossing a narrow but
deep nullah. Something white there caught my eye, fluttering
between the sleepers of the railway track as it spanned this
nullah. I stopped, and peered between the sleepers.

It was the white dhoti worn by the railwayman. Wedged under a

boulder, twenty feet away and clear of the embankment, lay an
elongated, dark shape, which I knew to be the body of the victim.
Even in that uncertain light I could tell that the body had been
partly devoured in the short time that had elapsed since the kill
had taken place. The neck had been bitten through, and the head
lay about a yard away. Because the tigress might perhaps be in the
vicinity at that moment, or even watching me from the cover of
the bushes, it would be unnecessarily dangerous to descend the
embankment and make a closer examination of the body.

A hasty survey of the position made me decide to lie at right

angles across the railway lines and exactly in the middle of the
culvert. I would thus be safe from attack from the front or rear, as
to do this the tigress would have to leap a clear fifteen from the
bottom of the nullah on to the track. This left her the choice of
attacking me along the track, either to my right or left. I should
have told you that the span of the culvert was about twenty feet.
Not much, but it would at least give me time to see the tigress.
 Of course, there was the possibility that she would creep up at
an angle to the embankment and attack me obliquely, either from
the front, or worse still, from behind; and either to the left or right
of me.

It was a chance that had to be taken.

I had already clamped my torch to the rifle walking from the

bungalow. I placed my haversack beneath my chest, to soften
contact with the rail. This section of track was broad gauge,
which means that the lines were five feet six inches apart. By
spreading my legs widely, I found my soles just touched the other
rail and did not overlap it. The teak—weed ‘sleeper’, on which I
lay, was perhaps eight inches wide: not over-comfortable to lie on
and awfully hard!

The moon was shining brightly by this time and lit the scene
clearly. The corpse and its severed head were clearly visible
against the lighter colour of the rock and the finely-grained white
sand of the nullah in which it lay. Everything was deathly silent.

The red light glimmered from the friendly inner signal; it

seemed to remind me that help was close—but yet so distant.

The hours ticked by; a sambar stag belled from the jungle to the
west. Perhaps that call heralded that the tigress was on the move!
No, for it was answered by another stag, further away to the
northeast, and then by another to the east. Periodically, the
spotted deer also gave vent to their sharp cries of alarm, ‘Aiow!
Aiow! Aiow!’

But the cries did not come from any one direction; if they had
done so, that would have indicated definitely that some carnivore
was afoot in that area. They came from all sides, far and near,
indicating that several carnivores were on the move. Also, being a
brilliant moonlight night, it was possible that packs of wild dogs
were on the hunt. These animals chase their prey by day and
never on a dark night, but on brilliant moonlit nights, in certain
jungles, they occasionally reverse their habit and hunt by
moonlight.

At midnight silence reigned again. And then the hair at the

back of my neck began to rise, for what I was witnessing was eerie
indeed. The severed head had rolled on to its side!

All this time it had been staring heavenwards; now its lifeless
eyes and face were turned to me. Yet no animal had touched it, for
it lay in the open, clearly visible in the bright moonlight.

I felt myself tremble and grow cold. I licked my dry lips and
stared at that terrible head.

Again it moved! It had tried to roll back to its former position; it

had turned halfway and then, as if it lacked the strength to
complete the move, it had rolled back again and was staring me in
the face.

Now I may tell you I am a very practical person, not

superstitious, nor afraid of the dark. I had spent many a night in a
similar or even more dangerous position; I had sat over half-eaten
human bodies before, and on earlier occasions I had imagined that
I had seen them move. But never before in my life had I seen a
severed human head actually turn around of its own accord, then
try to turn back again and fail; finally, to roll back in obvious
despair.

I almost cried out and for quite a while was seized with a
powerful urge to get up and run towards the twinkling, friendly
red light of the ‘inner’ signal. Then common sense reasserted
itself. A dead head, human or otherwise, cannot move of its own
accord. Something must have moved it!

I stared at the head intently, and the bright moonlight showed

me the answer to my problem. Two black objects could be seen
moving in the white sand. They were ‘rhinoceros beetles’: large
insects, more than an inch-and-a-half long, with great spikes on
their noses resembling the horn of a rhinoceros, from which
resemblance they had got their name. Generally they are
nocturnal, although one frequently sees them on forest roads,
early in the morning, and again late at evening, busily rolling a
ball of cow-dung, perhaps thrice their own size, to some unknown
destination.

These two little creatures by their combined strength had

succeeded in rolling this head over once, but the second time they
had not quite succeeded. I had been so absorbed by what I saw
that I had forgotten all about the tigress; she could easily have
surprised me at that time.

It was now 1.40 and the rail beneath my chest began to tremble.
Then I heard a distant rumbling sound which gradually grew
louder and nearer. A sharp whistle rent the air and soon the
brilliant headlight of an engine fell full upon me. It was the Night
Mail from Madras to Bombay.

Stiffly I got to my feet, lifted my haversack, walked to the end of

the culvert, and then a couple of foot down the embankment. But
I had entirely forgotten to take into account the vigilance of the
driver of the train. He had clearly seen me in the bright headlight
of the engine, although he had not noticed my rifle. As he was to
tell me in a few minutes, he took me for a would-be suicide,
deliberately lying on the track in order to be run over, whose
courage had failed him at the last moment. I may mention,
incidentally, that this method of committing suicide is rather
popular in India.

Anyhow, with a grinding of brakes and violent hissing of steam,

the train drew up just after the engine had passed me. The next
thing I heard was the loud thudding of boots on the hard ground as
figures ran towards me. It was the driver and his two firemen from
the engine.

They charged up and grabbed me. Only then did they realise
that I was obviously not what they had taken me to be. In the
meantime, heads popped out of carriage windows, and a hundred
voices began to question and conjecture. The guard came up from
the rear with his bulls-eye lantern. So I had no alternative but to
tell them what I was doing.

‘Where is the man who has been eaten by the tiger?’ asked the
driver, a middle-aged Anglo-Indian. I pointed the corpse out to
him. ‘And you have been lying here in the open by yourself since
evening?’ he asked, incredulously.

When I replied in the affirmative, he added, very simply, ‘You

are quite mad,’ and tapped his forehead significantly. His two
firemen, and the Indian guard of the train, nodded heartily in
agreement.

A few minutes later, the Mail puffed onwards, on its long

journey to Bombay, and I was left alone once more. But I had little
hope of the tigress putting in her appearance after so great a
disturbance.

At 2.30 a.m. the rails began to rumble again. This time I lay flat
on the embankment, hiding my rifle, before the engine’s headlight
betrayed my presence. As a result, the goods train passed me by
without stopping. At 4 a.m. again the rails rumbled and trembled,
and I hid once more. It was the return Mail, from Bombay to
Madras, that thundered by at full speed, as mail trains do not halt
at Mamandur.

The false dawn came and went. The distant call of awakening
peafowl fell on the air, as they cried, ‘Mia-a-oo-Aaow’ across the
forest valleys to be answered by the cheery ‘Whe-e-e-e-Kuch-Kaya
Kaya-Khuck’m’ of that most lovely bird, the grey junglecock.
 A pale shell-pink tinted the sky above the eastern hills that
stood sharply outlined now in velvety black. Meanwhile, the
moon, which had held sway all night and was now about to set,
began losing some of her brilliance.

In the east the shell-pink turned marvellously to mauve, then to

a deep rose, tinged at its edges by the palest of greens and the
purest of blues. The rose became orange-purple then orange alone,
then deep red, and finally flame, as the glowing tip of the sun
peeped above the wave-like lines of hilltops to the east.

Radiating beams of sunlight, cast heavenwards by that rapidly

growing orb, touched the racing, fleecy clouds in the sky with all
the colours of the spectrum. Then, suddenly, just as a butterfly
bursts forth from its chrysalis, the sun surmounted the hills,
driving before her, in eddying swirls, the wisps of mist from the
damp jungle below.

It was another day, and to welcome its birth a glad chorus of

song burst from the birds of the forest all around me. Every bush
and tree throbbed with life, fresh, clean and new. Those who have
seen the marvel of an Indian jungle sunrise will never forget it.

The head still stared up at me, but it was still now; the two
rhinoceros beetles that had worked so diligently throughout the
night had long since abandoned the unequal task and gone to rest.

I made my way to the station, disappointed and slowly, to tell

the stationmaster he could allow the relations of the dead men to
remove the remains for cremation, and by eight I was asleep on
the verandah of the bungalow. In the afternoon the sea-breeze
lulled me to a deeper slumber.

At 4 p.m. I awoke, feeling refreshed and fit, and ate a quick

lunch-cum-tea, while listening to Arokiaswamy’s report that he,
with four others, had visited all the baits and had found them
alive. It certainly looked as if this tigress was not going to kill any
of the heifers I had tied out.

Then came sunset and bright moonlight. I felt like taking a

walk. If I kept to the centre of any one of those five radiating forest
fire-lines, I felt I would be safe enough, provided I maintained a
sharp watch while I walked. There was also the definite chance of
attracting the tigress, should our trails cross during the night.

I dressed for the occasion. In my own kit I had only khaki

clothes and a black shirt which was useful for night machan work.
So I went with Arokiaswamy to his hut, where I slipped on a long
white shirt, allowing the shirttails to flutter loosely outside my
khaki pants. Arokiaswamy further completed the disguise by tying
a white turban round my head.

I did not know what the tigress would take me for if we met; but
I know I was a source of considerable amusement to the villagers,
who were somewhat shocked to hear of my plan.

I debated for a moment which fire-line to walk up first and

decided to follow the one leading in the easterly direction. It was
7.30 p.m. when I started to walk. I kept in the centre of the line,
and as I moved I allowed my eyes to rove freely around and about
the bushes and undergrowth on both sides. Occasionally I glanced
backwards.

Although the moonlight was brilliant, the bushes cast long

black shadows, and clumps of thorns and grass looked ghostly grey
around me. I realised that, for all the moonlight, my eyes could
never pick out a lurking carnivore in that unreal sheen, even if it
showed itself, which it would not. I should have to rely on my
sense of hearing—and that other, my sixth sense!

At ten-minute intervals I whistled a bar of some tune or other to

advertise my presence to the tigress; but only for half-a-minute at
a time, so as not to impede my own ears, that were attuned to
catch the slightest sound.

Thus, many a subtle rustle did I hear in the grassy hillocks as I

passed them. Invariably, the nocturnal bamboo-rat was the
culprit, as he scampered for cover at my approach. Then an
indefinable, prolonged, slithering rustle: that was a snake,
probably a Russell’s viper, coiling comfortably around and around
himself in the grass, to be cosy and warm. Something heavy
descended from the sky, neatly on the back of a hare as it
scampered across the fire-line. The hare squealed, and the great
horned owl, which had attacked it, pecked it sharply on the
forehead. I approached the owl, which extended both its wings to
the ground to hide the hare from me, much in the same way as
does a hen with chickens. I approached closer and the owl
glowered; I drew closer still and the owl flew away. I picked up the
limp hare and rubbed its back briskly. With regaining
consciousness, it began to kick vigorously. I let it go into the long
grass.

There were no bison in these jungles, nor elephants, but in their

stead bear were plentiful. Nor was it long before I came upon
Bruin, engaged in his favourite pastime of sucking white ants out
of their hills. A distant sound, midway between a buzzing and a
humming, a queer noise rather like someone inflating a bagpipe,
or the sound of angry swarming bees, first told me that a bear was
afoot. It grew louder and louder and was punctuated by grunts,
coughs, whimpers of impatience and growls of annoyance.

There, to one side of the line and to my right was a white-ant

hill. There standing up against it, with its head inside a hole, was
a shaggy, black shape. It was the bear, blowing, sucking,
grumbling, swearing and complaining, as he met with little or no
success. Rarely there would be a chuckle of sheer joy as something
succulent went down.
 He was deeply engrossed in his task as I padded silently on my
way, and the sounds of his feast receded behind me, growing
fainter and fainter. I walked for two hours along that line, then
turned and retraced my steps. Bruin had gone home by the time I
came to the ant hill again, and it was then only half its original
height, due to his efforts. I saw nothing else till I reached the
Forest Lodge.

Next, I turned up the northern fire-line and walked towards the

escarpment. This line did not run straight like the one I had just
abandoned. Rather, it twisted and turned considerably as I
approached the escarpment. A stream intersected it at the third
mile, in which a trickle of clear, cold water sparkled like silver in
the moonlight.

Stooping down, I drank, conveying the water to my mouth in

my left palm; my right hand held the rifle with its butt to the
ground, while my eyes watched the jungle and my ears strained to
catch the slightest sound. There was nothing visible, and the only
sound was the gurgle of the water. I went on.

The bait I had tied was around the next corner. It was alive, and
as I passed it looked at me with dumb reproach for the cruel fate to
which I had exposed it. I had no answer, no excuse! That I was
guilty there was no doubt. I turned my eyes away, but could not
rid myself of the sense of guilt.

At last the base of the escarpment was reached. Here the fire-
line stopped and became a narrow game-trail that plunged
abruptly into the labyrinth of greenery. It was too dangerous to go
any further under such conditions and I turned back.

All I passed on the return journey was a large cobra in the

process of swallowing a bamboo-rat. Three-quarters of the rat
were down the cobra’s throat, only the hindquarters and tail
protruding, when I came upon the scene in the middle of the fire-
line. The snake saw me and raised its head two feet above the
ground, simultaneously erecting the fine bones of its neck to form
that most beautiful and at the same time most enthralling of
sights to a newcomer to India; the well-known cobra’s hood. The
hind legs and tail of the rat still dangled incongruously from its
mouth. The beady black eyes glittered malevolently in the
phosphorescent light.

I rapidly stamped my feet and clapped my hands. The cobra

became nervous and finally panicked. It vomited the rat, lowered
itself to the ground with deflated hood, and slithered away into
the bushes to one side of the fire-line.

Once more I was back at the bungalow. I had covered twenty

miles, and it was 2.45 a.m.

Two fire-lines remained to be tried, but there would only be

time to negotiate one, either the fire-line running to the south-
east, up which I had not yet been since my arrival, or the line to
the south-west, crossing the railway embankment, where I had sat
the previous night over the dead body. For some unaccountable
reason, I chose the latter.

I reached the railway track, crossed it, and had walked over a
mile further towards the west, when suddenly the silence was
shattered by the moaning call of a tigress. It appeared to come
from a point no more than a couple of furlongs in front of me.
Perhaps the beast was walking along the same fire-line; she may
have been going away or perhaps coming towards me.

Doubling forward for the next 50 yards, I hid behind the trunk of
a large wood-apple tree, cocked the rifle and raised it into
position. Then I gave the deep-lunged moan of a male tiger.

Almost immediately it was answered, from much closer than I

thought—perhaps a hundred yards away. I did not dare to call
again, for fear that I should be recognised for the imposter I was.
 Tiger-calling should not be indulged in at close quarters, for fear
that the real tiger should discover a difference in the timbre of the
call. Should he become suspicious, he may just fade away. One
hundred yards is about the closest range at which such mimicry
can be tried. Of course, man-eating propensities, and also
curiosity, from which most animals suffer to some degree, might
still cause the tiger to come forward, but there is always the risk
that suspicion may drive him off. So I remained silent—and still.

Thirty seconds later, a tigress strode down the forest-line

towards me, the moonlight playing upon the black stripes of her
coat. She came abreast of me, then began to pass.

I shot her behind the ear. Only her tail twitched as she sank to
the ground. She never knew what happened; she had no chance. It
was an unsporting shot.

Anyhow, at Mamandur no human has been killed now for some

years. The tigress, which was young, was in the best of condition
and there was no reason why she should have become a man-
eater. Perhaps, after all, the Chamala man-eater had taught her
the bad habit.

___________
1 See Nine Man-Eaters and one Rogue.
 4

The Crossed-Tusker of Gerhetti

HIS is the story of another elephant that earned the name of a

T ‘rogue’, and was proscribed by the government of Madras by
notification through the Collector and the district Forest Officer of
Salem.

The events I am going to relate took place quite a time ago. As

usual with rogue elephants, no one knew just what caused this
elephant to start molesting human beings. The forest guard then
stationed at Gerhetti stated that, one night about a month before
the rogue began his depredations, he had heard two bull elephants
fighting in the forest. According to his story, the contest had raged
off and on for over three hours, and had taken place in the vicinity
of a water hole situated just about half a mile in front of the forest
bungalow.

Next day he had found the jungle trampled down and great
splashes of blood were everywhere in evidence of the punishment
that had been inflicted. Judging by the account he gave me, and
from the pandemonium that had raged, it must have been a
mammoth struggle. Possibly the rogue, as we came to know him,
had been the elephant that had got the worst of that fight and
from this moment had begun to vent his spleen on all and sundry.

Another explanation might have been that the rogue, was just
an ordinary bull elephant in a state of ‘musth’ a periodical
affliction that affects all elephants and lasts for about three
months, during which time they become extraordinarily
dangerous.
 A third possibility was that this elephant had been wounded by
one of the many poachers that are to be found in the forests of
Salem district. These gentry sit up over water holes and salt licks
to shoot deer that visit such spots during the hot and dry summer
months. Generally, when a poacher sees anything more
formidable than a harmless deer, he keeps very quiet or slinks
away if he feels the going is good. Yet even amongst poachers we
find a few that are ‘trigger-happy’. They discharge their muskets
at any animal that puts in an appearance, and it may have been
that one of these adventurers had wounded the bull and started
him on his career as a rogue.

It may even have been that a simple peasant, guarding his crops
by night, had shot at him with his match-lock. Elephants are fond
of destroying crops that grow close to the forest.

Whatever it was that had originally upset him, the rogue of

Gerhetti started his career quite suddenly, and for the short time
he held sway in the fastness of the jungle where he lived, he
became a terror, bringing all traffic, both bullock-cart and
pedestrian, to an end within an area of about four hundred square
miles.

Gerhetti is the name given to a tiny hamlet comprising some

five or six huts about two miles off the track leading from
Anchetty to Pennagram in the Salem North Forest Division. The
country here is very hilly, and thick bamboo jungle grows to a
distance of about three miles from both banks of a rocky stream
known as Talavadi Brook, which joins the Cauvery about fifteen
miles southwest of the spot I am telling you about. This bamboo
jungle nearly always harbours herds of elephant and quite often
three or four independent elephants, which although not rogues,
are very carefully avoided by the jungle folk.

Another stream, called Gollamothi, flows almost parallel with

the Talavadi rivulet, about twelve miles north of it, and joins the
Gundalam river, itself another tributary of the Cauvery. These
three rivers, with the hills that surround them on all sides, and the
thick bamboo jungle that abounds, makes an ideal habitation for
any elephant, and it was here that the rogue started his career as a
killer.

It began like this. With the midsummer heat, the Gollamothi

stream had dried up, except for one or two isolated pools of water
which had managed to survive, being formed between huge rocks
that cropped up on the riverbed, and fed by subsoil percolation.
One of these pools was known to hold fish of some size, perhaps
six to eight inches in length, and one afternoon two men from the
village of Anchetty, five miles away, decided they would go to
this pool and net some fish in the restricted area that had resulted
from rapid evaporation.

So they arrived at the pool and cast their nets. Soon they had
made a considerable catch. They then put the fish into their
baskets and lay down under a shady tree by the side of the water
hole to enjoy a brief siesta.

It was about five when one of them awakened. The sun had just
sunk behind the top of a hill that jutted out to the west of the
pool, but it was still quite bright. As he sat up beside his sleeping
companion, something caused the man to look behind him, where
he saw the slate-grey bulk of an elephant descending the southern
bank of the Gollamothi on its way to the pool.

The man reached out and vigorously shook his companion, to

whom he whispered in Tamil ‘Anai Varadbu’, which means ‘an
elephant approaches’. Then he got up and ran to the northern
bank and into the forest. His companion, suddenly aroused from
sleep, did not quite grasp the significance of the warning, and as
he sat looking around and wondering what had happened to his
friend, the elephant was upon him.
 The man who escaped told me he heard the screams of the
friend he had left behind, mingled with the shrill trumpeting of
the enraged elephant. Then there was silence. Naturally, he had
not waited to hear more. Two days later, when the search party
from Anchetty came to look for the remains, they found a pulpy
mass of broken flesh and bones decaying in the hot sun. There was
evidence that the elephant had first placed his foot upon the man
and then had literally torn him apart with his trunk. He had
carried one leg to a spot ten yards away, where he had beaten it
against the gnarled trunk of a jumlum tree before finally throwing
it away among the rocks.

That was the rogue’s first victim. His second attempt was upon
a herd-boy who was driving his herd at sunset to the cattle patti at
Gundalam. This boy, being young and agile, had fled along the
sands of the dry stream, hotly pursued by the vicious elephant.
Finding he was losing ground, the boy had the sense to run up the
steep side of the hill where the rocks were very slippery and small
loose boulders abounded. This had enabled him to maintain his
lead.

In his mad rush to escape, the boy cut his bare feet literally to
ribbons on the protruding sharp stones, while his body was
lacerated in a hundred places by the thorns and shrubs that sought
to hold him back. But he had kept on running, and managed to
escape the elephant by climbing on to a high rock that protruded
about two hundred yards up the hillside.

He told me afterwards that when the bull reached the rock, he

walked around it several times, trumpeting and attempting to
reach his victim with his trunk. But the boy kept his head, and
moved around with the elephant, keeping as far as possible from
the tip of that dreaded trunk. He told me that the top of the rock
was only about twenty-five square feet in area and that the snake-
like tip of the killer’s trunk had sometimes been within a foot of
his ankles. Nevertheless he had managed to avoid it, and after an
hour of this game the elephant suddenly lost interest in his victim
and wandered away. Still the boy had been too frightened to come
down and had spent the night on top of the rock, only getting
down the next morning after the sun had risen high in the
heavens, when he felt that the elephant was nowhere in the
vicinity.

After this there had been a lull for a month, when the few folk
who lived in the area began to feel that the elephant had perhaps
departed to other regions, or alternatively, if it had been in musth,
that musth season had elapsed and that its condition had returned
to normal.

But they had been far too optimistic, for exactly five weeks after
unsuccessfully chasing the herd-boy this elephant attacked two
wayfarers as they were journeying through the forest to the village
of Natrapalayam, which lies about eight miles south of Anchetty.
These men had been suddenly chased by the rogue and had begun
to run along the forest path with the animal in hot pursuit about
hundred yards behind them. One of these men was about thirty
years old and the other some ten years older. Age soon began to
tell on the older man causing him to lag behind, his breath
coming, in sobbing gasps. He knew that a terrible death was
behind him, and he tried his best to keep running. Unfortunately,
he had quite lost his head, and made no attempt to circumvent
the animal, as he might have done, by perhaps climbing a tree, or
by getting behind a rock or even by throwing down a part of his
clothing as he ran. This last action might have served to delay the
attacker for a few minutes. For when chased by an elephant, it is
advisable as a last recourse to shed some part of one’s clothing;
when the elephant reaches it and catches the strong human smell,
he will invariably stop to tear it to ribbons. In the precious seconds
thus gained, the victim has a chance of making good his escape.

But this unfortunate man simply ran on till he could run no

more. The elephant overtook him as he lay sprawled on the path,
his body heaving to the gasps of his tortured lungs. Soon their
services on this earth were ended, for the elephant picked him up
in his trunks and dashed repeatedly against a wayside boulder,
beating him to pulp before finally tossing him aside into the
jungle.

As a result of these incidents, petitions had been forwarded,

through Forest authorities, to the Collector of Salem district to
proscribe this animal ‘rogue’, which means that permission was
granted for the elephant to be shot by any game-licence holder in
the district. Normally, the elephant is strictly protected in India.
Red tapism, as anywhere in the world, is a slow process, and this is
particularly the case in India, so that three months or more
elapsed before action was taken to issue the necessary order. A
further month’s delay occurred before all game-licence holders in
the district were notified.

Meanwhile the ‘rogue’ was rather busy. He attacked a bullock-

cart that was laden with sandalwood cut by the Forest
department. The driver of this cart, and the forest guard who was
accompanying the sandalwood, escaped by running into the
forest, but the cart was smashed to pieces and one of the bulls
slightly injured.

Not long afterwards, the rogue did rather an-unusual thing.

Cattle, let loose by graziers in the forest, generally scatter over a
fairly wide area. One of these animals evidently strayed too near
the rogue, which attacked and broke the beast’s back.

A further short lull was followed by the news that he had killed
a ‘poojaree’, one of a jungle tribe of this area, as he was returning
with honey from the forest for the contractor who had bought the
right from the Forest department to collect all the wild honey in
this particular division.
 Then the official notification reached me. As a rule, I take no
pleasure in elephant-shooting, as I have a very soft corner for these
big and noble animals. Secondly, I feel it is a comparatively tame
animal itself; elephants invariably give away their position by the
noise they make in the undergrowth when feeding. It is then a
comparatively simple matter to get up-wind of the quarry and
stalk to within a short distance of it. All that is required is a little
experience in knowing where to place one’s feet, to avoid stepping
on dried leaves or twigs that crackle and so give away the stalker’s
position.

Another very important aspect of ‘still hunting’ is the ability to

‘freeze’, to become absolutely still in whatever position you may
be at that moment, if the quarry looks your way. This may prove a
little awkward at times, when in a half-crouched position, but to
straighten up or squat down would be fatal, as the slightest
movement involved in doing so will give the stalker away. The
thing to do is to remain absolutely and completely ‘dead’, even for
as much as ten minutes in the same half-crouching position. I can
assure you that this can sometimes be extremely tiring.

By these methods I have often stalked elephants to within a few

yards and watched them grazing peacefully, without their being
in the least degree aware of my presence. But the slightest whirr or
my scent, or the slightest crackle underfoot, would have sent them
thundering away. An elephant has surprisingly poor sight, and if
you are dressed in military khaki-green and you keep absolutely
still, it will often look your way without ever becoming aware of
your presence.

For these reasons, as I have said, I do not like shooting

elephants. Also, many of the so-called rogues are not rogues at all.
As I have mentioned before, poachers and cultivators are in the
habit of firing at elephants and often wound them in the process,
when they become embittered against the human race. Again,
many of the incidents reported against the so-called rogues never
occurred, for people interested in shooting an elephant sometimes
concoct tales and urge the villagers to write exaggerated reports in
order to induce the Collector to proscribe the rogue. Collectors as
a rule go into such matters very carefully and thoroughly before
issuing orders; but sometimes, with all these precautions,
elephants are killed which are not rogues at all in the real sense.

So I did not pay much heed to the notification till it was

followed, about three weeks later, by a letter from Ranga, my
shikari who lived at the town of Pennagram. He wrote to report
that the elephant had killed a poojaree woman four days
previously at a spot called Anaibiddamaduvu, which lay about
seven miles from Gerhetti. The literal interpretation of this name
is ‘the pool into which the elephant fell’. It is a natural pool,
formed by steep rocks on the bed of Anaibiddahalla river, a sub-
tributary of the Chinnar river, which itself is a tributary of the
Cauvery, that largest of south Indian rivers. Moreover, this pool is
deep and never dries up, and I am told that many years ago an
elephant, while reaching for water with its trunk, fell in and
could not get out again because of the steep and slippery rocks
that ringed it. Elephants are good swimmers, and have herculean
strength and endurance, but they also have great bulk; so this poor
creature, after swimming round and round in the pool for three
days continuously, slowly sank and drowned before quite a large
crowd of people who had come all the eleven miles from
Pennagram to witness the ‘tamasha’.

After receiving Ranga’s letter, and as some time had passed since
I had last seen him, I got leave of absence for four days and
motored down to Pennagram. I picked him up and covered the
eighteen miles or more of terribly bad forest road that leads to the
Gerhetti forest bungalow, passing Anaibiddamaduvu on the way.

The forest guard at Gerhetti told me that the rogue was in the
vicinity, as well as a herd of about ten elephants. All these
animals were in the habit of drinking at the water hole in front of
the bungalow, and as there were several animals in the herd of
about the same size as the rogue, it would be difficult to know
which was which. This precluded any possibility of following with
any degree of certainty any particular set of tracks.

Further, the description of this animal in the notification was

very vague; it merely stated that the measurement around the
circumference of the forefoot had been 4′10″, which made the
elephant approximately 9′.8″ tall, as twice the circumference of
the forefoot is the approximate height. The colour was reported as
black, but all elephants are black after they have washed, but
they soon cover themselves with sand or earth. Sand in the forest
is of different hues, varying from red to brown, grey, and almost
black. So this was no distinguishing factor either. The only feature
that appeared to identify the elephant was that the two tusks,
which were reported to be over three feet long, met and crossed
near their tips.

You will therefore understand that the last factor was the only
one by which I would be able to identify this particular animal,
for it was doubtful if he would give permission, to approach and
measure his height! But to see if the tusks were crossed meant
getting a frontal or head-on view of the elephant, as at an angle
tusks may appear to cross without actually doing so. I certainly
did not want to shoot the wrong animal, apart from the immense
amount of trouble and official explanation that would follow.

This meant that I could select any set of tracks that came up to
the measurement of the rogue and follow them till I came upon
the animal that had made them, then manoeuvre for a frontal
view of the animal to see whether he possessed the hallmark of
crossed-tusks. If he did, he was my elephant. If he did not, I would
have to start all over again by going back to the pool and
following another set of tracks. It must be remembered that I had
only four days at my disposal, and of these four days one had
already passed in picking up Ranga, coming to Gerhetti and
making the necessary inquiries.

At about ten that night I heard the sound of elephants feeding in

the vicinity of the pool. This was undoubtedly the herd, and the
rogue would not be with them. So I went to sleep again.

At dawn I started with Ranga and the forest guard on my plan of

following up one of the sets of tracks. The margin of the water
hole was fairly ploughed up by a mass of footprints of all sizes,
where the herd had watered the night before. These included the
tracks of some very young elephants, which could hardly have
been over three feet tall.

Circumventing the pool, I found three sets of tracks which came

near to the size of the rogue. Two of these three sets, I noticed, had
been made on the same side of the pool as the herd had watered,
while the remaining set had been made by an elephant which had
approached the water from quite another direction. I therefore
argued that this third animal might be the rogue, and we began to
track him in single file. Ranga went in front, following the tracks;
I followed, covering him with my double-barrelled 450/400 Jeffries;
the Forest Guard came behind me, his duty being to guard against
an attack from the rear in case it happened that the elephant had
gone round in a semicircle, and was now grazing behind us.

For a short distance after leaving the water the ground was
covered by long spear grass and clearly revealed the passage of the
elephant the night before, being trampled flat in all directions.
Then the spear grass gave way to the usual thorny growth of
lantana and wait-a-bit thorn. Here also it was comparatively easy
to see where our quarry had passed, but our own passage became
more difficult by reason of the thorns that plucked and tore at our
clothing.
 Yet the tracks were clear and we made fairly good time for
about a mile, when we reached the base of a small hill. The slopes
of this hill were covered with heavy bamboo growth, and the
elephant had passed through this, climbing the hill as he went. He
had also stopped to feed on the tender shoots that spring from the
end of the fronds of bamboo, as was clearly evident by the havoc
he had created in the mass of broken bamboo stems we met along
this trail. Here he had passed a considerable quantity of dung, and
as we reached the top of the hill and went down the other side, it
was evident that the elephant had fed until the early hours of that
morning; for the dung was fresh and had not had time to cool.

From here onwards our passage became laboriously slow. The

dense bamboo completely surrounded us and a careless step by any
one of us resulted in a rustle or sharp crackle, depending on
whether we trod upon the leaves or bamboo fronds.

I touched Ranga’s elbow and motioned to him to stand still, the

guard and myself doing the same. We listened for over ten minutes
for the familiar sounds of a feeding elephant, or the deep rumble
that issues from his cavernous stomach in the process of digestion.
But the forest was comparatively silent except for the cheery calls
of grey junglecocks everywhere around us, and the distant whoops
of langur monkeys on the opposite hillside.

Evidently our quarry was resting, or had perhaps passed further

down into the deep valley that lay before us. As the latter seemed
more likely, we proceeded on tiptoe, slowly and carefully in his
wake. We had all to keep our eyes down to make sure we did not
trample on anything that would betray our presence. Another half
mile brought us to the valley, where the undergrowth was
extremely dense; wild plum, wood-apple, and mighty tamarind
trees grew profusely everywhere, making visibility beyond fifteen
to twenty yards impossible. Another two hundred yards brought
us to the rocky bed of a small tributary of the Gollamothi river.
 The elephant had here skirted the bed of the stream and crossed
it at a sandy spot fifty yards further down. The opposite bank, up
which he had then climbed, was fairly steep, so that we were now
faced with the prospect of having the elephant above us, which is
hardly the best way of meeting a ‘rogue’.

We went forward very slowly indeed, and as silently as was

humanly possible. Our quarry had stopped feeding, and was now
on the move again. We soon saw that he appeared to be making for
another valley that lay beyond the spur of the hill up which we
were now climbing. Having reached this conclusion, we began to
move faster, but had gone only another quarter-mile when we
heard the rumbling sound made by the elephant’s stomach in the
process of digesting his heavy meal.

I sent Ranga and the forest guard up a stout tamarind tree and
crept forward alone in the direction of the sound. The elephant
was in a small depression, densely wooded by bamboo. Evidently
he was resting, or perhaps lying down, as there were no sounds of
his feeding. By this time the rumbling had also ceased.

Very carefully, almost inch by inch, I went down into the

depression. Then stopping for a moment, I gathered a little soft
earth in my hand and held it up before me, letting it drop in order
to see from which direction any current of air might be blowing.
The earth fell straight, indicating that there was hardly any
breeze in the depression. This was a handicap, as there was a
chance of the elephant smelling me in the still air.

So I went forward, still more carefully, if that were possible. The

bamboos towered above me, and I peeped around each clump as I
came abreast of it. A few more yards of this sort of progress and I
saw what appeared to be a slate-grey boulder before me. It was the
elephant, lying on the ground, and as my bad luck would have it,
facing in the opposite direction.
 I could now do one of two things: either make a detour and try
to come upon the elephant from the front, where I might see his
tusks and identify him as the rogue before shooting, or much
simpler, rouse him from where I stood. He would undoubtedly turn
around to face the disturbance, so that I could then identify him
and shoot before he could know what was happening.

Deciding on this second and easier course, I slipped partly

behind a clump of bamboo, then softly whistled. The elephant
took no notice. Perhaps he was deeply asleep, or thought the
sound had come from some forest bird. Then I clicked my tongue
loudly. This had the desired effect, for the elephant scrambled to
its feet and span around to face me.

He was a magnificent tusker, quite ten feet tall, and his ivory
tusks gleamed magnificently in the early morning sunlight. But
they were wide apart, not crossed in the least. I had spent my time
tracking the wrong elephant.

The pachyderm looked at me in amazement for quite half a

minute, his small eyes contemplating the creature who had
disturbed his slumber. I could almost read the thoughts that were
passing through his brain. His first reaction, after surprise, was
annoyance and he moved forward a pace or two in a threatening
attitude. I gave another sharp whistle, at the sound of which his
courage ebbed away, and he turned tail and bolted into the forest,
the crashing sound of his retreat dying away in the distance.

By the time I returned to the spot where I had left Ranga and the
Forest Guard, they had already climbed down from the tamarind
tree, guessing, by the sounds they had clearly heard, that I had
found an animal which was not the rogue we were after. The three
of us then trudged dejectedly back to the water hole, not only
disappointed, but annoyed at the time we had wasted.
 As previously related, there were two other tracks of
approximately the same size. They had been made in the mud of
the pool and nothing could be gained by measuring them with my
tape to determine which came nearest to the notified dimensions
of the rogue; soft mud exaggerated the track of any animal. Ranga
followed one, and the guard and myself the other, with the
understanding that we would return to the water hole in fifteen
minutes for further consultation.

It was not long before I could see that the animal I was
following had been one of the regular herd, for the broken
undergrowth revealed the presence of the feeding cows and young
that had accompanied him. He was obviously not the rogue, and
in exactly fifteen minutes by my watch I turned and made my way
back to the water hole. Ranga, having no watch, had not yet
arrived, so I sat down to a quiet pipe and sip of hot tea from the
flask carried by the Forest Guard. After about ten minutes, he
came to report that the elephant had made a detour a quarter of a
mile from the water hole, had moved around in a semicircle and
passed through a strip of jungle that led to a hill in exactly the
opposite direction, behind the bungalow.

This news seemed promising, so we were up and away. Nor was

it long before we came to the spot whence Ranga had returned to
report. It soon became evident that our new quarry was a
traveller, for he had hardly stopped to feed, other than pluck an
occasional small stem of succulent young leaves. That elephant
led us on and on, over the hill behind the forest bungalow, over
the next two hills, and then in almost a straight line to the
Talavadi stream.

In all we covered well over four miles before reaching the bed of
that stream, when we found that the elephant had turned
southwest and was moving directly down the Talavadi river itself.
I knew the Cauvery river lay within a distance of fifteen miles,
and I began to feel our quarry had suddenly made up his mind to
reach the big river. Once he did this, and particularly if he swam
across to the opposite bank, it would be hopeless to follow him, as
the terrain there is not only extremely dense, but leads on and on
as unbroken forest and hill country to the Nilgiri and
Biligirirangan Mountains, over a hundred miles away.

So we passed on with all possible speed, casting discretion to the

winds, but our elephant had had a lead of several hours, and
judging by the long and determined strides he had taken, he had
been bent upon travelling.

The soft sand of the riverbed was now scalding hot under the
midday sun. It hampered my walking and trickled into my boots
by means that only fine river or sea sand knows. Every now and
again the streambed became rocky, and for long stretches the fine
sand gave way to a succession of rounded, water-worn boulders. In
such spots the elephant had pushed through the undergrowth of
the banks to avoid the boulders, and we did the same, bent double
to dodge the dangling lines of creepers, and pouring with
perspiration from our exertions.

Fifteen miles of such walking brought us near the confluence of

Talavadi and the Cauvery. A few hundred yards from the big river,
the Talavadi stream is crossed by the rough track leading from
Uttaimalai village to Biligundlu. The elephant had changed
direction here and had followed the track towards Uttaimalai for
another two miles, before turning southwards again towards a
swamp that borders the big river. This swamp, known as Kartei
Palam, which means Bison Hollow, was well known to me. Years
before it had been a regular haunt for bison herds that swam
across the Cauvery from the Coimbatore bank to the Salem side.
At this time of the year the swamp was fairly dry except in places,
but lush grass grew everywhere, while shady clumps of trees
dotted the whole area.
 We now met with signs that the elephant had begun feeding,
and as we made our way towards the centre of the swamp mounds
of fresh dung showed that the animal was not far away.

The ground also became boggy, and once more I sent Ranga and
the guard back to minimise the squelching sounds that were
bound to arise from three people walking in the mud. Progress was
necessarily at a snail’s pace, for I had not only to look out for the
elephant, but study the ground carefully at each step, to avoid
suddenly plunging waist-deep into the clinging black clay. Yet,
several times I sank knee-deep, and to extricate myself I had to
struggle and flounder about, making no end of noise, before I
gained a firmer footing.

Several times I stopped to listen but heard nothing, and then,

without warning, there came a violent ‘swoosh’ of the reedy grass,
and the elephant stood some twenty paces away, all dripping and
covered with the sticky muck in which he had been lying. It was a
big bull, with gleaming white tusks, symmetrically curved. But
they were not the crossed tusks of the rogue. Disappointment and
disgust so overcame me that I fairly ‘shoo-ed’ that poor elephant
away, and when I rejoined my followers, I was in no good mood,
as they could clearly see.

It was now past 4 p.m., and we had some fifteen miles to retrace
along the Talavadi Stream, plus another four to the Gerhetti
bungalow. Alternatively, we could camp at Biligundlu and return
next morning; but this would mean the loss of another half-day,
out of the two days that were left to me. So I gave the order for the
return march, much to the disgust of my companions, who
reminded me that, as we had no light of any kind, the major
portion of our journey would have to be performed in darkness,
there being no moon. We might even meet the elephant! My reply,
I am afraid, was terse, and consigned this elephant, and all other
elephants, to a region they would find far too hot.
 That return journey seemed one long succession of stumbling,
slipping, slithering over rocks, or tripping over stumps, or being
caught by creepers without sign or sound of the elephant. It was
almost midnight before we limped into the Gerhetti bungalow,
thoroughly exhausted and as fretful as children. We had been up
with the dawn, walking incessantly, stalking through thorns,
grass, river-sand and swamp, and had covered about forty miles.
We were ravenously hungry and thirsty too.

Next morning I was cramped and footsore. The forest guard

showed an ankle, which he had contrived to twist somewhere
along the Talavadi stream, and begged to be excused from that
day’s operations. Only Ranga appeared fit, and ready for another
hard day. Porridge, bacon and eggs, and strong coffee put new life
into me, while a huge ball of ‘ragi’, which is a small foodgrain,
boiled and made into a sphere almost the size of a tiny
cannonball, washed down with coffee, would satisfy Ranga till
nightfall.

We had all been too tired to hear any sounds during the night,
but a visit to the waterhole now indicated the herd had returned
while we had slept. There were also the fresh footmarks of two big
bulls, one of which was probably the first elephant I had followed
the previous day, while the other was the animal I had not
followed at all. The third bull, as we well knew, we had left far
away at Kartei Palam.

Nevertheless, nothing could be left to chance; so we followed

the same plan as that of the previous day, tracking each of these
two animals till we came up with them. By 9.30 a.m. we had come
up to the first bull that we had decided to follow. He was slightly
smaller than the two we had tracked the previous day, and he was
not the rogue! No doubt this was the third animal of the trio
whose footprints we had noted the previous day. Going back to the
water hole, we set out on the remaining track, and came upon its
maker at 2.30 p.m., quietly standing under a large and shady
tamarind tree. Nor was he the rogue. I readily recognised him as
the first animal I had tracked the previous day and had disturbed
while lying among the bamboos.

Thus it was clear that the ‘rogue’ was not in the immediate
vicinity. Three of the four days available to me had now gone, but
I was still no further forward than on the day of my arrival.

At five we were back at the bungalow, brewing a large degchie

of tea. Then at half-past five a party of bullock-carts arrived from
Anchetty, eight miles away, to shelter for the night because of the
presence of the rogue. The cartmen stated that at a spot about
half-way from Anchetty, where the Gollamothi stream traversed
the road, they had come upon the tracks of a large elephant which
had crossed and recrossed the road at several points and was
evidently hanging around not far from the ford itself.

Determined not to give up till the last moment, Ranga and I ate
an early dinner and, bundling the still-tired Forest Guard into the
car, motored to the ford of which the cartmen had spoken.

It was 7 p.m. when we arrived there and almost dark. The car
lights revealed the tracks of the elephant where the cartmen had
said. At the ford itself, with the aid of torches we made out the
plate-like spoor of the elephant superimposed upon the narrow
ruts made by the cartwheels of our friends. Elephants do not
wander about in daytime in hot weather, and this clearly
indicated that the pachyderm had been on the road that very
evening, before our arrival. Perhaps he had even heard the sound
of the car, or seen our lights, and had moved off just before we
came on the scene.

We quickly lowered the hood of the Studebaker. I handed my

‘sealed-beam’ spotlight to Ranga, whom I placed in the ‘dickie’
seat behind, but kept the guard in the front seat. I myself sat on
the folded hood, my feet on the driving seat, with my rifle and
torch at the ready. Complete darkness soon enveloped us,
overshadowed as we were by the towering muthee and jumlum
trees that bordered the banks of the Gollamothi, together with
bamboo clumps, whose stems creaked weirdly to the jungle air-
currents that blew up and down the dry sandy bed of the river.

The prospects were poor. To begin with, we did not know

whether the tracks we had seen belonged to the rogue. They
might, indeed, have been made by any elephant. All we knew for
certain was that they had not been made by any of the three big
males around Gerhetti. Secondly, there was not the slightest
reason for this elephant to return to the ford he had so recently
passed, for he had the whole wide jungle in which to roam.
Thirdly, we all knew that ten miles to an elephant is scarcely two
hours’ easy ambling, and that when he is really travelling he
moves much faster. Fourthly, the wind was blowing in all
directions, and would carry our scent to any elephant within a
quarter-of-a-mile and, if he was not the rogue, drive him off. On
the other hand, there was the slender hope that, if this was the
rogue, our scent might attract him.

So we waited in the pitch-darkness till 8.30 p.m., and then the

dull sound of a hollow log being turned over came to us form
somewhere upstream. The elephant was on the move at last and,
judging by the sound, was some four or five hundred yards away.
Silence followed for another quarter-hour, when the sharp crack of
a breaking branch, much closer, indicated that the elephant was
feeding and moving towards the ford as he did so.

I knew he would take thirty minutes at least to finish eating the

young leaves from the ends of the branch he had just broken, so
that there would be plenty of time before he came near. The car,
with us inside it, would be clearly visible to him as he came
around the curve of the river, and there was every possibility, if he
was not the rogue, that on seeing us he would just fade quietly
away into the forest. But I had not taken the wind into
consideration; just then it blew strongly from us towards the
elephant.

Minuets of silence followed, and then we heard a slight rustling

in the undergrowth from the bank of the river nearest to the car. It
was a faint sound, apparently made by a small body in the bushes.
Then the ominous crack of trodden bamboo came to us suddenly.
Silence again, deep and enveloping. Even the breeze seemed to
have died, to allow full opportunity for the next event.

This was the ear-splitting scream of a charging bull-elephant,

mingled with the crashing of bamboos and undergrowth as they
collapsed before the monster that rushed towards us.

Ranga never flinched! The beam of the spot-light cut through

the enveloping gloom. My own torch-beam, mingling with that of
the vastly more brilliant spotlight, showed an enormous tusker,
his bulk pitch black, his trunk curled upwards and inwards, with
two wicked white tusks that were crossed at the tip, thundering
upon us!

At fifty yards range the bullet from my right barrel took him in
the throat. He stopped with the impact, screaming with rage. No
doubt this was more than he had bargained for! The explosion, the
pain and the lights confused him, and he half-turned into the
jungle. My second bullet, aimed hastily at the temple, struck him
somewhere on the side of the head. He rushed into the jungle,
stumbled on his forefeet, picked himself up again as I reloaded,
and disappeared in the bamboos as my third shot struck him
somewhere in the body. For quite fifteen minutes we could hear
heavy crashes in the jungle as the elephant reeled, collapsed and
then recovered, to continue his flight.

Starting the car, I reversed and returned to Gerhetti. I slept

soundly that night, Ranga awakening me at dawn with a mugful
of steaming, strong tea.
 By 6.30 a.m., we were on the track of the stricken rogue. Great
gouts of blood had issued from the throat-wound and had sprayed
through his trunk over the surrounding bushes, which had been
reddened by his passage. Soon we too were red with his blood as
we pushed ourselves through the undergrowth in his wake.

He had lain, or fallen down, in several places, where the

greensward had been dyed a deep red. He had leaned against
several tree-trunks that were still sticky with his blood. Truly, if
you do not finish the job of killing an elephant, you let yourself in
for a gory trail. I really pitied this poor beast, murderous killer of
men though he had been.

After two miles I found him, half-kneeling, half-lying against a

tree-trunk. He was so weak from loss of blood that he could
scarcely move, although he clearly saw me as I walked towards
him. The only sign of life were his wicked little blood-shot eyes,
that gleamed and moved as they watched my approach. Fifteen
yards away I raised my rifle to deliver the coup de grace. As if to
salute approaching death, that game and mighty beast shivered
from head to foot as he drew up his mighty bulk to its full ten feet.
The trunk curled upwards, the big ears flapped outward, and he
staggered two paces forward in his last charge, when the heavy
450/400 bullet crashed into his temple and he collapsed, as if pole-
axed, to earth.

Although a killer, the ‘crossed-tusker of Gerhetti’ was a brave

fighter, and I honoured him as he lay before my still-smoking
muzzle—mighty in life and even mightier in his death!
 5

The Sangam Panther

EWS filtered through to my home in Bangalore that A

N leopard, or ‘panther’ as it is more commonly known in India,
was killing people in the vicinity of a place called Sangam, a little
over seventy miles south of the city.

Man-eating panthers are rare in southern India. To begin with,

the jungles are not so extensive, or nearly so continuously
mountainous as in the north, particularly along the foothills of
the vast Himalayan range. The exception is the Western Ghats,
which are almost wholly covered with forest for over four hundred
miles, with an average breadth of ten to fifteen miles. But the
other forest areas are of much smaller extent and are more or less
surrounded by cultivation. This causes carnivores, and
particularly panthers, to confine their attentions to the herds of
cattle and goats, in which the country is abundantly rich, and to a
lesser extent to village curs, locally known as ‘piedogs’ which are,
like the common monkey, the curse of the land. Prior to the
advent to hydrophobia vaccine, large numbers of persons died
yearly of infection from the bite of mad dogs, as these curs
constantly contract rabies, especially in the hot weather. Monkeys
are and always have been a major menace, doing untold damage
to crops and fruit trees. The monkey has a strong religious
significance to Indians, and great objection is raised against any
attempt to harm it. Panthers—at least so far as the ‘piedogs’ and
monkeys are concerned—therefore perform a great service to the
land.

In the Western Ghats of which I have just spoken, the rainfall is

very heavy, even exceeding hundred inches per year. They are
covered with dense bamboo, long grass, and thick evergreen
vegetation—the breeding grounds of clouds of mosquitoes, ticks,
leeches, flies and other animal pests.

Panthers do not like much water—and they detest the pests, in

any and all their many forms! So, in the only region where they
could multiply unmolested they are hardly to be found! By a
natural arrangement, therefore, panthers, which are found in all
other jungles of southern India, generally have plenty to eat and
somehow do not become addicted to the bad habit of man-eating.
A notable exception to this was the panther of Gummalapur, a
story I have related elsewhere1; in that case there were special
circumstances that caused it to take to man-eating.

In Bangalore news often reached us of people being mauled by

panthers and tigers, more often by the former. But nobody took
particular notice of these rumours as on-the-spot investigation
always told the same tale. Some villager, with his matchlock, or
some inexperienced hunter would let fly at a panther, generally
with slugs, and succeed only in hurting it. Then, inexperienced in
jungle-lore, he would attempt to follow it up, through lantana
bushes or amongst rocks, and get mauled—sometimes severely—
for his pains. In years gone by, over seventy-five per cent of such
cases of mauling resulted in death from septicaemia. With the
advent of the sulpha drugs, casualties dropped to below ten per
cent.

So nobody took much notice when such news came in. Why
should they? They had other work to do. Moreover, rumour is
invariably much exaggerated in India! A slight scratch is
magnified into a severed mauling, and a mauling into a killing.
When an actual killing does occur, it is widely described in the
Press as several killings.

Therefore, when I heard that a panther had killed a woman, and

later killed and eaten a child at Sangam, I did not believe it. Then
the panther killed a third and a fourth time. The Press got hold of
the news and it was splashed across the front pages.

Several hunters from Bangalore, Mysore and Madras went after

the animal, but for a month the panther did not kill. One of the
hunters succeeded in shooting a panther; and this fact, coupled
with the cessation of human kills, seemed to indicate that it was
the man-eater that had been shot. The hunters returned to the
towns.

Then the panther killed once more, but was prevented from
eating its victim, a man who was sleeping in a shed-like room
with a pack of four mongrel dogs, with which he used to hunt hare
and sometimes deer.

A thorn fence protected the entrance to the shed. The roof

comprised loose bits of zinc sheeting, and the wall consisted of
wooden stakes driven into the ground in close formation, the gaps
being stuffed with thorns. The panther came at night, and with its
paws contrived to open a passage between the end stake of the
doorway and the thorn fence across the entrance. The dogs
panicked, barking and howling loudly and cowering to one side.
But the man must have just woken.

The panther entered the shed. The dogs clustered together but
did nothing, and the marauder, walking past them, grabbed the
man by the throat. He died after uttering a single, piercing wail.

The people in the neighbouring hut had been disturbed by the

noise made by the dogs’ barking and growling in the shed. They
wondered what was happening, but nobody would go outside to
investigate. The panther then tried to drag the dead man out of
the shed through the same gap by which it had entered. The gap
was not big enough. So the panther itself passed through and tried
to drag the man after it. But the body became entangled in the
thorns and stuck fast. The panther then gave a mighty heave,
which succeeded in unbalancing the fence, which fell with a crash
on top of the animal. This must have frightened him considerably
for he made off, leaving the corpse still entangled amongst the
thorns.

The continued noise resulting from the efforts of the panther

now alarmed the people in the next hut, who had been listening
breathlessly all this time. They began to shout and woke other
villagers. After quite a while, some of the brave men came forth
carrying lanterns, armed with matchlocks, bludgeons and staves,
to find the dead man, but no panther.

The alarm now spread afresh, and news was brought to me by

the village Patel, or headman, who came to Bangalore expressly
for the purpose. I was at that time able to take two days’ casual
leave, while Sunday made a third. So I agreed to go with him and
attempt to shoot the panther within those three days.

The road to Sangam ran past the town of Kankanhalli, thirty-six

miles from Bangalore, from where it began to descend sharply to
the bed of the Cauvery river. The last ten miles of the track was
really atrocious, and my Studebaker rocked and creaked and
groaned in all its joints, in protest at such bad treatment. Hairpin
bends at ridiculous gradients and sharp angles (where all
milestones and furlong slabs were coloured black to prevent them
from being uprooted by wild elephants, who have a great aversion
to anything white), betokened my approach to journey’s end, and
soon I reached the little traveller’s bungalow after a short but
exceedingly tough journey.

The word ‘Sangam’ denotes a ‘joining’ or ‘confluence’, and was

most appropriate, for it marked the junction of the Cauvery river
with its tributary, the Arkravarthy, which flows in almost a
straight line southwards from its source north of Bangalore.
 The Cauvery here flows from west to east, Sangam being on its
northern bank within Mysore state territory. The southern bank of
the Cauvery comes within the jungles of North Coimbatore
district (Kollegal Forest Division). Some thirteen miles east of
Sangam, Mysore state territory ends and is flanked by Salem
district, which thereafter holds the northern bank of the river with
North Coimbatore district continuing along the southern bank.
Both North Coimbatore and Salem districts belong to the Madras
presidency.

Sangam is a beautifully wooded spot, offering in normal times

first-rate masher fishing, with crocodile shooting among the
sandbanks and rocks in any direction along the river. On the
Mysore side of the forest there are spotted deer, sambar, barking-
deer, wild pig, feathered game, and an occasional bear, panther or
tiger. Elephants often cross over from the Coimbatore bank. Along
the southern bank, in the Coimbatore jungles, all the above
abound in greater number, in addition to several fine herds of
bison. Elephant and bear are particularly numerous.

After parking the car under the huge muthee trees that flanked
the river and grew beside the bungalow, I walked across to the
small village where the dog-keeper had recently been killed and
inspected the scene for myself, in addition to being given graphic
accounts of what had happened by the neighbours, who had heard
so much that day, but had done nothing to help the poor fellow.
The Patel, who had returned with me joined in the voluble tale.

With much questioning and cross-questioning, it became

apparent that this panther was going to be an exceedingly
difficult animal to bag, as on the north banks of the river it had a
very wide expanse of jungle to wander over, without taking into
consideration the many square miles of forest on the southern or
Coimbatore side. But the latter could reasonably be excluded,
since panthers, unlike tigers, generally dislike swimming across
big rivers, although they swim well when compelled to do so.
 The first, and apparently only thing to do was to tie out baits.
With the Patel’s active help, I purchased five large bull-calves. The
first of these we tethered about half-a-mile west of the bungalow
and about the same distance from the river bank; the second, on a
line roughly parallel with the river and a mile farther west; the
third, a mile farther west than the second; the fourth, on the
farther bank of the Arkravarthy tributary, about half-a-mile east
of the bungalow and the same distance from the Cauvery; and the
fifth, a mile east of the fourth bait. Thus the five baits were
roughly in a straight line, flanking the river, about half-a-mile
inland and with a distance of four miles between the farthest bait
to the west and the farthest bait to the east.

It was sunset before I returned to the bungalow. A cold dinner

appeased my appetite, eaten on the small bungalow verandah and
washed down with two steaming mugs of tea. After lighting my
pipe, I sat with my back to the wall, listening to the subdued rush
of the river as it sped along its rocky bed. It was a dark night and
fairly cloudy. Such stars as could be seen peeping occasionally
between clouds would be insufficient for night-watching, so I
went inside and fell asleep.

Early next morning we checked the baits. They were all alive. I
walked up the road down which I had come the previous day,
climbing up the hairpin bends and ghat section. There were no
panther tracks to bee seen. A herd of spotted deer and three
sambar—singly and at different places—had crossed the road
during the night, but no other animal had passed.

When returning to the bungalow, instead of coming back along

the road, I cut down the hill through the jungle and came on to
the dry bed of the Arkravarthy, where I turned southwards and
walked in the sand, looking for possible pug-marks. There were
none to be seen, but the same herd of spotted deer that had crossed
the road had also traversed the sands. In due course, I passed my
bait number four, and came to where the Arkravarthy joined the
Cauvery.

A day and a half, out of the three days at my disposal, had now
passed, and I had not even seen the panther’s pug-marks. The
situation seemed hopeless.

After lunch, I decided to walk in the easterly direction,

downstream along the Cauvery for about three-and-a-half miles,
to a gorge where the river narrowed to about twenty feet. At this
spot it roared through a chasm, known as Meke-Dat. The meaning
of that word, in Kanarese language, is ‘the goat’s leap’. Legend
records that, years and years ago, a jungle-sheep pursued by wild
dogs on the Coimbatore side and driven to the brink of the river,
performed the prodigious feat of leaping those twenty feet to
safety on the Mysore side.

Here, all other sounds are drowned by the roar of the turbulent
waters, hurling themselves through the narrow opening, and a
man can hardly hear himself even when he shouts his very
loudest.

I sat on the edge of the rocks and watched the troubled, racing
river. A hundred yards away, downstream where the surface had
become placid again, an occasional fish broke water, leaping into
the air, as if evincing sheer exuberance and joy of living. A fish-
eagle circled in the ethereal blue of a clear sky. After a while, I
rose and retraced my steps to the bungalow. I had still not found
any panther tracks.

The night was clear. Although there was no moon, there were
none of the previous night’s clouds and the starlight was enough
in the jungle to enable one to see for a few yards.

The watchman in charge of the bungalow owned a ‘piedog’ —

the name by which mongrels in India are known— and against my
custom and only because time was so short, I asked him to lend it
to me till midnight. He hummed and hawed at first, but when
three rupees had changed hands he agreed.

While walking along the road that day, I had noticed a rock at
its edge hardly a mile away. I took the dog, tied it at the foot of the
rock and walked away down the road. When out of sight of the
dog, I turned to my right and cut into the jungle, coming back to
the rock on its ‘off’ side. Silently I clambered up, and lay flat on its
top. The rock was still warm from the sun that had been shining
on it all day.

Thinking it had been abandoned, the dog began barking,

whining and howling by turns. Dogs are too intelligent, it is unfair
to tie them out as bait. Unlike cattle and goats, they sense danger
at once and, even if not attacked, go through hours of mental
agony. I have known a dog which was tied out as bait for a
panther—although it was not harmed— become so nervous that it
fell sick the following day and died within a week.

I watched from the top of the rock. Nearly an hour passed, and
then suddenly a shadowy, grey shape came scampering down the
road. It moved fast till about ten feet from the dog, then it
stopped. Could it be the panther?

The stars shed just enough light to prevent the darkness from
being total, but not more than that. I could just see the grey shape
looking at the dog. The dog growled furiously as it turned round to
face the intruder. It must be a panther, I thought, as I aligned my
rifle in its direction preparatory to depressing the switch of my
torch which was fastened along the barrel.

‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ said the intruder, followed by a

disparaging but loud ‘Cheey! Shee-ay! Shee-ay!’

It was a hyaena, the common striped hyaena of southern India.

The dog growled still more ferociously; then began to bark
frenziedly..
 Now began an amusing drama, such as watchers by night are
sometimes privileged to witness in a jungle. The hyaena darted off
the road into the undergrowth, where he began to say, ‘Gudda!
Guddar! Garrar! Gurr-rr-aa!’ ending with his usual disparaging
‘Cheey-ar! Shee-ar!’

The dog faced the noise and barked loudly. The hyaena
reappeared on the road, beyond the dog but watching him, and
crackled, ‘Ha! Ha! ha! Guddar! Garrar! Shee-ay!’

Unlike his African cousins, the spotted and the brown hyaena,
the former being the familiar ‘laughing hyaena’ we have all heard
about, the Indian hyaena is generally a silent animal, hunting
alone or at the most in pairs. Spotted hyaenas move in packs. As a
rule, all hyaenas are cowardly animals, although they are
extremely strong for their size and have enormously powerful
jaws, which can easily bite right through a man’s arm, bone and
all.

Quite rarely, they display extraordinary courage, of which I

once saw an example. I had been sitting over a panther kill. The
owner turned up and began to eat. I had held my shot, as I
wanted, if possible, to learn the sex of the animal before killing it.
This was because I had been told a male and a female panther
lived in the vicinity, and that the female was accompanied by two
cubs about six months old. I wanted to make certain I did not
shoot the mother.

While I hesitated, a hyaena had arrived on the scene, and his

arrival, on that occasion, had been dramatic. He came as if from
nowhere, and the first I knew of his arrival was when he had
scampered boldly up to the panther, voicing the same medley of
sounds I have just described. The panther, sprawled across its kill,
had glared at the newcomer with blazing orbs, snarling and
growling furiously. The hyaena had approached to within five
feet, just beyond reach of the panther’s paw-sweep, and had set up
such a cacophony of hideous sound as to resemble a chorus of the
demons of hell.

The panther had added to the noise by growling still louder, and
every now and then striking at the hyaena with its claws. The
latter just rocked backwards, out of reach of each blow, after
which it would feint with a short rush forward, while gradually
working around to the rear of the panther. At first the panther had
turned around correspondingly, to keep the hyaena in view,
growling even more loudly while making short jabs and slaps with
its paws in the direction of the hyaena. But the hyaena, always
out of reach, had haw-ed and sneered, gargled and gurgled with
unabated zeal.

Frightened—or perhaps just disgusted—at the unseemly racket,

the panther had finally risen from its kill and then walked slowly
away with many a backward glance, amidst snarls, at the hyaena,
who continued his weird din till the panther had vanished in the
undergrowth. Then he had fallen upon the kill himself, with the
greatest—and, no doubt, thoroughly deserved—enthusiasm.

But the hyaena which I continued to watch from the rock was
undoubtedly a little scared of the mongrel dog. Frequently he
would disappear to one or the other side of the road. Then would
come a pitter-patter amongst the dried leaves as he doubled back
and forth, this way and that, to reappear at all places while
continuing to make his unseemly, weird and often comical
sounds.

The lesson I learnt from these two experiences was that hyaenas
try to frighten their opponents with their continuous, unseemly
crackle. The first hyaena had frightened the panther off its own
kill while this one was trying to frighten the dog, perhaps just to
clear it off the road or into the undergrowth, where he could
pounce upon it more easily.
 But the dog was tied up, and so could not move away, which the
hyaena could not understand. An hour of this sort of thing ceased
to be amusing to me, and I realised the racket, especially the part
played by the hyaena, was almost certain to drive away any
panther in the vicinity, man-eater or otherwise. So, groping for a
small piece of rock, I hurled it at the hyaena. My aim fell short of
its mark, and the stone thudded on the hard surface of the road.
The hyaena jumped nervously, and scampered into the bushes,
while the dog stopped barking and began to whimper. I thought I
had rid the scene of a most unwelcome visitor.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour had passed when I heard the furtive

pitter-patter again, shortly followed by the hyaena’s queer notes.
The dog barked and growled. I threw another stone at the hyaena.
He stopped; only to start again after ten minutes. Once more a
stone; once more a silence, followed by a new beginning. Only
after about the fifth stone did the hyaena feel that the spot had
somehow become unhealthy, and with a final, ‘Ah! Ah! Ah! Chee-
ey! Shee-ay!’ took himself off. It was past ten o’clock.

My watch showed five minutes to midnight when I heard the

approach of human voices. A little later, I saw the twinkling lights
of two lanterns, illuminating from that distance the walking feet
of many men. The dog saw them and stopped its moaning.

When the party drew level with the dog, I counted eleven men,
two of whom were carrying lanterns, and all of whom, except
one, carried staves and lathis of some sort or another.

The one exception was armed with a matchlock. They had

obviously come in search of me. I answered their call and came
down from the rock.

The men then told me that, scarcely an hour earlier, the

panther had made its way into one of the huts of the very village
where the dog-keeper had been attacked by burrowing through the
thatched wall, and had seized one of the five sleeping inmates, a
woman about twenty-five years old. She had shrieked aloud as she
found herself being dragged away, waking the other four persons
in the room, who were her father, two brothers and mother.

Meanwhile, the panther was trying to drag her out through the
opening in the thatch by which it had entered. The girl struggled
violently. The panther dropped her and bit her viciously. One of
the brothers struck a match to lighten the darkness of the hut’s
interior. Her father, with commendable bravery and presence of
mind, hurled the only missile which came to his hand, at the
panther. The missile happened to be a brass water-pot of some
weight, and it struck the panther full on its side. Man-eaters,
whether tigers or panthers, invariably have a streak of cowardice
in their natures and this panther was no exception to the general
rule. Leaving its victim, it had dashed out of the hut through the
opening in the thatch.

The screams of the mauled woman and the general

pandemonium had awakened the whole village. The menfolk
came out with lanterns, armed as best as they could. The party of
eleven had then come to the rest-house to find me, and the
watchman from whom I had borrowed the dog had directed them
to where I was sitting.

Telling one of the men to untie the rope and bring the dog in
tow, we hastened back to the bungalow, and I brought out my
first-aid kit from the back seat of the Studebaker. We then hurried
on to the village, where an appalling sight awaited me. The poor
girl had been bitten right through her right shoulder, and again in
the abdomen, where the panther had seized her the second time
when she had struggled to escape. One breast and her chest right
down the side were in ribbons where the foul claws had buried
themselves deep in her flesh, raking it open with their downward
sweep. Her jacket and sari were torn to pieces, and she lay in a
welter of blood, blissfully unconscious after her experience.
 I saw at once that such meagre first-aid equipment as I had was
totally inadequate to meet the situation, but we quickly washed
the wounds with strong solution of potassium permanganate and
roughly bandaged her chest and abdomen with strips torn from
another sari. Her father, two brothers, and three willing men from
the village then carried her on a rope-cot to the Studebaker.
Placing her as comfortably as possible in the ‘dickie’, I took her
three male relations aboard and set out for the town of
Kankanhalli, which boasted the nearest village hospital. We
reached there after three-thirty in the morning, when I awoke the
doctor and handed over the injured woman. Her condition
appeared to be very low, owing to the great deal of blood she had
lost.

By four-thirty, I was in the bathroom of the traveller’s bungalow

at Kankanhalli, where I removed my blood-soaked clothing and
took a cold bath. I had no change of clothing with me, having left
them behind at Sangam in the confusion of the moment. So I
borrowed a clean dhoti and a blanket from the bungalow-waiter.

Dawn was breaking when I knocked at the Post Office, awoke a

most obliging postmaster from his sleep, paid the necessary late
fee and despatched an urgent telegram to Bangalore requesting
extension of leave for four more days.

When I returned to the bungalow I found the younger brother of

the injured woman awaiting me in tears. He had come from the
hospital to tell me his sister had just died. Shortly afterwards, the
father came to ask me to take his daughter’s body back in the car
to Sangam for cremation by the banks of the river Cauvery, in
which the ashes would eventually be scattered. It was a request I
could not refuse. The bungalow servant told me he wanted his
dhoti and blanket back. So I had to dress again in my blood-
smeared clothes.
 We drove back to the hospital, placed the still, limp body of the
girl in the back seat, and set out on the return journey to Sangam,
delayed by two hours at the Police Station, where we reported the
occurrence.

After a bath in a quiet pool beside the river, free from crocodiles,
a change into fresh clothing, a cold lunch and two big mugs of tea,
I lay back in a rickety old armchair to review the situation. My
loaded pipe, from which the comforting smoke arose in spirals to
the roughly-tiled low roof, helped a great deal to soothe my ragged
nerves after the events of the previous night and to prevent my
eyes from closing with sleep.

What should I do with the remaining four days and five nights
at my disposal, to rid these poor village-folk from another, and
still another, and God only knew how many more repetitions of
these terrible events. Facts appeared to indicate that: (1) the
panther would not take animal baits, (2) it had a wide range of
cover, and (3) it was predisposed to dragging people out of huts.
Then, while I pondered, I fell asleep.

At 3 p.m. I awoke and a possible line of action appeared to have

presented itself while I slept. It was this:

The small village of Sangam, with about a dozen huts, had been
constructed in the usual fashion, on both sides of a central lane. I
remembered that on the southern side of this lane, and not far
from the river bank, small herds of cattle belonging to the villagers
were corralled in a common enclosure, surrounded by a fence of
bamboo, intersticed with cut lantana brambles. The only dogs left
in the village, which had belonged to the man who had been
killed, were enclosed in the shed-like room where he had been
slain, which room happened to adjoin the larger cattle enclosure
on its western side. The idea came to me that, if I posted myself at
night in the midst of the cattle, not only would I be perfectly safe
from unexpected attack, as the cattle would grow restive and give
ample warning should the panther approach, but this very
restlessness, and the fact that the dogs too would join in the
alarm, would help me to learn of the panther’s presence, should he
enter the village. Meanwhile, I would keep my five live baits tied
out on the off-chance that one of them might be taken instead.

With this plan in view, I dressed warmly for the night, wearing a
khaki woollen ‘balaclava’ cap to keep off the dew. My usual night
equipment included, this time a large flask of tea, some biscuits,
and my pipe, as I knew that smoking, in this case, would do no
harm.

Because of the panther’s presence, the villagers were inside their

huts, behind doors barricaded and reinforced with freshly-cut
thorns, long before six o’clock. I took up my position in the middle
of the cattle enclosure. About me was a space of about fifty yards
in every direction, with nearly hundred nondescript cattle
scattered around.

At fist the animals resented my presence and crowded to the

corners away from me, leaving me isolated in the centre of the
pen. I started trying to make friends with them. One kicked over
my flask of tea and nearly broke it! Moreover, some of the bulls
were rather truculent and made short jabs at me with their horns
if I came too close. After an hour in each other’s company, the
situation eased a little, and I was able to make my way guardedly
to the centre of the herd, about half of whom were now resting on
the ground. I got down also.

As the hours dragged by, the silence was unbroken, except for
an occasional snort from one of the animals, or the trampling of
another as it altered its position. One cow became friendly and
insisted in nuzzling her muzzle against my chest as a gesture of
companionship. Eventually she flopped down contentedly on the
ground beside me.
 Then cattle-ticks began to bite me in many places and
mercilessly. I scratched myself vigorously, although I knew that by
doing so I would only increase the irritation. It grew colder, and
soon I was glad to nuzzle myself, in my turn, up against the warm
body of the cow who had chosen to open this strange friendship
with me. Now and again, one of the herd would ‘moo’
contentedly, or snort, or kick, or flop down to the ground, or
struggle to its feet.

The hours still dragged by, and the ticks continued to bite. At
one o’clock a sambar belled on the small hill to the north of the
village. It was a doe that had called, and she called again and
again. Then her call was taken up by a kakar, whose hoarse bark
resounded across the nullahs which furrowed the lower slopes of
the hillock.

The sambar doe had stopped belling by this time, while the
kakar climbed up, giving occasional vent to his guttural call.
Whatever it was that had alarmed them had come down the hill.

Some twenty minutes later spotted deer began their warning

cries, answering one another from the jungle that slopes from the
base of the hill to the edge of the river. Either a tiger or a panther
was afoot, and the next few minutes would tell whether the
carnivore was just a normal animal or the marauder I was
awaiting.

It was almost pitch-dark when the cattle grew restless. With one
accord, those lying on the ground scrambled to their feet, and I did
the same, keeping close beside the friendly cow. Some of the bulls
snorted, and the herd were all turned towards the lane that
divided the small village and passed by the thorn hedge that
bordered the cattle stockade.

The animals became very restless and began to gather in a mass

at the further end of the stockade, away from the hedge and lane.
The four dogs in the neighbouring shed had been barking
furiously; they now began to whimper. Whatever had frightened
them was passing down that lane at that very moment.

I had got myself wedged in the midst of the cattle and had to
watch carefully against being impaled on one of the many horns
that were nervously tossing about me. I began to force myself
through the herd to reach their front rank, hoping that I might be
able to see something, but the darkness and the hedge revealed
nothing.

I could hear the dogs howling and whimpering in the shed in

which they were locked. My ears were attuned to catch the
slightest sound, but the noise made by the cattle and the dogs gave
me little chance. Some minutes later, I caught the faintest of
scratching noises. Listening carefully 1 located it as coming from
further down the lane. They became louder

and more impatient. Then I realised that the panther was

scratching at a door of one of the huts some distance away.

Breaking through the remainder of the cattle, I approached the

fence on tiptoe, hoping to be able to peep over it and catch a
glimpse of the panther when I switched on the torch at the end of
my rifle. The inmates of the hut at which the panther was
scratching chose that very moment to set up a bedlam of shrieks
and shouts; the silence was broken by the most frightful din.

Thinking that the man-eater had succeeded in forcing his way

into the hut, I threw discretion to the winds and rushed for the
bamboo-and-thorn door that formed the entrance of the stockade.
At dusk I had firmly wedged a huge Y-shaped log into place, and it
took some precious moments to release its base from the big stones
against which I had jammed it.

Dragging it aside and switching on the torch, I heaved the

clumsy door back and stepped into the lane. Nothing was to be
seen in any direction.

Keeping my back to the thorn fence to guard against attack from

the rear, I shone the beam in all directions, but I still saw nothing.
The panther had disappeared into thin air. Meanwhile, the shrieks
and shouts continued unabated.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps the panther was inside the

hut all this time, mauling and killing the inmates, and with this
alarming thought in mind I began carefully to cover the
intervening twenty yards.

When I came abreast of the entrance, I found it was shut fast. I

called out to the inmates. At first, due to the noise they were
making, they could not hear me. Then I called again, louder and
many times. The the hubbub gradually subsided.

I shouted to the occupants to open the door. They would not do

so. Then a tremendous voice from inside asked whether I was a
man or a devil. I called back that it was I, and that the panther
had gone. The voice replied that the inmates would open the door
only when morning came. Meanwhile, my torch beam clearly
showed the fresh claw-marks on the door of the hut, where the
panther had just tried to effect an entrance.

I returned to the stockade, reclosed the door, replaced the Y-

shaped log and the stones and went back to the spot where I had
been lying against the cow when the alarm had begun.

To my horror, I found that the milling feet of the herd had

smashed my thermos and it was now impossible to drink the hot
tea for which I longed. My biscuits also had been devoured, and as
I watched her ruefully, the friendly cow devoured the last of the
paper in which they had been wrapped. Fortunately, I had kept
my pipe and tobacco in my pocket, and with this I spent the rest of
the night in comparative comfort, once again nestling against the
side of the cow.
 I returned to the bungalow at dawn, tired and disappointed.
Worst of all, my body was a mass of tick-bites and itched
abominably. Further, I knew only too well that each bite would
fester during the coming ten days, and that I was in for a most
uncomfortable time.

A cold bath and change, followed by hot tea, tinned bacon and
bread and butter helped to ease my gloom, and by 7.30 a.m. I was
asleep. I awoke for lunch at midday, and slept again till 3 p.m.
Then I got up and began to work out another plan.

It would be impossible to sit with the cattle again, for if I was to

get bitten once more by as many ticks as in the previous night, I
might end with a dose of tick fever. Yet it was undeniable that
both the cattle and the dogs had helped admirably in giving me
the alarm when the panther had passed down the lane.

At last I had a fresh idea, that appeared to be the only

compromise in the situation. The roof of the dog-shed consisted of
scraps of zinc sheeting. I decided that I would lie on that roof,
suitably camouflaged and overlooking the lane, so that I should be
able to shoot the panther if it walked down the lane again. The
cattle and the dogs would still help me by giving the alarm. I
could protect my rear and both flanks by heaping stacks of cut
thorns on to the roof. Any heavy body, like the panther, that leapt
upon the zinc roof would necessarily give its presence away by the
noise that would follow. Not only did this appear to be the only
solution, but actually a good solution of the problem.

So I hurried towards the village, carrying my night-kit, biscuits,

tea (poured into an empty beer bottle, borrowed from the
bungalow watchman). After telling the villagers of my new plan,
willing hands soon stacked piles of cut thorn branches on to the
zinc roof of the goat-shed in the form of a square. Others brought
dried straw, which they placed on the roof within the square of
thorns for me to lie on.
 At 6 p.m. I took up my position. There were two disadvantages
that almost immediately began to show themselves: the first, that
having to face the lane all the time, I would have to lie so that my
legs would be slightly higher than my head, for the zinc roof
sloped slightly downwards from back to front, to allow rain-water
to flow off easily; the second, that I would have to remain lying on
my stomach for most of the time, since my slightest movement
sounded distinctly on the zinc roof. But the advantages were that I
was safe from surprise attack from the rear; that I had a clear and
unobstructed view of the lane and could hear distinctly,
particularly if the cattle or the dogs became uneasy; lastly, that I
was away from those awful ticks.

But that night was a peaceful one, without any indication

whatever that the panther had come within two or three miles of
the village. Back at the bungalow next morning I had another
bath, and another daylong sleep. Each day I had had my live baits
checked by a group of men, but none of these beasts had been
harmed.

That night I took up position on the roof once more. It was past
2 a.m., and there had been no alarms from the surrounding jungle,
and I felt very drowsy. Suddenly, as in a dream, I heard the cattle
begin to stir restlessly. One of the dogs in the shed beneath me
growled. Then all four of them began to bark or howl together.

Peering forward slowly, I began to scan the village lane in both

directions. Starlight was not good at that moment, only enough to
prevent the night from being obscure. The lane to the right and
left appeared as a faint blur and of a slightly lighter shade than the
surroundings. I could hear nothing and see nothing.

Then I caught the faintest of sounds. It appeared to be a hiss

such as a cobra might make. Yes, there it was again! And it came
from in front and directly below me. Was it the hiss of a snake or
the faint noise a panther makes when he curls back the skin of his
upper lip?

I peered downwards and at first could see nothing. Seconds later

a faint elongated shape registered itself on my vision in that
difficult light, a smudge of an infinitesimally lighter shade than
the surrounding blur of the lane. I stared at it, and thought I saw it
move. The hiss was repeated more distinctly this time. It appeared
to come from this lighter smudge. The dogs inside the shed below
me now started to whine and whimper. The cattle were very
restless.

I realised that I could not point my rifle downwards from where

I lay, I would have to move forward another foot perhaps, till my
head and shoulders completely cleared the edge of zinc sheet on
which I was lying. I began to do this, but despite my utmost care,
the straw rustled and the zinc creaked faintly.

There came an ominous growl from that lightish smudge, and I

knew that I was discovered and that within the next few seconds
the panther would probably jump on the zinc roof and on to me.

Kicking myself forward the remaining six inches, I lowered the

rifle over the side of the roof and depressed the torch-switch. Two
gleaming orbs reflected the light from a spotted body, crouched for
the spring. Only a single shot was required at that point-blank
range and the spark of life slowly faded from those blazing orbs:
from fiery white they became a dull orange, then a faint green,
then an empty glimmer, and finally a purplish blue as the light
was reflected back by the now lifeless retina.

It was an old female that I saw next morning, with canine teeth
worn down almost to their stubs. Her coat was extremely pale;
even her rosettes were ill-formed and dull. Her claws were blunt
and worn. There appeared to be no other signs of deformity of any
sort about her, or indication of an earlier wound. It seemed that
only old age, and the prospect of gradual starvation through her
physical incapacity to kill animals, had caused the Sangam
panther to make war on the human race—a war which, however
ghastly and fearsome while it lasts, invariably ends in the death of
the feline. Modern firearms and the human intellect are heavy
odds against the jungle instinct, cunning and pangs of hunger.

___________
1 See Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.
 6

The Ramapuram Tiger

HIS is the story of a tiger that for three months held sway over
T nearly half a district, an area some sixty miles long by another
sixty or so broad. Although his reign was comparatively short, it
was nevertheless hectic, for during this short time the Ramapuram
tiger was literally here, there and everywhere within the 3,600
square miles of his domain. Like the Scarlet Pimpernel he was
sought by all, yet found by none, till his end came in an
unexpected manner.

The district of North Coimbatore is largely made up of hills and

forest. Bounded on the south by the low-lying plains of
Coimbatore proper, it rises abruptly to the Dimbum escarpment.
On the southwest are the jungles of the Nilgiri or Blue Mountain
range. On the west, the forests of Mysore. To the northwest is
another high range of hills—the Biligirirangans. North, northeast
and eastwards flows the Cauvery river, clothed on both its banks
with heavy jungle, the northeastern and eastern portions abutting
on the forests of the district of Salem.

There is only one town worthy of that name in the district of

North Coimbatore: Kollegal, which lies at the northwestern
corner, scarcely eight miles from the Cauvery. Four roads branch
out of Kollegal. Those that run westwards and northwards into
Mysore play no part in this story. The third leads southwards and
is more or less straight and runs along the eastern base of the
Biligirirangan hills. Seventeen miles along this road brings one to
the large village of Lokkanhalli; thirteen miles beyond
Lokkanhalli is Bailur, where the ‘Bison Range’ begins and reaches
to Hasanpur at the forty-eighth milestone, and to Dimbum, at the
top of the escarpment, fifty-two miles from Kollegal.
 The fourth road leads in a southeasterly direction and cuts
through the village of Ramapuram, about twenty-five miles from
Kollegal, where it turns southwards and leads to Bargur, twenty-
four miles further on, then to Tamarakarai, another five miles,
and finally to the southeastern end of the Dimbum escarpment,
where it drops sharply to the village of Andiyur on the plains. This
road totals about eighty-one miles in length.

The Kollegal-Lokkanhalli-Bailur-Dimbum road carried sparse

lorry traffic and a daily bus service; whereas the road to
Ramapuram, Tamarakarai and Andiyur was unfit for motor
traffic, except jeeps or old-fashioned high-clearance American
cars, over the last sixty miles of its length. The terrain is fearful,
consisting of sharp rising and falling gradients strewn with
boulders. It becomes a narrow track, cut deeply by the wheels of
bullock-carts and hemmed in on both sides by dense forest. The
sandy—and often rocky-beds of forest streams cross and recross
this track at intervals. In the deeper valleys vast areas of the
mighty bamboo prevail, the drooping stems touching the hood of
the car as it labours and chugs along in low gear with its radiator
invariably boiling. Occasionally a fallen bamboo stem, or the
broken branch of a tree, lies across the track, torn down to
appease the ravenous appetite of an elephant. The driver then
halts, and with his axe, or ‘chopper’ as it is here called, cuts away
the obstruction and drags it aside, then moves on until he meets
another similar obstruction. Without the handy ‘chopper’, this
track would be impassable.

Tigers normally dislike very dense vegetation, and keep to low

scrub jungle, but it is preferred by elephants and bison. The tiger
has various reasons for its preference, one being that almost
impenetrable undergrowth prevents the tiger from carefully
stalking his prey and hinders his terribly effective last-minute
charge. Another reason is that the tiger’s legitimate prey — deer of
all kinds, wild pig and, of course, village cattle — do not enter
very dense jungle, which is mainly inhabited by elephants and
bison of which the tiger generally keeps clear. A third reason is
that thick undergrowth harbours insect pests, such as leeches,
many species of animal-ticks, and the horse or animal fly, as it is
called in India; tigers have a great aversion to these pests.

The Ramapuram man-eater was reported to have come from the

banks of the Cauvery river, from the region of a mountain known
as Ponnachai Malai, over six thousand feet in altitude. A few
minor coffee-estates, owned by Sholagas and other Indian
planters, exist on the slopes of this mountain. It is said that the
Ramapuram man-eater began his career as an ordinary cattle-
lifter that made a habit of raiding these estates for what he could
pick up in the way of domestic cattle belonging to the planters
and the coolies. He is reported to. have killed and eaten several
cattle, till one planter, more enterprising than his fellows, went
down to Coimbatore city and purchased a gin-trap of truly
formidable appearance.

This trap was made of iron with two semicircular rows of teeth,
which when opened and held apart, had a spread of almost two-
and-a-half feet. The teeth were about two inches long. The jaws
were kept apart by a hair-trigger arrangement, which, when
released, allowed an exceptionally powerful spring to bring the
jaws noisily together at lightning speed, so that the wicked teeth
meshed with each other.

Soon afterwards, the tiger killed a milch-cow which it dragged

into a ravine and concealed beneath a heap of dried leaves,
without starting to feed. The kill was followed and discovered,
and the trap was carefully set near the hindquarters of the cow, at
which place the tiger would normally start operations when he
returned for his meal. The same dried leaves that concealed the
kill were used to hide the trap. The tiger returned, and to his bad
luck and the future ill-fortune of others—got his head in the trap,
which caught him firmly on both sides of the neck, just behind the
ears.
 The trap had been anchored to the ground with a stake. The
tiger tore at the trap and succeeded in uprooting the stake, while
the jaws held firm in his neck. He then rushed away into the
jungle, dragging the heavy trap with him, till at a spot almost two
miles distant the trap got itself firmly wedged between two big
rocks. The tiger tried to drag itself free, but only succeeded in
wedging the trap more firmly than before.

The tiger roared with pain, and struggled desperately. The roars
were heard for half the night by the planter and his frightened
coolies, two miles away at their plantation. Finally, the animal
broke loose losing its left ear and eye in the process, with very
severe injuries to the rest of the neck and face. It was heard in the
area moaning with pain night and day for quite a week
afterwards.

Then came a period of absolute silence. Everyone thought the

tiger had died of its wounds. The planter and his hirelings kept a
careful watch for vultures, who would doubtless spot the carcase
and betray the whereabouts of the dead animal by swooping to
earth for their meal. But the only vultures seen were those soaring
in the high heavens, carefully scanning the earth below for the
signs of death; but none swooped, for the very good reason that the
tiger was not dead.

A fortnight passed; then one afternoon, along the path to one of

the smaller coffee-estates, climbed Jeyken, a Sholaga, and his
eighteen-year-old spouse. In accordance with the established
Indian custom, Jeyken walked in front, with the woman about a
yard behind him, carrying a sack of grain balanced on her head.
They had crossed a dry streambed, and were just climbing its
slight embankment, when, out of a clump of grass like sugarcane
that grows only along river banks in these areas, a tiger pounced
upon the girl, throwing her to the earth.
 Turning, Jeyken saw his wife lying on the ground gazing at him
with terror-stricken, pleading eyes. The tiger crouched upon her
back, its two paws overlapping her shoulders, the wide-open
mouth just above her head. It was a tiger with no left eye, and no
left ear, while the wounds on its neck and face had not yet healed!

Jeyken was turned to stone. He could not move and he could not
speak, but remained rooted to the spot in horror and amazement.
The tiger snarled horribly, contorting its already lacerated
features into a still more horrible mask. Then it grabbed the girl by
her right shoulder and walked across the stream with its prey—the
girl hung head downwards, her loose hair and left arm and legs
dragging in the sand. A moment later, the tiger and the girl had
disappeared in the jungle on the further side.

Evidentally the poor woman had swooned, or may already have

died of fright. That was the last Jeyken ever saw of his wife, nor
had she uttered the slightest cry, even at the moment of attack.

A month later a herd-boy was killed by a tiger within two miles

of Ramapuram. In this case the half-eaten remains were found in a
bush. The third human kill occurred about three weeks later,
almost at the twenty-first milestone on the Kollegal-Lokkanhalli-
Bailur-Dimbum road. This time it was a road-coolie, a middle-
aged woman, who was attacked in full view of her companions
just before five in the evening. She had stopped work for a few
minutes, and had gone some yards into the jungle, when a tiger
pounced upon her as if from nowhere and carried her away. She
had screamed frenziedly, and those who were in the vicinity had
clearly seen the tiger. It had a scarred face and no left ear or eye!

It so happened that my game licence for the North Coimbatore

area had at that time expired. This area is divided into two forest
divisions: North Coimbatore proper and the Kollegal Division. For
although Kollegal fell within North Coimbatore district for
administrative purposes, the Forest Department had recently
subdivided the district into two distinct Forest Divisions. My
licence, which had expired, covered North Coimbatore proper and
Dimbum; while Lokkanhalli, Bailur and Ramapuram fell within
the Kollegal Division. I had intended renewing my old licence,
and was about to send the required fee when I read in the papers
about the latest outrage committed by this tiger. That decided me,
and with ten days’ privilege leave at my disposal, I left Bangalore
early in the morning, reaching the Forest Department office at
Kollegal, eighty-seven miles away, even before it had opened for
the day. It did not take me long to get the required shooting
licence, and all available information regarding the tiger.

The area where the man-eater had operated was comparatively

new to me, so I decided, for a start, to camp in the small forest
lodge at Ramapuram, twenty-five miles away, which I reached in
an hour and a half, after negotiating an extremely bumpy road.

Obviously, the first thing to do was to try and win the

confidence of the inhabitants of Ramapuram by telling them I had
come to try to rid them of the tiger. The people did not know me
and gave somewhat garbled accounts, indicating that the tiger
might be anywhere between Ponnachai Malai, where it had struck
down it first victim, and Bailur, a distance of about sixty miles as
the crow flies.

Bailur, as I have told you, was a small village some thirty miles
from Kollegal, on the Kollegal-Lokkanhalli-Dimbum road. Thus, I
could either return to Kollegal by car and motor thence to Bailur,
or I could leave the car at Ramapuram and cover the third side of
the triangle by walking from Ramapuram to Bailur, a distance of
nearly nineteen miles. I decided to follow the latter course, as it
would give me the opportunity of passing through several Forest
hamlets bordering the Reserved Forest, where I hoped to get some
news of the tiger.
 Accordingly, at dawn next morning I left the little Forest Lodge
at Ramapuram and began my walk to Bailur. The path led in a
generally southwesterly direction, alternatively through sparsely
cultivated country and scrub jungle, which skirted the ranges of
small hills lying a couple of miles southward, within the
boundaries of the Reserved Forest proper.

I passed a few hamlets, but all the inhabitants were either

indoors or squatting at the entrances of their huts. Their few
cattle were kraaled outside or grazed at will on the scant herbage
in the immediate vicinity of the huts, for the story of the man-
eater had spread far and wide and the usual scare that attends
such visitations had already set in.

I walked slowly making inquiries wherever possible. Almost all

the Sholagas inhabiting these hamlets reported that they had
heard a tiger roaring in the vicinity, either the previous night or
within the past seventy-two hours. At one spot I was shown the
clear pug-marks of a tiger as it had crossed a recently ploughed
field, just a hundred yards from the owner’s hut. I took detailed
measurements of those pugs for future reference before moving on
but it soon became evident that the people in this area were either
so nervous that they were making completely false and
exaggerated reports, or else that an unusual number of tigers were
operating along the nineteen miles between Ramapuram and
Bailur. For, according to the information obtained, a tiger
appeared to have visited each hamlet within the last three or four
days!

At about 5 p.m. I approached Bailur, a village of some twenty

huts. Here I met members of the road gang who had witnessed the
killing of the woman near the twenty-first milestone. They told
me what I have already recorded and particularly stressed the
tiger’s deformities, which they had all clearly seen while they
stood rooted to the spot with terror, while the tiger made off into
the undergrowth with its still-screaming victim, the road-coolie
woman.

The nearest Forest department Lodge was some three-and-a-half

miles farther along the motor-road in the direction of Dimbum.
The Reserve lay along both sides of the road. It was now 5.30 p.m.,
and I knew that night would fall in an hour, so I covered those last
three-and-a-half miles at a brisk pace, reaching the little Forest
Bungalow shortly before dark.

The sun had gone down behind the towering range of the
Biligirirangan Hills, which lay some three miles west of the
bungalow, and the twilight calls of roosting peacock and
junglefowl welcomed me as I sank into an old broken armchair
which I dragged on to the verandah. The distant challenge of a
sambar stag, descending the western range, was music to my ears
as it floated across the dense valley separating the bungalow from
the foothills. The myriad tree-tops of this valley were like a dark
carpet in the deepening twilight.

Scarcely half-an-hour had passed before total darkness

prevailed, punctuated by the incessant flicker of a million
fireflies. They floated everywhere, like tiny elfin spirits in the
gloom, carrying their lanterns of pinpoint brilliance to every bush
tree-top in the vicinity. At rare intervals their flashes would
synchronise, and the tree or bush around which they clustered
would throb and pulsate to one big and unanimous flash of light,
made by thousands of these little creatures. The blackness of the
jungle night would disperse before a phosphorescent and ethereal
glow—but only for a moment— until that rare interval of
synchronisation occurred again.

I made an early night of it, sleeping on the floor of the small

central room of the lodge; but at about 2 a.m., the moaning call of
a tiger woke me. I heard it call at intervals as it traversed the
valley, until it died away in the distance.
 Early morning found me back in Bailur village, where I enlisted
the help of two local shikaris and purchased three young bulls for
bait. One of these we tethered in the bed of the stream that
traversed the valley west of the bungalow, where I had heard the
tiger calling in the night. The second was tied in a small forest-
glade a bare 100 yards from the roadside, midway between the
village and the Forest Bungalow. To tie the third, we walked back
to the twenty-first milestone, where the road-worker had been
killed. Close to this spot the road was crossed by a forest stream,
known as Oddam Betta Halla; its banks were clothed with
bamboo, except for a small clearing made by the Forest
department, in which seedlings of various forest plants were being
experimentally grown. My helpers told me that a tiger often
walked through this clearing, and I found this statement to be
true, in that pug-marks both old and comparatively new were
visible at three different place. I examined the most recent of
these imprints, and compared them with the measurements of the
pug-marks taken at the hamlet on the previous day. Both sets had
been made by a male tiger, but those in the departmental
plantation belonged to a much older and heavier animal.

We tied the third bait on open ground just where the Oddam
Betta Halla stream flows past this plantation.

When all this had been done it was 5.30 p.m., and on our return
to Bailur village I was approached by a sturdy, good-looking
Sholaga, who introduced himself as Jeyken, the husband of the girl
who had been the man-eater’s first victim. He said that a party of
travellers who had passed by the coffee estate on the slopes of
Ponnachai Malai, where he worked, had informed him that a
Sahib had come to Ramapuram to shoot the tiger. Filled with the
idea of revenge for his wife’s murder, he had obtained the planter’s
permission to go to Ramapuram to offer me his assistance. At
Ramapuram he was told that I had gone to Bailur, whither he had
immediately followed me, all by himself.
 I thanked Jeyken for his offer, and the trouble he had taken to
find me, and immediately recruited him as my personal helper. I
liked his appearance and his calm determination to leave no stone
unturned to bring the tiger to book. Jeyken smiled at my
acceptance and thanked me in turn, but he staunchly refused to
accept any payment; indeed, he made it abundantly clear that
this was the condition of his offer.

I returned to the Forest Lodge, instructing Jeyken and the other

two helpers to make an early start next morning and visit the bait
near the twenty-first milestone. For myself, I would visit the other
two baits. This I did next morning, first visiting the bull tethered
on the streambed in the valley, then the bait that was tied
midway between the Forest bungalow and Bailur village. Both
were unharmed and no traces of pugs were to be seen in any sand
that existed near the spots where they were tied. I then walked the
remaining distance to Bailur village, where I awaited the return of
my three scouts; within an hour they arrived, to tell me the third
bait was alive.

Leaving Jeyken and one of the Sholagas at the village, I took the
second man, who claimed to be well acquainted with the forest
gamepaths in that area, and walked westwards till we entered the
foothills of the Biligirirangans. As all this area was unfamiliar to
me, I got him to walk in front, while I covered him from the rear
with my rifle ready in my hands. Sholagas are born jungle folk,
and my guide showed no signs of nervousness while we threaded
our way thus, in single file, up one game-path and down another,
across dark nullahs, often bending double to avoid overhanging
fronds of bamboo or outcrops of wait-a-bit thorn. But no signs of a
fresh tiger track did we see.

A large male panther had crossed at one spot, and at another

spot a female, accompanied by her cub; but it was evident that
the tiger we were looking for had not passed that way.
 It was nearing 3 p.m. before we got back to the Forest Lodge and
a late cold lunch. The Sholaga made a fire, on which I boiled some
water to brew us several cups of tea. Then I drew water from the
little well in the compound, to give myself the luxury of a cold
bath.

At five I returned with the Sholaga to Bailur village, where I left

him with instructions for Jeyken, himself and the third Sholaga to
visit the bait on the twenty-first milestone early next morning. It
was well past seven by the time I got back to the bungalow. I slept
soundly that night, nor did the moaning call of any tiger disturb
me. Early morning found me on my way to visit the other two
baits. Both were unharmed.

Returning to the Forest Lodge, I ate a frugal meal and then

walked towards Bailur, carefully watching the road for pug-marks.
No tiger had passed that way and 9.15 a.m. found me awaiting my
henchmen. They returned before ten, this time to report that the
bait had been killed and removed by a tiger, which had contrived
to bite through the tethering rope.

Fortunately I had come prepared for such an eventuality and

had brought my torch and other night-shooting kit with me in a
haversack. Back we went as fast as we could, and shortly after
midday had reached the spot where the bull had been tied. The
tiger’s pug-marks, in approaching the bait, were apparent in the
soft earth some twenty feet away, and an examination showed
that the killer was a tigress and not a tiger. From there she had
launched her final attack that had killed the bull, biting through
the rope by which its leg had been tied.

We could not know how far the kill had been taken, so I told my
companions to wait for me by the twenty-first milestone till 3
p.m., while I would follow the drag-mark. If the dead bull had
been taken for some distance, I would try to build myself a hide-
out to await the return of the tigress, and would make it an all-
night affair. Under such circumstances, I would not be back by
three and they were to return to Bailur. On the other hand, if the
tigress had dropped the kill not far away, I would return to my
companions and get them to put up a proper machan.

I found the tigress had half-dragged the kill for the first two
hundred yards, by which time she had got clear of the bamboo
jungle that grew on the lower land and in the vicinity of the
stream. Then she had encountered some heavy lantana
undergrowth, which had obviously been an obstruction to her
passage, encumbered as she was with the dead bull. Here she had
evidently slung it over her shoulder, as tigers sometimes do to
carry their kills, and it then became extremely difficult to follow
the trail.

A dragging hoof, or the horns of the bull, had here and there
broken a twig, and these were the only visible signs of passage.
The carpet of rotting vegetation, and fallen lantana leaves,
effectively did away with any hope of finding pug-marks.
Necessarily, the going was also very slow, nor did I like the
situation at all, as almost my whole attention had to be given to
following the trail, which prevented me from being fully on my
guard against a sudden attack. Finally the lantana gave way to
more open forest, sprinkled liberally with trees and a carpet of the
dwarf date palm.

Twice I came across the spot where the tigress had laid down her
burden and then picked it up again. It was now evident that she
had some particular destination in view, most probably a lair
where she had cubs to whom she was taking the meat.

Up and up led the trail; the terrain became more and more
rocky, till finally, in a break among the tree-trunks, I saw a
hillock, perhaps a quarter-of-a-mile beyond and about 200 feet
above the spot where I stood. The trail led directly toward the
hillock. By now I felt reasonably certain that the animal I was
following was not the man-eater, because all the data gathered
about the man-eater had classed it as a tiger and not a tigress,
although the sex factor was not an established certainty. As it was
a known fact, however, that the man-eater had lost its left eye and
ear, if I could but catch a glimpse of the animal I was following, I
would soon know whether it was the right one or not.

How to catch that glimpse was the problem. The obvious

answer to it was to keep advancing till we met, but it was scarcely
to my liking, as even if the tigress was not the man-eater, she
certainly was unlikely to welcome any human being who knocked
at the door of the lair where she had her cubs.

But I went forward. The trail was now easier to follow, as the
tigress had brushed against boulders and rocks, where smears of
blood betrayed the passage of the dead bull.

Half the distance was covered now; the other half would bring
me to the summit. The boulders lay in heaps, and the trail I was
following wound in and out between them, as the tigress picked
her path to avoid any part of her burden becoming jammed
between the rocks. It was ten minutes to three; the sun beat down
mercilessly on the bare rocks, which in turn threw the heat back
in my face as from the door of a furnace. My clothes were soaked
with perspiration, which ran in rivers down my face, getting into
my eyes, which burned and smarted, and into the corners of my
mouth. I licked my lips and I remember that almost
unconsciously, in the excitement of the moment, I noted the salty
taste.

My rubber boots made no sound as I negotiated the heated

rocks. One corner after another was turned, and at each turn I
knew what lay beyond. Then I came upon a shelving rock which
met the rising ground at an angle of perhaps three hundred
forming a shallow recess rather than a real cave. Two large balls of
russet brown, striped with black, white underneath, were
tumbling over one another in a vigorous game of ‘catch-as-catch-
can’. They were two tiger cubs, and they were playing!

I stopped in my tracks; the only movement being an

imperceptible cocking of the rifle, with the faintest of clicks. But
it was enough! Although they were only cubs, generations of
instinct were behind them. They stopped playing, disentangled
themselves, and looked at me in alarm.

Even now, I can picture the scene: one cub with a look of
innocent surprise, and the other with its features wrinkled to emit
a hiss of consternation.

That hiss was the signal for all hell to break loose, for it awoke
the tigress, who was sleeping. With a series of shattering roars she
dashed out of the cavern, vaulted over the cubs and came straight
at me.

The distance may have been twenty yards. I covered her

between the eyes as she advanced. Then five yards away she
stopped; she crouched with her belly to ground, eyes blazing and
mouth wide, while her roars and snarls shook the very ground on
which I stood. She was a perfect specimen but certainly not the
man-eater!

Wonder of wonders, she had not charged home. Her courage had
failed her at the last moment. She was telling me, in the simplest
of languages: ‘Get out quickly, and don’t harm my cubs or I will
kill you.’

I was glad to oblige. Step by step, I retreated backwards, while

never removing my eyes from hers, never allowing the rifle sights
to waver in the slightest, my forefinger still on the trigger.

And she remained where she was! It was as if she understood

that I was going. I realised at that moment that she did not want
to harm me; that she was only protecting her cubs. Perhaps she
was afraid. I was afraid too! But I did not want to harm her, nor
destroy that lovely happy little family.

So I continued to retreat backwards. The tigress continued to

roar. Now I had turned the corner of the first rock that hid her
from view. Only then did I dare to take a hasty glance backwards,
to see where I was walking, although I still faced towards the
tigress, who had now stopped roaring, but was still growling. I
knew that, as long as she continued to make those sounds I was
safe; I would know where she was.

Another big boulder was passed; then I turned and beat a hasty
retreat before she had time to change her mind and come after me.
She stopped growling, and I knew that the real danger had come.
She might have gone back to her cubs, or she might be following. I
made down the hill as rapidly as possible, glancing frequently
behind me. Soon I came to the trees and the date palms, then the
lantana belt, up which I had so laboriously followed the trail, and
finally to the bamboos and the road.

It was 4.30 p.m. and as instructed, my companions had returned

to Bailur. I had nine miles to cover, and only two hours before
darkness fell. Nevertheless, I sat by the roadside for five minutes to
enjoy a quick smoke. I felt I deserved it. I was thankful, too, that I
had not been forced to shoot the tigress, for the sight of those two
cubs was still fresh in my memory.

It was past six-thirty before I reached Bailur village. There my

three companions awaited me, eager to hear my story. When I had
told it, they agreed that it was unusual for a tigress to have failed
to press home her charge.

Darkness had set in by the time I left the little village on the last
lap of my journey to the forest bungalow. But as one of our baits
was tied at a point about half-way between the village and the
bungalow in a glade not far from the road, it occurred to me that I
would pay it a visit. Why this idea came to me, I cannot tell
particularly as I had already looked at it that morning on my way
to Bailur. It was an impulse, and I have spent my life responding to
impulses. I turned off along the little footpath that led away from
the road towards the clearing where the bait was tied. It was quite
dark, except for the diffused glow from the stars that shone
brightly in a clear blue-black sky. The bushes around me assumed
ghostly shapes, and the wind sighed fitfully among the branches of
the ‘rain-tree’ that bordered the road. Now and again, a large
teak-leaf fluttered to the ground with the softest of sounds, like
some huge moth of the night settling down to rest.

I came up to the small wild-fig tree beneath which my bait was

tied. The shadows were deeper there, and the bait was, moreover,
a brown one. I could not see it till I came very close, when it
lumbered to its feet, as if startled at my approach, even as I was
startled by its sudden action. It was still unharmed. I walked
around it to the other side, to inspect the rope that held it by the
hind leg, in case it had become twisted.

And at that moment the man-eater charged.

It was fortunate for me that I had moved to the other side of the
bull, which consequently came between me and the tiger. But I
confess that I was taken totally by surprise.

There was tremendous ’ Woof from the jungle from which I had
just emerged. The bull swung round. I leaped behind it, with my
back to the trunk of the fig tree almost tripping over the tethering
rope. A huge grey shape vaulted on to the back of the bull, which
collapsed beneath the sudden weight.

But the tiger had not seized the neck or throat. It had simply
leaped upon the bull in order to reach me beyond it. Luckily, in
falling the bull ruined the tiger’s spring, which otherwise would
have followed within a split second.
 The tiger was extricating itself from the heaving body of the
fallen bull when my bullet smashed between its eyes.
Convulsively it twisted backwards, still lying across the bull,
which now staggered to its feet with the tiger over its back, the
head and forequarters sagging forwards.

Automatically, and without thinking, I fired my second shot at

a spot which I judged to be behind the tiger’s left shoulder. The
bull collapsed! The tiger rolled off the bull and towards me, as my
third shot took it in the throat.

The bull never moved. The tiger kicked convulsively. And then
at last all was still.

The light from the torch on the rifle revealed that my first bullet
had smashed the tiger’s skull. My second had been too low. The
heavy .405 missile had ploughed through the end of the tiger’s
chest and blown a tremendous hole in the bull’s side. My third
bullet, a quite unnecessary one, had passed through the tiger’s
throat, leaving a gaping hole. But I had killed the poor bull that
had unwittingly saved my life.

My hands were trembling, my knees wobbled, and suddenly I

felt very, very sick. The reaction, after the events of that evening,
was sudden. I sat on the ground, with may back to the fig tree, and
raised my hand to my forehead, which I was surprised to find icy
cold to my touch.

How long I remained thus I do not know. Then I groped for my

pipe, filled and lit it. The first few puffs steadied my badly-shaken
nerves and I was soon able to get back to the road and retrace my
steps to Bailur Village.

I found the inhabitants gathered in the streets, agog with

excitement and anticipation. For the surrounding hills had carried
the sound of my three shots, which had reverberated across the
valleys and stony ridges. They had guessed I had been attacked on
the way to the bungalow, but were wondering whether it had been
by the man-eater, or some bear or elephant.

Seeing me emerge from the gloom, they rushed forward to

welcome me, my three servants well to the fore. I sat down by the
roadside and told them the story. Gasps of amazement and
incredulity broke from their lips, to be followed by
congratulations and a fervent expression of thanks for my safety.

A ‘chattie’ of fresh hot milk was set before me, and a bunch of
bananas. As gifts go, it was not much, but it conveyed the
heartfelt thanks of the villagers.

In another half-hour practically the whole village had

assembled with lanterns and kerosene torches, a stout pole and
coils of rope, to bring in the tiger. Back we went to the spot and
over fifty people surveyed the strange scene, their eyes wide open
with amazement. Jeyken was especially pathetic to watch. With
his knife he started to stab the dead tiger— to my dismay, for he
was doing further damage to a skin already well-nigh ruined by
my bullets. Gently, but firmly, I drew him off; then he began to
weep unrestrainedly, thinking of his dead wife.

The deep-hearted weeping of a strong and brave man is not

pleasant to witness; it is infectious, and I felt a strange lump rising
in my own throat—a lump which refused to subside for quite a
time.

Not much remains to be told, except for a strange sequel. Next

morning, when coming to the bungalow, Jeyken passed the spot
where I had left the road the previous night. Fifty yards further on
he decided to answer a call of nature and stepped behind a star-
plum bush for the purpose. There he discovered for the first time
that the tiger had been lying in wait for me the previous night;
evidently it had been in the vicinity, and had either seen or heard
me approaching along the road.
 Jeyken told me what he had discovered, and I walked back with
him to check it for myself. I found what he said was true. There
clearly impressed on the soft sand, were tiger’s pug-marks while
the soft grass and rank weeds beneath the star-plum bush were still
partly flattened by the weight of the tiger’s body, although more
than twelve hours had passed since he had lain there in ambush,
awaiting my approach.

Yet some people tell me that there is no such thing as

Providence, a guiding-spirit, intuition, or a sixth sense; call it
what you will. I find it more difficult to understand the
disbelievers than understand Providence itself!
 7

The Great Panther of Mudiyanoor

UDIYANOOR is the name of a small village nestling near the

M southeastern end of a fertile valley that lies north of the
Moyar river and the frowning crags of the Blue Mountains or
Nilgiri range, and south of the foothills of the smaller mountain
chain known as the Biligirirangans.

This little valley comes as near as possible on this troubled earth

to the elusive ‘happy valleys’ of fiction, or of which we dream
during our restless slumbers. Certain it is that rainfall is assured,
even in a season of weak monsoons, due to the abutting mountain
ranges at either end. The earth is very fertile, being particularly
rich in leaf-mould and a fine red loam, for it was until recent years
part of the primeval forest which is slowly, but ever steadily,
being pushed back by the inroads of civilisation. The climate is
temperate during the days and rather chilly at night, due to the
cool breezes that blow down the mountain ridges.

Most of the people of Mudiyanoor are farmers, although a few

are cattle-grazers, who maintain vast herds of animals which are
driven during daylight into the surrounding forest for grazing. The
milk from these animals is entirely used in the manufacture of
‘ghee’ which is simply melted butter, and is employed for cooking
throughout India. Kerosene tins, filled with this stuff, are sent up
the ghat, as the winding cart-track up the hillside is called, till it
meets the main road from Mysore to Satyamangalam at the little
hamlet of Dimbum. There the tins of ghee are loaded on to cart—
and sometimes lorries—and taken away for sale. There are good
markets for it in Mysore and Satyamangalam, and particularly in
the more distant town of Gobichettipalayam.
 So the population is happy and prosperous. Few strangers visit
the valley, because the cart-track is practically unmotorable.

The herds occasionally suffer from a marauding tiger or panther:

at other times the farmers awake to find sections of their fields
trampled flat by elephants which have fed there during the night.
Wild pigs and deer take a moderate toll of crops, but these are
considered minor calamities and are accepted as the dictates of
inevitable fate.

The ‘great panther’ earned that name because he was quite

outstandingly large. He was suspected of having come from the
fastnesses of the Blue Mountains, perhaps from Anaikutty or
Segur, and across the Moyar river, or Mysore Ditch as it is more
commonly called. He began his depredations on the village cattle,
killing in true tiger style by breaking the neck, and was therefore
mistaken for that animal for some time.

Then, with increasing boldness, this panther started to harry the

herds of fine milch cows that were part of my friend Hughie
Hailstone’s estate. This estate, the Moyar Valley Ranch, is an
outstanding farm which is natural, for its owner is an outstanding
character. A brilliant engineer by profession, he has the quick
brain of an inventor—quick at thinking and quick at assessing
values—and from his cleverness have originated many devices and
mechanical improvements. In addition, Hughie is a born shikari.
He loves the forest and its animals, and he is never happier than
when handling, or tinkering with, a firearm. From this rare
combination of mechanical genius and a love of the wild, Moyar
Valley Ranch was born; for with herculean effort and skill,
tenacity of purpose and the will to surmount all obstacles, Hughie
literally carved his ranch out of the heart of the virgin jungle.

Mighty forest trees had to be cut down and cleared. Hughie

exploited this circumstance by converting them into charcoal,
which he then sold by lorry-loads to the far distant towns. Bricks,
cut-stones, cement, mortar, and all the other items used in
building construction had to be brought from the same places.
Carpenters were also imported, who, under Hughie’s able
directions, soon utilised the better forest-woods for building
purposes. A modern building rose in no time. With a windmill
battery-charger, the house had electric lighting, a refrigerator and
many up-to-date conveniences. In addition, farm machinery was
imported, so that in almost the twinkling of an eye Moyar Valley
Ranch became a flourishing farmstead.

Hughie has many business interests and frequently travels

abroad. Sometimes he returns in a few weeks, but at others he is
absent for months, and the following story concerns one of his
long absences. He had very kindly offered me the privilege of
visiting his farm at any time, and has especially asked me to keep
a watchful eye on his livestock. So one day, when we received a
letter from Hugh’s caretaker, a man named Varghese, that the big
panther had killed Hugh’s finest Alsatian, something had to be
done.

At that time I was immersed in some heavy and urgent work

and it was impossible to get away for the next fortnight.
Varghese’s letter, having travelled by village post, had already
taken six days to reach us. But my son Donald volunteered to deal
with the panther, and I gladly delegated this job to him. The
Studebaker had broken an axle a month earlier and I was still
awaiting a replacement from Bombay, so Donald rushed off to his
friend’s house to borrow a car.

From this point I feel I had better let Donald relate the rest of
the story himself, as I took no further part in the affair, beyond
giving him a piece of my mind when he returned from the
expedition.

‘When Dad told me to go to Mudiyanoor, the first problem was

to find a car to travel by, as his Studebaker was laid up. So I
thought of a friend who had been with me at school, named
Rustam Dudhwala. Rustam is a nice fellow and owns three or four
cars. So with a bit of sales talk I had no difficulty in getting him
interested. It took me just four hours to get together the odds and
ends necessary for the trip, and to borrow Dad’s lucky tiger-charm,
which was given to him years ago by a jungle man named
Buddiah. I know Dad does not talk about this charm, as he thinks
people will make fun of him, but I also know that he appears to
have much faith in it. The charm is actually wrapped in a small
piece of bamboo, tied with a strand of hair from an elephant’s tail.
What is inside it I do no know. The whole thing can be worn
around the neck, as the bamboo is tied to a piece of string, but
Dad generally stuffs it into his pocket.

‘Just before leaving I thought of taking another friend along

with me, a fellow named Cedric Bone, who is a keen photographer
and good sport, and can rough it out splendidly. Cedric was ready
to come, and soon the three of us were on our way to Mudiyanoor.
I carried my .423 Mauser, which is a far superior weapon to Dad’s
old-fashioned .405 Winchester. He knows this himself, but like all
old-fashioned people prefers to stick to something that is out of
date. I also brought my .3006 Springfield as a reserve rifle for
shooting deer for the pot. My old man lectures me against killing
deer and I pretend to listen to him. When he is around, of course,
such killing is taboo; but when he is not there it is quite a different
matter.

‘The last seventeen miles of the track to Mudiyanoor is really

bad, and it took us almost eight hours to get there. Varghese
greeted me with a broad smile, although I felt he was a little
disappointed because Dad had not come along. That is the trouble
nowadays. Young people like me are often not appreciated and the
older men seem to regard us as being somewhat irresponsible.
They forget that they too were young once.
 ‘Anyhow, Varghese told us that, apart from village cattle, the
big panther had also killed a cow belonging to Mr. Hailstone three
days ago. The immediate problem was therefore to buy some live
bait in the form of half-grown bulls, and for this purpose Rustam
came in very handy.

‘Let me tell you something about this Rustam. He is twenty-two

years old and a Parsee, which community are the descendants of
early Persian settlers in India. He comes of a very rich family, who
owns lakhs of rupees worth of property in Bombay, bringing in
enough income in a single day to buy me several times over. Apart
from this, Rustam’s Dad is a shrewd businessman, who earns an
income even larger than what comes in each month from the
property. He is a very sporting chap and very fond of his son, but
sometimes he gets unreasonably strict about letting Rustam go
shooting. When that happens, Rustam and I generally contrive to
invite my father to visit Mr. Dudhwala, for when these old men
meet and talk things over for an hour or two, our hunting trip is
assured.

‘Well, to return to what I was telling you. Rustam bought four

young bulls, which we tied out in different places near where the
big panther had recently killed. The first of these we tied near the
forest boundary line which runs beside Mr. Hailstone’s estate. The
second we tied about a quarter of a mile away, near a small lake
surrounded by heavy bamboo jungle. The third we tied on the
outskirts of Mudiyanoor village proper, and the last on the cart
track itself, coming into Mudiyanoor. Dad always makes a
practice of setting up his machan along with the baits; but as
Varghese had offered the use of Mr. Hailstone’s portable machan, I
decided to set mine up only after a kill had occurred.

‘We took care to secure our baits by tying the hind legs to stout
stakes driven into the ground, for it is a mistake to pass a rope
around the neck of a live bait. Sometimes panthers, and tigers
especially, are reluctant to attack an animal with a rope around
its neck. They kill by grabbing the neck, and they feel suspicious
of a rope, which would get in their way.

‘At the last moment Varghese informed us that a tiger had been
calling in the vicinity of the bungalow for the past two days. So as
an afterthought, instead of a rope I used Mr. Hailstone’s chain for
securing the bait tied on the forest line near his bungalow. This
was because I felt that if the tiger killed this bull he might break
the rope and carry it away. As there were no other chains, the
other three baits had to remain roped.

‘Rustam wanted to go shooting wild pig that night in the fields

around Mudiyanoor village, but I stopped him, as a shot might
disturb the panther. Next morning, all four of our baits were alive
and we were disappointed. But shooting is a game of patience, as
Dad has taught me, so I told Rustam to be quiet and not expect
developments for another day or two. On the third night the big
leopard killed the bull tied on the forest line near the bungalow. It
so happened that the tiger also killed the second bait tied among
the bamboos near the forest pool the same night.

‘Now I was faced with a problem. “Damn the panther,” I said to

myself “I will get the tiger.” But there were other circumstances to
be considered: Rustam reminded me that my purpose there was to
shoot the panther which had killed Mr. Hailstone’s livestock. It
was my business, therefore, to sit up for the panther. I knew that
he was right and that Dad would say the same. Still, it seemed a
bit thick to lose the opportunity of sitting up for the tiger, and I
tried hard to persuade Rustam to take on the panther. But he has
some of his father’s business instincts, and clung to his previous
arguments. So, realising I was cornered, I had to give in.

‘Cedric elected to come and sit up with me, as he felt that there
were more chances of seeing the big panther by being with me,
than of seeing the tiger by going with Rustam. He thought Rustam
would make too much noise and would drive away the tiger before
it ever appeared at the kill.

‘So I got to work and had Mr. Hailstone’s portable machan hung
in the tree that grew about thirty yards from the dead bull.
Rustam, for his part, got the villagers to erect a machan in a tree
that grew close to where the other bull had been killed by the
tiger. I forgot to mention that, in tying all these four baits, I had
taken the precaution of tying them close to trees, so that there
would be no trouble later in erecting machans.

‘Both parties left the bungalow at about 4 p.m. Rustam had a

longer distance to cover, so he and Varghese, complete with
sandwiches, water bottle, torches, warm mufflers, blankets and
what not, started off at a brisk pace. Cedric and I strolled along to
the forest line with our packet of food and a single water bottle.
We felt blankets were unnecessary as the weather appeared to be
warm.

‘Sitting in any machan is a tiresome business, and I always find

it difficult to remain still. My old man has told me many a time
that sitting like a graven image is absolutely essential, but how he
does it I don’t know. I have sat with him often and his style is to
fold his legs beneath him, settle himself very comfortably, smoke
his pipe, drink a little tea from a flask, and then become a graven
image for the rest of the night. But all sorts of things happen to
me. I get pins and needles in my feet, my back feels stiff and begins
to ache, and the mosquitoes worry me considerably: not only do
they bite me, but they find their way into my ears and nose and
the only method of getting rid of one is to wait till it settles down
to feed, and then give it a smart slap. Dad tells me that this is not
the thing to do when on a machan; but perhaps he forgets that my
blood, being young, is probably more attractive to the mosquitoes
than his. You will understand, I am sure, that old men take quite
a delight in telling younger people what not to do.
 ‘Anyhow, by the time it grew dark at seven o’clock, these
mosquitoes were already very busy on both Cedric and myself. I
had already told Cedric to abstain from slapping mosquitoes,
which was probably why he nudged me, once or twice, when I did
so myself. Time passed, and then, at about a quarter to eight, we
saw a longish object, that looked grey in the darkness, appear as if
from nowhere. I must explain that, although there was no moon,
there was a diffused glow all around from the stars that always
seem to twinkle much brighter in a forest. There was enough light,
at least, to show up the bigger trees and this grey object, but not
the dead bull, which happened to be black. Well, the grey
apparition moved towards where the bull lay, and shortly after we
heard the rattle of the chain, followed by the sound of eating, and
the crunching of bones. Slowly, I raised my rifle to my shoulder,
but as luck would have it, my torch, which was fixed to the rifle
barrel, struck against the tree and made the slightest of noises.
There was a loud growl from the direction of the kill and the same
grey object began walking across the forest line towards my left.
Soon it disappeared, and then, after about ten minutes,
reappeared to my right, but almost beneath us. I heard the sound
of licking, and it seemed that the panther was seated there on its
haunches. This time I got the rifle levelled properly and pressed
the switch of my torch. The bright beam lit the panther, sitting on
the ground in a dog-like attitude, hardly twenty yards away, It
looked up at me, and taking a quick sight, I pressed the trigger. My
best friend, the .432, roared, and the panther fell over sideways. I
thought it was done for, but then it suddenly picked itself up again
and sprang into the forest below the tree where we were sitting.

‘Cedric had been very excited while all this was happening, for
no sooner did the panther disappear than he prepared to climb
down. I restrained him, and he said, “Come, let’s go after it”. But I
told him not to be a fool and that we had better wait till morning.

‘We sat there for nearly another hour. The mosquitoes became
so unbearable that we decided to get down and return to the
bungalow. I descended first, and Cedric handed me the rifle. Then
he followed with the water bottle. The last six feet he took at a
jump, and as he hit the ground with a thud there was an awful
roar from very near. I swung around, pointing my rifle, with the
torch burning, in the direction of the sound, but we could see
nothing. After waiting for some minutes, we went forward a few
paces, but the lantana undergrowth was very dense here and it
seemed unsafe to follow up in the darkness. We then went to the
spot where the panther had been seated when I fired, and began to
look around for blood.

‘There were no traces to be seen by the light of the torch and the
alarming idea occurred to me that perhaps I had made a complete
miss. I discussed the matter in undertones with Cedric, but he was
certain that my bullet had struck the panther. Still, I was doubtful
and we eventually decided to go back to the machan, on the very
slim chance that I might have missed and the panther might later
return to its kill.

‘The rest of the night was extremely uncomfortable, what with

the mosquitoes and the intense cold that began to set in with the
early hours of the morning. We stuck it out, however, and dawn
found us a very dejected and disappointed pair. We climbed down
from the tree and stretched out in the green grass below it for
nearly an hour, in order to give the sun a chance to rise, and to
relax our stiffened muscles. Then, shortly after seven, we began to
look for blood tracks in earnest. In a little while I was heartened to
find a few drops where the panther had entered the lantana, and
then quite a considerable amount at a spot about forty yards
inside the undergrowth. It was now quite evident that he had been
badly hit and had lain down here; also that it was he who had
growled so loudly the previous night, when Cedric had jumped
down from the tree. In fact one realised that the panther had not
driven home a charge at the time and caught us napping.
 ‘Cedric photographed the spot. He is one of those camera-
enthusiasts who take photos of practically anything and
everything.

‘I found that from this point a blood trail was visible for
upwards of another hundred yards. Within this distance he had
lain down once more, which confirmed the fact that he had been
badly hit. Then the blood trail became less distinct, probably
because fat, or a piece of membrane, had covered the bullet hole
and stopped the external bleeding.

‘The undergrowth was fairly dense and we searched carefully

everywhere, but there was no panther to be found. The forest line
continued, and I walked along the edge of it, peering into the
lantana in the hope of seeing the beast.

‘I had gone perhaps another hundred yards, Cedric following

with his camera at about twenty paces, keeping to the open of the
forest line, when it suddenly happened. Evidently the panther had
been lying concealed beneath a bush on the opposite side of the
clearing and had escaped my notice. He waited till I had passed
and then, with a characteristic coughing grunt, he charged me.
Cedric was almost level with the place where the panther had
been hiding, and how it had not seen him and charged him,
instead of me, is a mystery and very lucky for Cedric. Probably the
panther was too busy watching me and preparing to make his
surprise attack. Anyhow, he charged, but hearing that coughing
grunt, I sprang around in time to see him coming. Fortunately, my
bullet of the night before had smashed his right foreleg, which
dragged as he came on.

‘Throwing my rifle to my left shoulder—from which I shoot—I

pressed the trigger and sent the bullet crashing into his throat. He
lurched forward on to his chest, still snarling vigorously, and this
gave me time to put in a second shot.
 ‘Only then did I notice that Cedric was close behind, and was
fairly dancing with excitement. He had been in my direct line of
fire, and I might have shot him instead of the panther. But this
incredible enthusiast had actually taken a photo of the charge.
How Cedric had the nerve to take it, when ninety-nine men out of
a hundred, completely unarmed as he was, would have turned tail
and fled, beats me. It only goes to show that an enthusiasm for
photography enabled him to forget everything else. He tells me he
just aimed the camera and depressed the shutter mechanically,
without thinking what he was doing.

‘When we returned to the bungalow to tell the good news, we

found that Rustam and Varghese had already come back, having
sat up till about 2 a.m. The mosquitoes had by this time got the
better of them, and as the tiger had not put in an appearance,
Rustam and his companion had decided to call it a day, and get
back to the bungalow for a nap.

‘We carried the panther in by nine o’clock and had skinned him
in about an hour. It proved to be quite a large male, measuring 7′8″
from nose to tail.

‘After an early lunch, I suggested to Rustam that we should go

and see about the bull over which he had sat. I must not forget to
tell you that, in the meantime, Varghese had sent out men to see
what had happened to the third and fourth animals. These men
returned to inform us that both were still alive.

‘When we reached Rustam’s machan, we found that the tiger

had returned to its kill, probably in the early hours of the morning
after Rustam had got down. Perhaps it had been watching, and
had come to know that he was up there. Later when the coast was
clear, it had come back for a late meal. About three-quarters of
the bull had been devoured.
 ‘Rustam was extremely disappointed, but was determined to sit
up again. Then I had an inspiration. Wisely, or unwisely, I sent
Varghese with one of the men to fetch our fourth bait, which had
been tied on the track approaching Mudiyanoor village. It took
about two hours to bring this animal, and we tethered it about
thirty paces from the remains of the old kill. My hope in doing this
was that the tiger might be induced to attack it, in case he
hesitated to return to the old kill, which had been dead for two
days and was stinking horribly. Rustam opposed this plan, because
he felt that the tiger would be frightened away by finding a live
bull where he had left a dead one the day before. But I felt the
chance was worth taking.

‘At about 5.30 p.m., the three of us, Rustam, Cedric and myself,
got into the machan , having already arranged fresh green leaves
for concealment, those of the previous night having been withered
by the heat. Rustam was to have the first shot, and I would follow
up. Cedric had fitted a flash bulb and reflector to his beloved
camera, in the hope of securing another exciting photograph.

‘With the approach of dusk myriads of insects of all kinds came

from the nearby pool to make our existence a torture. But we were
young and extremely keen. Rustam had long been waiting for an
opportunity to shoot a tiger.

‘Eight o’clock came, then nine and ten, but a little later we
heard the moaning call of the tiger, as it descended a hillside
beyond the pool about a mile way. About forty-five minutes
passed, when a kakar gave forth its hoarse call from the denseness
of the bamboos to our left. It was clear the tiger was coming, and
we were all keyed up with intense excitement.

‘We waited. It was much darker here than it had been at my

machan of the night before, because of the bamboos. I whispered
to Rustam to wait till the tiger either attacked the live bull or
came back to its old kill, when I would use my torch to help him
aim. Fortunately, the live bull was a white one, and we could see
it faintly, and hear it snorting and struggling, as it tried to free its
leg from the tethering rope. It was clear that the creature must
have had some inkling of the approaching danger and its ultimate
fate.

‘There was a silence for ten minutes. Then there was a deep
“Woof” and the tiger sprang on to the live bull. Rustam was
trembling like an aspen with suppressed excitement, but I gripped
his shoulder firmly to keep him quiet. There followed a hoarse
gurgle from the bull, and a sharp snapping sound as the vertebrae
of its neck cracked and the carcase thudded to earth.

‘I maintained my grip on Rustam’s shoulder. Another period of

silence followed for almost ten minutes, before the tiger began to
bite the rear of the bull in its first operations to tear out and
remove the entrails.

‘Still we waited, and then we heard the scratching sound made

by the tearing of membrane as the tiger started to pull out the
bull’s intestines. I judged that by now its attention would be fully
occupied by its kill; so gently releasing my grip on Rustam’s
shoulder, I nudged him to prepare for the shot.

‘He raised his rifle, as I did mine. After about ten seconds I
pressed the button of my torch. As the beam shot forth, the tiger,
which had been lying on its kill sideways to us, turned around and
looked up. At the same moment Rustam switched on his torch too,
and in the two beams the tiger was distinctly visible as he stared
back. Seconds passed, and I began to wonder whether Rustam was
going to fire. Then, just as I was about to press my trigger, the roar
of the double-barrelled .405/400 rent the night.

‘Rustam had fired both barrels simultaneously, and the kick

from the heavy weapon must have been considerable; I felt him
lurch violently backwards. Nevertheless, both bullets had sped
true to their mark, smashing into the tiger’s neck just above the
shoulder. The animal shook violently and then sank forward, just
as if it was going to sleep. The tail twitched a few times and then
was still. Rustam had shot his first tiger.

‘We waited for another half-hour, but there was no movement

from the animal; so we got down from the machan, still keeping
the torch focused on the tiger. But it never stirred. It was evident
that the tiger was dead. Upon examination, Rustam was jubilant
at finding he had killed a fine male, which measured 9′4″ from
nose to tail-tip.

‘And so we returned to Bangalore, an extremely happy party.

Rustam had got his tiger, and I had succeeded in killing the
panther that had been harassing Mr. Hailstone’s animals. But of
the three of us I think Cedric Bone was the happiest at having
taken a marvellously lucky photograph and a marvellously lucky
escape from what would have been a severe mauling, if not a
painful death, had the panther attacked him instead of me.

‘I told Dad the story, and he congratulated both of us. But he

never at that time realised the narrowness of Cedric’s escape from
the panther, as well as from my rifle bullet.

‘Next day, when he saw the photograph, he started to say a lot

of uncomplimentary things. At the time I felt he was rather harsh
and quite unreasonable; but, as I think of it now, the old man was
right.

‘I had made two major mistakes. Firstly, I had not looked

carefully enough in the undergrowth, and had passed the panther
without seeing it. Secondly in my excitement I had fired with a
human being directly in my line of fire, and about twenty paces
away. They say fortune favours the beginner, and it certainly was
so in this case.’
 8

The Mauler of Rajnagara

T THE moment of telling this story (november 1995), the

A ‘mauler’ is still alive, having defeated every effort I made to
‘bag’ him. And not only my own efforts, but those of several other
hunters over a period of rather more than two years.

The mauler is altogether an unusual tiger, in that his habits are

very un-tigerish and his haunts are in areas where no tiger has
been heard of for many years. His habits are untigerish in that the
earlier records of his activities were entirely confined to mauling
men by scratching them with his forefeet. There were thirty-three
instances of such attacks by this tiger, his victims being mainly
herdsmen. In not a single case did he either bite or kill his victim.
In every case he severely scratched the man from the crown of his
head, down his face and neck, and across his chest and back.

This conduct at first led me to think that the so-called tiger was
really a ‘panther’ after all. But when at a later stage I questioned
several of his victims, every one of them affirmed that it was a
tiger and not a panther that had attacked him.

I was also led to think that the animal had been wounded or
otherwise injured in some part of its jaw, mouth, or face, so that
he could not drive home his attack by biting his victim. This
theory was entirely refuted by the herdsmen, who stated that
during two years, the same tiger had killed and eaten over two
hundred of their cattle. They had examined many of these kills
after the event, and in no case was any evidence found that the
tiger had been unable to use his teeth properly. He had not only
killed his prey in regular tiger fashion by breaking its neck, but
had eaten each animal in a very normal and thorough manner.
 The next strange thing about this animal was that he had begun
his depredations in a most un-tigerish stretch of the forest,
consisting of low scrub and thorn: very rocky, undulating hillocks
with occasional steep boulder-strewn rivulets between them,
flanked by long grass and occasional clumps of bamboo. It was
known that panthers frequently roamed this area, and had even
been seen on the main road that ran through it; but a tiger was
unknown to the existing generation.

This stretch of forest lies immediately to the south of the

Dimbum escarpment in the district of North Coimbatore. A sharp
drop of over 2,500 feet from Dimbum brings you to this region of
arid scrub land, dotted with frequent palm trees, and consisting
mostly of thorny bushes and lantana shrub. Other game is also
scarce, being confined to a few peafowl and an occasional jungle
sheep. The area is comparatively small, being about five miles
from north to south, and about thirty miles from east to west,
where it adjoins the Bhavani river, which eventually flows into
the river Cauvery.

We are told that this tiger had originally come from the Nilgiri
jungles, had wandered down to the Moyar river and then taken its
abode in this region. Its fondness for this locality can otherwise be
well understood, for it is an area scattered with small cattle-
patties, and entirely devoted to grazing hundreds of cattle. Hence,
what it lacks in natural wild game is more than balanced by the
large number of domestic animals, which are much easier prey to
any tiger.

The story goes that at the earlier stages the tiger killed
normally, ate his kills normally, and decamped normally, when
he was ‘shooed’ off his kills by enraged herdsmen. But, as the old
proverb says, ‘too much of anything is good for nothing’! Or, at
least, this tiger seemed to think so. The herdsmen evidently made
themselves too much of a nuisance to him, when too frequently
they drove him off his kills.
 The first attack, as is usually the case, was made on a herdsboy
who had had the temerity to throw a stone at him, just as he was
in the act of dragging away a fine fat cow he had killed. The stone
is reported to have struck the tiger’s flank; the tiger is reported to
have dropped the cow and charged the boy, whom he severely
scratched about the face and chest. Then he went back and
carried off the cow, which he thereafter ate in peace.

On several later occasions herdsmen and boys tried to drive him

off the beasts he had killed, or was in the act of carrying off, or
was actually eating. In each case the tiger attacked and scratched
the intruder.

Naturally, as such attacks multiplied, he was left more and

more alone. He was evidently a very wise tiger and had arrived at
the sensible conclusion that it paid him high dividends to scratch
but not to kill the intruders; for they thereafter left him more and
more to devour his kill untroubled.

And so time dragged on. Nearly two years had passed and the
victims of his scratching rose to thirty-three. Of these eleven died
of subsequent blood poisoning, arising from the putrid matter in
the tiger’s claws. But these deaths, of course, may not be regarded
as intentionally caused by the tiger himself. They were only an
indirect consequence of the attack.

And then, in July 1955, the first human being failed to return. It
was known that he had been attacked by the tiger, for his screams
for help had conveyed this information to another herdsman, who
had been standing near. This individual, very naturally, had run
away. In the earlier instances, the victims had generally managed
to stagger back to the main road or to the cattle village,
whichever happened to be nearer. But this victim did not return.
Some two hours later a search party set out to look for him. They
came to the spot where the attack had been made. This time they
found the dead cow, but they did not find the herdsman. The party
lacked the courage to follow up any further, and the herdsman
was never seen again.

A half-dozen more attacks were made, in three of which the

victims turned up as usual, badly scratched. But the remaining
three did not. Nor were they ever seen again. So the official score,
at the time my story really starts, amounted to four killings and
thirty-six maulings; the mauling, in every case, only by
scratching. Whether the tiger actually ate these four men it had
presumably killed, or only dragged them off to some remote part of
the jungle, where they had been later devoured by jackals,
hyaenas and vultures, there was no means of knowing.

I had read, now and then in the papers, of this animal’s doings
but had no details until an official report reached me from the
forest authorities. Also at about this time I had a few days’ leave
to my credit and thought it would be best spent in seeing if I could
catch up with this tiger.

The forest map I possessed, together with the information

received, indicated that the best place at which to make my
headquarters would be the small village of Rajnagara, where there
was a little forest ‘choultry’ that would give me and my
belongings shelter. This place, via Dimbum, is exactly 147 miles
from Bangalore, and the road being quite good, I reached it in my
Studebaker in just over four hours time, at about four in the
evening.

I had no idea that an exciting time was ahead of me, for I was
only two miles from Rajnagara itself, and was driving along the
road through the arid scrub area, when I saw three men in front of
me, one of them being supported by the other two. As I drew
abreast of them, I saw that the man in the middle was covered
with blood. Stopping to enquire the reason, I was told that only a
few minutes earlier he had been attacked and severely scratched
by this strange tiger. Closer questioning elicited the fact that the
tiger had attacked him after creeping up on him by stealth. The
victim told me that, before he knew he was in any danger, he had
heard a low growl; then the tiger appeared beside him, reared up
on its hind feet and scratched him severely about his face and
chest. He had fallen down with the tiger on top of him, and had
shouted for help. The tiger then left him and charged the cattle,
which were milling around. As he lay bleeding on the ground, he
had seen the tiger kill a half-grown brown bullock, which it had
then dragged away. As nobody had come to his assistance, he had
struggled to his feet and stumbled towards the road, still shouting
for help. His two companions had joined him a little later.

I regarded the opportunity as godsend, to be followed up at

once, and asked him to tell his companions the exact locality
where the attack had taken place. He did so, and I then asked for
one of the men to accompany me to the spot, while the other went
on to Rajnagara with the victim.

A heated altercation now took place between them, both

pleading urgent business at the village. It was clearly apparent
that neither wanted to expose himself to the risk of meeting the
tiger. For this I could hardly blame them, as the animal had
already established his ferocity, while I was a complete stranger to
them. They had absolutely no guarantee that I would not run
away when the tiger showed up, and leave my companion in its
clutches.

By much pleading, coercion and even threats, I eventually

induced one of the men, very reluctantly, to agree to come with
me, while the other continued with the wounded man.

My companion and myself then left the road and walked into
the jungle. All along the path we came on splashes of blood from
the recently wounded man. In crossing a bare stretch of rock these
were plentiful, causing me to realise that he had been more
severely hurt than I had actually noticed during my hurried
conversation. I began to think that I should have taken him in my
car to Satyamangalam, where there was a hospital, rather than
leave the poor fellow to get there as best he could. Against this
admitted negligence on my part, however, was the fact that I had
a unique opportunity to meet this tiger face to face and settle the
score once and for all.

A little later we came to the spot where the tiger had attacked
the man. The sand on the trail clearly told its own story. We began
to look around for the place where the tiger had killed the brown
bullock, and soon found it some thirty yards away. My companion
now refused to go any further, nor did I want him to, as he was
understandably in a state of abject fear and would be much more
a liability than an asset. So I left him standing nervously and
began to follow the dragmark clearly made by the tiger as he had
hauled the brown bull downhill towards the ravine that lay
between the hillock down which I was creeping, and another and
much higher hillock a quarter of a mile away.

Unfortunately, I had not anticipated such early action, and was

wearing ordinary leather shoes instead of the rubber-soled boots I
favoured for stalking. Try as I would, these shoes made some noise
on the hard ground and the rocky boulders that were scattered
there. Nevertheless I proceeded as silently as I could, till I had
almost reached the nullah. Then I stopped and gazed about me.
The scrub just here was very thick, and grew thicker where the
rivulet was actually winding. My eyes roved over the slopes of the
opposite hillock, which were fairly open. No signs of the tiger or
the bullock were visible, and it was obvious that he must have
hidden it somewhere in the nullah, and most probably would be
eating it at that very moment. Even if he was not actually eating
it, he would certainly be lying somewhere in the vicinity.

My shoes put me at a distinct disadvantage, and would betray

my further progress towards that nullah. If I removed them and
attempted to advance in my stockinged feet, I was almost certain
to step on a thorn, not to speak of the sharp stones that lay
everywhere. At the same time, I realised the opportunity was too
good to be lost, and should be pressed home somehow. It was a
chance in a thousand, which I might never get again. The time
was just 5 p.m., and there was an hour and a half before sunset.

While I stood debating the odds, the tiger made the first move.
He had quite obviously heard me; probably he had seen me too.
Anyhow he had, after the manner of a great general, decided to
make a flank attack. Quite unsuspected by me, he had already
crept up the very slope down which I was moving, but at a slightly
different angle, which brought him above and behind the spot
where I stood thinking. Then he had evidently crept on his belly
towards me, and was hiding behind a large bush, scarcely ten feet
away, all unknown to me. In this particular case, my sixth sense
of impending peril quite failed to register. I had just decided to
advance towards the nullah, when there was a shattering roar
behind me, and the tiger sprang out; I spun around and fired at
point-blank range, missing him completely.

Probably the noise of the explosion, perhaps the strangeness of

meeting someone who was obviously not a herdsman, or maybe
rather the loud scarlet-and-blue check bush-coat I happened to be
wearing, scared him off. For with a series of loud “Woofs’ he
bounded into the thicket and towards the nullah. I followed as
fast as I could, reaching the bed of the nullah, where I almost fell
over the brown bull. Examination showed that the tiger had
already begun his meal before he had heard or sensed my
approach, and had come forward on his own to the attack.

There were no trees in the vicinity, so I sat under the thick bush
till it began to grow dark, hoping against hope that the tiger might
put in a second appearance. But this he did not do, and at 6.15 I
cautiously retraced my steps the way I had come. Reaching the
place where I left the herdsman who had accompanied me, I found
him missing and concluded he had gone home. So I went on to the
road where my Studebaker stood, and shortly after reached
Rajnagara.

Here a considerable crowd had gathered, and from a forest guard

who was among them I found that the wounded herdsman had
already proceeded to Satyamangalam hospital, together with his
wife and brother. The herdsman who had accompanied me, whom
I had left standing at the spot where the tiger had made his attack,
while I had followed up the drag-mark alone, had failed to return.

I knew that he had not been at the place where I had left him,
also that the tiger had run away after I had missed it. Where had
the herdsman gone? We all realised that he would not remain in
the jungle, or on the road, in a vicinity haunted by this tiger.
What had become of him? I pondered this question, while his wife
and family, who were also among the crowd and had overheard
my enquiries, began to weep and wail.

It was now quite dark, and to search for the missing man would
be impossible, as no traces would be visible had the tiger taken
him away. Nevertheless, calling the forest guard to accompany
me, I drove back to the spot where I had earlier left the car. Here
we halted for a while, and I instructed the guard to call the man
by name. This produced no results. We drove a further mile along
the road and then returned to the village. By now it was evident to
me that my companion of the evening before had been taken by
the tiger. Evidently, while I had spent an hour sitting in the
nullah, watching for the tiger to return to the carcase of the
brown bull, the tiger had done some hunting on his own, and had
carried off the unfortunate herdsman.

We did not get much sleep that night, having to listen to the
weeping and wailing of the man’s family, who squatted at the
door of the forest choultry and amidst tears, reminded me that I
was responsible for his death. This though impinged itself on my
conscience very forcibly, for had I not almost forced the poor man
to accompany me he would have been alive at that moment.

Early dawn found me retracing my steps to the spot where I had

left him. Reaching it, I began looking around for any signs of
struggle or other marks of the tiger’s attack. Absolutely nothing
was visible on the hard ground.

In the course of my search I walked around in ever widening

circles, but still could find nothing. What had become of him was
a mystery. I knew he had not followed me while I had pursued the
tiger the previous evening. It was more likely that, being afraid of
standing alone, he had begun to walk back towards the road.
Working on this theory, I now turned back and slowly retraced my
steps, looking around for possible traces.

About three hundred yards from where I had left him I found the
first evidence in the form of an odd leather sandal, and not far
away its fellow. At this spot short dry grass covered the ground
and so no footprints were visible. But the position of the sandals
made it clear to me that he had kicked them off, obviously in
order to run faster. Searching around as I walked, I then saw
something white flapping in the breeze under a bush to my left. It
was the man’s loincloth in India known as a ‘dhoti’. On the grass,
and sprinkled on the bushes, were tiny splashes of blood, while
closer inspection showed where the tiger had dashed through the
undergrowth and caught up with its victim. From here the tiger
had dragged the man in a course almost parallel with the road,
towards the same nullah in which I had been sitting all the while
the evening before, but considerably further down from where he
had hidden the brown bull.

I must have walked a quarter of a mile before eventually

stepping on to the rocky bed of this rivulet. Nothing was to be seen
and here was complete silence. I knew the tiger must have hidden
the remains somewhere in the vicinity.
 While watching quietly, a couple of magpies attracted my
attention from a spot about one hundred yards downstream. They
were perched on the top of a thorny babul tree, where they were
jabbering excitedly, frequently looking downward. The signs of
the jungle are very clear to those who can read them. The magpies
had either found the body, or were looking at the tiger, who in
turn was probably looking at me.

Keeping to the centre of the nullah, I began to tiptoe forward,

the rubber boots I was wearing this time making no noise against
the rocks. Halfway to the babul tree, the magpies saw me, ceased
their jabbering and flew off.

I had marked the spot where they had been perched, and
approached cautiously. Immediately below the babul tree, a small
elongated black rock jutted from the bank on to the bed of the
stream, and lying behind this rock were the half-eaten remains of
poor Muniappa, the missing man. Soft sand at the spot also
revealed the tiger’s pug-marks, and a cursory examination of them
showed that the animal was a male tiger of no great size or build.

Once again, there was no tree in the vicinity on which I could

sit, except the aforementioned babul, which was unusable
because of its thorny nature. Nor, as it happened, were there any
large bushes or bamboo clumps under which I could shelter. In
every way the spot was about the most unfavourable, if not
impossible, one for ‘sitting up’ that I had ever encountered. Still, I
would have to do something about it for by this time there was
absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was, at least indirectly,
possibly directly, the cause of poor Muniappa’s death.

I knew the tiger was not likely to return to his meal until the
afternoon at the earliest. If I left the body as it was, the vultures
would see it within a couple of hours and pick it clean. So I
removed the khaki coat I was wearing and spread it over the
corpse, weighing it down here and there with small boulders that
lay at hand. Then I went back to the car and returned to
Rajnagara.

Here I was forced to give the bad news, which not only led to
renewed wailing, but a demand from the bereaved wife that the
body of her husband be brought back at once for cremation. It took
us a full hour to persuade her to give me a chance, that evening,
for a shot at the tiger by sitting over the body, a chance which
would be entirely lost if she had her way. Eventually, she very
grudgingly assented.

After breakfast, I called a ‘Council of War’, which consisted of

the village Patel, the forest guard and myself. Explaining to them
the position in which I had left the body, I told them that I would
return to it at noon and sit beside the body to wait the tiger’s
return. They thought this was a foolish idea, and I heartily
concurred. But as nobody could suggest a better one, there was no
alternative but to carry it out, other than to bring the remains
back to the village and thereby lose a possible shot at the tiger.

Shortly after midday found me seated a few yards from the

cadaver, from which a distinctly unpleasant odour was now rising.
In fact, millions of bluebottles had already settled on my coat, and
as soon as I removed it they swarmed over the remains.

I was prepared for the unpleasant situation, having plugged

small wads of cotton wool into my nostrils; but despite these
measures that awful stench penetrated my defences, and in time I
began to feel sick. The heat was terrible. The silence was absolute,
except for the chirruping of the cicadas from the branches of the
surrounding bushes.

Three o’clock passed, then four and then five. At five-thirty a

peacock flapped down to the streambed. As I sat motionless he had
not even noticed me, which goes to confirm how invaluable
absolute stillness is when out in a forest. He walked up the bed
and only when ten feet away did he become aware of the two
strange objects before him. He rose into the air, hurriedly and
heavily, with a tremendous beating of his wings to gain
momentum before he was able to fly away.

As may be imagined, I was by this time in a state of great

excitement, and even greater fear, and I was, besides, on the verge
of retching from the awful stench that rose from the half-eaten
man.

Then followed complete silence for fifteen minutes: a silence

that was all-pervading, that envelops one, that is everywhere,
even in the very air. There was not even the creak of the wood-
cricket, nor the twitter of the tiniest bird, nor even the faintest
rustle of a dry leaf falling to the ground. Only a total and absolute
stillness. That is what silence feels like, when one sits waiting for
a man-eater to appear.

Although I was sitting perfectly motionless, my eyes minutely

searched the scrub before me and on either side. All my senses
were fully and painfully alert. But no sight nor sound registered on
them.

The cheery evening crow of a junglecock, a little further up the

nullah, relieved the tension. Six o’clock came, and then six-
fifteen. An early nightjar began his peculiar clucking call. I knew
that the time had come for me to leave. In a short while it would
be completely dark, and then to sit for the man-eater in the open
would be suicide indeed.

Getting stiffly to my feet, I walked back to the car, where I had

previously arranged for a party of men to meet me and bring back
the remains of the unfortunate Muniappa. It was quite dark by the
time I collected them. But I knew my torchlight and their numbers
would render us immune from any attack by the tiger. We
returned to the ravine, where we gathered up all that remained of
the unlucky herdsman in an old blanket which the men had
brought with them for the purpose. Then, while the little
procession wended its way towards Rajnagara, I motored back
along the road.

Early next day found me again prowling about near the little
nullah. The tiger had not returned to the spot where the body had
been, as I could see by the absence of tracks. I then decided to
walk along the bed of this stream towards the place where the
brown bull had been left two days previously. I did this very
cautiously, as the stream bed narrowed in places to hardly more
than six feet and at points was nothing more than a pile of
boulders or was entirely overgrown with lantana shrub. The
brown bull had been hidden more than half a mile from where the
man had been eaten. It had been hidden well beneath an
overhanging bush I knew was safe from vultures. But when I
reached it, it was only to find that the tiger had returned during
the night and demolished it completely. Perhaps he had lost
interest in his human kill or may have seen me earlier in the
evening, sitting beside it, and become suspicious. Anyhow, the
fact was that no kill remained and I would have to try other
means of meeting the tiger.

Up till noon that day, and again in the evening I roamed about
over hillocks and through valleys, across other streams and along
their beds. Many times I came across the tracks of the tiger, but
never once did I see him, nor catch any sign of his presence in the
vicinity.

I spent three days in this fashion, but with entirely negative

results. I had taken only a week’s leave and had scarcely four days
left in which to shoot the tiger.

Next morning I adopted fresh tactics. Climbing to the top of a

large hillock in the centre of the terrain, I called as loudly as
possible, in tiger fashion. Every ten minutes or so I repeated the
call, hoping to hear an answer. Two hours later I did the same
thing on a neighbouring hill. No sound came in reply. In the
evening I followed the same plan, and yet the tiger did not
respond. It was clear by this time that he was not in the
immediate vicinity.

On the fifth day the herdsmen went out again with their cattle.
You, who read this, may consider it a very brave thing on their
part, and doubtless it was. But you must also realise the cattle
were dependent for their food entirely on grazing. No grazing
meant no food, for no provision had been made in any of the cattle
villages for a reserve of fodder.

That morning, I joined the herdsmen and wandered amongst

their animals, doing the same thing in the evening. But night fell
without any sign of the tiger. The sixth morning found me very
despondent, as I felt the animal I was after had moved away and
would not give me a second chance to bag him. But there was
nothing more I could do, beyond mixing with the various herds of
cattle as they grazed in the area.

I covered a number of miles that morning and was about eight

miles from the place where Muniappa had been killed when, at
about noon a group of men came running through the shrub to tell
me that another herdsman had been attacked three miles away.

I hurried with them to where the man was lying. I saw once
more the familiar signs: severe scratches across face, chest and
sides, but no bite whatever. This man had lost a good deal of blood
and was too weak to walk, so I hurried back to my car, instructing
the men to carry him to the road. From there I took him to
Satyamangalam, where I left him in the local hospital in pretty
bad shape. Then I dashed back to the spot on the road to which he
had been carried, left the car and went back into the jungle. There
was no difficulty in following the copious blood trail he had left
behind him, and this led me to the site of the attack.
 In this case I discovered that the tiger had not succeeded in
killing any of the cattle, which had escaped by stampeding en
masse to the road. So searching for the tiger seemed again a
hopeless undertaking. I wandered around, and every now and
again called in tiger fashion, hoping to attract him. There was no
response, and so ended another day.

That night I thought of motoring up and down the road that led
through the shrub for about five miles, using my spotlight in the
hope of picking up the tiger’s eyes, should he be passing anywhere
within range. I began to put this plan into practice at about 10
p.m., driving slowly, allowing for a stop of fifteen minutes at the
end of each trip. Six hours of this monotonous procedure found me
desperately sleepy and with a very low petrol tank.

Thus dawned the seventh and last day of my leave. After the
latest attack, the herdsmen had not turned out with their cattle,
so for the last time I wandered alone through the scrub, hoping to
meet the elusive tiger. Noon found me about six miles from my
car, when I turned and began to retrace steps.

I was walking down hillock and just reached the small

depression at the foot of it. Before me another hillock rose. No
stream traversed this valley, which was dotted with a few stunted
babul trees, growing amidst the usual lantana and other shrubs.
Hardly fifty yards ahead, the tiger stalked out. We saw each other
at the same moment, and then, with a short bound, he
disappeared behind a lantana clump.

Raising the rifle to my shoulder I advanced slowly, expecting,

and even hoping, for a charge that would bring him to my sights.
At the same time I was mortally afraid, and my heart beat a loud
tattoo.

The charge never came! A sixth sense appeared to have told him
that here was no victim, but one who was deliberately out to
destroy him. He must have slipped away before I drew level with
the bush behind which he had disappeared, for he most certainly
was not there. I walked around it and searched everywhere, but I
never saw him again.

Thus ended my seventh and last day. The time had now come
for me to return to Bangalore and duty.

Although this is the story of an unsuccessful hunt—indeed, a

story of complete failure—I have told it so that the reader may
realise that such adventures are not always crowned with success.
Failure and disappointment are far more frequent. But the hard
work, strenuous effort, the very thrill of the chase, the pitting of
human brains against animal instinct— all these factors are there,
and to a considerable extent compensate the enthusiast for his
failure. For although I was really sorry that I had to leave the
herdsmen, at least for some time, to the continued ravages of this
animal, I felt satisfied that I had done my best and I looked
forward to returning, when I might meet with better luck.

I handed a cheque to Muniappa’s widow and started on that

five-mile stretch of road on the beginning of my return journey to
Bangalore. As the thorn bushes flashed past the car, I bade a
temporary farewell to that extremely cunning and quite
extraordinary tiger, which had not only succeeded in outwitting
me at every encounter, but had also successfully hidden the reason
for his peculiar habit of only scratching and not biting his victims
—except those he actually killed.
The Black Panther of Sivanipalli

AND OTHER ADVENTURES OF THE INDIAN

JUNGLE

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. A Panther’s Way
2. The Man-eating Panther of the Yellagiri Hills
3. Old Munuswamy and the Panther of Magadi
4. The Black Panther of Sivanipalli
5. Snakes and Other Jungle Creatures
6. The Killer From Hyderabad
7. The Big Bull Bison of Gedesal
8. The Maned Tiger of Chordi
9. Man-eater of Pegepalyam
 Introduction

HE first five chapters of this book are devoted to panthers.

T Perhaps you may wonder why I have concentrated on panthers
and not written of the other animals of the jungle too. Well, for
one reason, panthers are still very common in India. Secondly,
they are comparatively easy to find, inasmuch as to this day they
are met within a few miles of some of the big towns. For a third
reason, hunting panthers is fairly inexpensive and well within the
reach of the average person’s pocket. A panther will come for such
bait as a dog, a goat or a donkey; whereas a tiger must be attracted
by a buffalo or a bull, which costs much more.

In return, shooting panthers by the sporting method of sitting on

the ground instead of in the safety of a tree machan offers quite as
great a thrill as tiger hunting.

I have also written a chapter about tigers and other animals,

and something more about snakes. Why I have included snakes is
because, although a great deal has been written and is known
about tigers, elephants, lions and big animals in various parts of
the world, not much has been written about snakes, and most
people know very little regarding them, except that in general
they should be avoided. I hope I am able to throw some light upon
these equally interesting creatures. Nor must the reader think for
a moment that tigers, panthers, bears and elephants are the most
dangerous creatures to be encountered in an Indian jungle. Far
quicker, far less visible, and far more potent is the poisonous snake
that lurks in a bush or in the grass.

I have also told the story of a very gallant bison and two
adventures with tigers. These last two will give you an idea of the
many difficulties, hardships and disappointments involved in
trying to shoot a man-eating tiger. In one case I failed completely;
in the other I succeeded, but only by pure chance. I have closed
with a brief account of a tiger that behaved very strangely. He is
alive as I write this—and he is still an engima.

As I record these adventures, the sights and sounds of the

present fade way and memories come rushing in. The blackness of
the forest night with the star-filled sky above and the twinkling
gems of the jungle carpet below, the myriads of fireflies that glitter
together like elfin lamps amidst the dark foliage; and those other,
brighter, living lights, the glowing eyes of a tiger, panther or bison,
and the green eyes of graceful deer tripping daintily through the
undergrowth, reflecting the beams of my torch as I walk beneath
the whispering trees.

Come with me for the few hours it may take you to read this
book into the domain of the tiger, the panther and the elephant,
amidst the stupendous swaying heights and deep shade of the
giant trees whose boles form the structure of this marvellous
edifice. Forget the false values and ideas of what is called
civilization, those imposed rules on the free and simple truths of
life. Here in the jungle you will find truth, you will find peace,
bliss and happiness; you will find life itself. There is no room, no
time at all, for hypocrisy, for make-believe, for that which is
artificial and false. You are face to face with the primitive, with
that which is real, with that which is most wonderful—which is
God.

If I can succeed in spiriting you away for a few moments from all
that is mundane in your life, into the marvels of a tropical jungle
and its excitements, where your life depends on your senses, your
wits, your skill, and in the end on Providence, as you creep on the
blood-trail of a wounded man-eater through dense verdure or
among piled boulders, then I shall feel myself amply rewarded.

—Kenneth Anderson
 1

A Panther’s Way

VERY panther differs from any other panther. Some panthers

E are very bold; others are very timid. Some are cunning to the
degree of being uncanny; others appear quite foolish. I have met
panthers that seemed almost to possess a sixth sense, and acted
and behaved as if they could read and anticipate one’s very
thought. Lastly, but quite rarely, comes the panther that attacks
people, and more rarely still, the one that eats them.

A man-eating beast is generally the outcome of some

extraordinary circumstance. Maybe someone has wounded it, and
it is unable henceforth to hunt its natural prey—other animals—
easily. Therefore, through necessity it begins to eat humans,
because they offer an easy prey. Or perhaps a panther has eaten a
dead human body which was originally buried in a too-shallow
grave and later dug up by jackals or a bear. Once having tasted
human flesh, the panther often takes a liking to it. Lastly, but
very rarely indeed, it may have been the cub of a man-eating
mother, who taught it the habit.

Generally a panther is an inoffensive and quite harmless animal

that is fearful of human beings and vanishes silently into the
undergrowth at the sight or sound of them. When wounded, some
show an extraordinary degree of ferocity and bravery. Others
again are most cowardly and allow themselves to be followed up,
or even chased like curs.

If from a hill-top you could watch a panther stalking his prey,

he would offer a most entertaining spectacle. You would see him
taking advantage of every bush, of every tree-trunk, and of every
stone behind which to take cover. He can flatten himself to the
ground in an amazing fashion. His colouration renders him
invisible, unless you have the keenest eyesight. I once watched
one through a pair of binoculars and was amazed at the really
wonderful sense of woodcraft the panther had. Then comes the
final rush. In a couple of bounds, and with lightning speed, he
reaches his prey.

With unerring aim, he seizes the throat with his powerful fangs
from above and behind, so that when the animal falls to earth the
panther may be on the side opposite and away from its threshing
hooves, which might otherwise cause serious injury. The prey is
forced to the ground and that vice-like grip never relaxes till the
animal is dead. Even then, the panther retains his vicious hold
while sucking the lifeblood of his victim through the deep
punctures he has made in its throat.

Imagine, then, the stillness of the jungle and the stealthy

coming of the panther as he approaches his kill or stalks the live
bait that has been tied out for him. If you want to hunt the
panther, watch very carefully: try to penetrate every bush, look
into every clump of grass, be careful when you pass a rock or a
boulder, gaze into hollows and ravines. For the panther may be
behind any of these, or be lying in some hole in the ground. Not
only your success, but even your life will depend upon your care,
for you have pitted your wits against perhaps the most adept of
jungle dwellers and a very dangerous killer.

One of the most difficult and exciting pastimes is to try to hunt

the panther on his own terms. This is known as ‘still-hunting’.

To still-hunt successfully, you must have a keen sense of the

jungle, a soft tread, and an almost panther-like mind; for you are
going to try to circumvent this very cunning animal at his own
game. You are about to hunt him on your own feet—and
remember, he is the most skilful of hunters himself.
 The first thing to know is the time of the day he comes out to
search for his prey. He is generally a nocturnal animal, and stalks
the forest at night. You, being human, cannot see in the dark
unless you are aided by a torchlight. But that would not be still-
hunting. The next best time would be the late evening just before
it grows dark. Then there is a chance of meeting an early panther.
It is useless to go out during the day, for at that time he is resting.
Besides, he does not like the hot sun.

Secondly, where are, generally speaking, the best places in

which to look for him? To answer this, you should know the
answer to the next question—on what does a panther normally
prey in the jungle? The reply to that question is not going to be
very helpful, for a panther will eat anything that is alive, provided
it is not too large to be tackled. Jungle fowl, peafowl, rabbits,
monkeys, wild pigs, and any of the deer family, excepting the very
large stags. Near villages, domestic pigs, dogs, goats, sheep,
donkeys and average-sized cattle are his staple diet. Even a stray
village cat will fill the bill, provided it is foolish enough to stray
too far from the huts.

Let us suppose for the moment that we are in a jungle where the
panther hunts his natural food. How does the panther go about his
hunting? Remember, he has marvellous sight and acute hearing,
but hardly any sense of smell. What would you do, if you were in
the panther’s place?

Obviously, one of two things. You would either move around

silently in localities where the food is to be found, or you would
hide yourself near some spot where your food is likely to come.
The panther does just that.

He moves about stealthily, on padded feet, in places where he

thinks the birds and animals he is seeking are likely to be, or he
lies in wait for them near some water hole or salt lick that they
generally visit.
 If he is stalking and wants to be silent, he cannot always move
in the undergrowth, or among dead leaves, for they will crackle or
rustle. So he walks stealthily along footpaths, game-trails, a forest
fire-line, or in the shelter of the banks of a nullah or a stream.
Alternatively, he hides at the approaches to water, or a salt lick,
where he can pounce upon his quarry as it passes by. It is in such
places that you must look for him.

Further, movement on your part will attract his attention.

Therefore, take a walk around the jungle in the daytime and see if
you can discover pug-marks—not just a stray set of pugs, but a
series of marks, old and new. When you have found them, you will
know you have hit upon a well-used panther trail. Try to select a
point where two or more such trails meet or cross, or a spot where
such a trail or a fire-line crosses a stream.

When you have found it, return the same evening and hide
yourself behind a convenient tree-trunk or bush; and then,
whatever you do, sit perfectly still while keeping a sharp lookout
along the paths or sections of fire-line or streambed that are in
view. If you are lucky, you may see a hunting panther walking
along one of these, perhaps looking up now and again into the
trees in search of a monkey or one of the larger jungle birds. It goes
without saying, of course, that in such vigils you might also spot a
tiger, an elephant, or one of the several deer species.

But let us continue to suppose for the moment that you are only
after a panther. If you can locate a jungle pool or a salt lick, it
would be convenient to lie down under some cover beside it, or
behind an ant-hill, if available. You will derive much
entertainment in observing the various denizens of the forest as
they visit such a rendezvous. Don’t be too surprised if, after a
time, you notice a panther or tiger taking up a somewhat similar
position to your own, although I may warn you that it will be very
hard for you to become aware of them, so silently do they move.
As I have already said, such places are favoured by carnivora
when lying in wait for their natural food.

I remember that I was once lying in the grass behind the trunk of
a tree overlooking a salt lick formed in a corner of a shallow
ravine. Earlier examination had shown that spotted deer and
sambar visited this salt lick in large numbers. It was growing dusk
when the faintest of rustles a little behind me caused me to turn
my head slowly and glance back. There I saw a panther regarding
me with very evident surprise. Seeing he was discovered, he stood
up and half-turned around with the intention of getting away.
Then he looked back at me once again, as much as to say, ‘Can’t
you get the hell out of here?’ Finally he moved off.

It is fascinating to watch one of these animals with her cubs, or

a tigress with hers. The solicitude of the mother is very noticeable.
Carnivora do not bring their cubs out of the cave where they are
born until old enough to walk stably and understand the
rudiments of hunting. Till such time, they are sheltered carefully
in the cave. When very young, they are fed entirely on milk.
When they grow a little older, the mother begins to feed them on
raw meat which first she herself eats and partially digests, and
then vomits out for the cubs to feed on. As the cubs themselves
become able to digest stronger meat, the mother brings her kills to
the cave—perhaps a jungle fowl or peafowl, and as time passes,
small animals, increasing to the leg of deer, or perhaps a deer
itself.

Cubs are very greedy and if left to themselves will overeat and
make themselves ill. I have kept a number of panther and tiger
cubs, and have found the former particularly prone to gastritis.
They will stuff themselves by gobbling chunks of raw meat, and
will drink bowls of blood, till almost unable to move. Once they
are attacked by gastritis, the malady proves practically incurable,
and they die in three or four days in great agony. This complaint
seems to affect them until they are about eight months old, and I
have lost quite a few by it.

In the wild state, a mother appears to know this instinctively

and gives her young just enough to eat, supplementing raw meat
with natural milk till the cubs are quite big and start to bite and
scratch her while she is suckling them.

If danger threatens the cave, in the form of intruding human

beings or the male of the species, which is rather fond of eating his
young, she will move them to a safer abode. This she does by
carrying them in her mouth by the scruff of the neck, one at a
time.

When the cubs are old enough to walk, the mother takes them
out for education in the art of stalking and killing for themselves.
This is quite a lengthy process. She begins by killing the prey
herself, while the cubs hide in the undergrowth. Then she calls
them with a series of guttural mewing-like sounds, allowing them
to romp over the dead animal, bite it and get the taste of a fresh
kill and warm blood. The ferocious sounds emitted by the cubs
when doing this are quite amusing to hear. They bolster up their
courage and lash themselves into a fury, growling and snapping at
each other and even at their mother.

The next lesson starts when she only half-kills the prey, or
hamstrings it, allowing the youngsters to finish the task as best
they can. This they begin doing by attacking the throat and biting
the animal to death—a very cruel process.

Education in the art of killing goes much farther in the case of

tiger cubs than in that of panthers. Panthers choke their victims to
death by gripping the throat and hanging on, whereas the tiger
very scientifically breaks the neck. Hence tiger cubs take much
longer to teach, and it is a common occurrence for a tigress to kill
four or five cattle in a herd while teaching her young which,
equally often if left to themselves, make a mess of the job by
merely biting or mauling an animal, which eventually escapes.

I have mentioned that a tiger is a very scientific and neat killer.

He generally leaps half across the back of his quarry, bending over
and seizing the throat on its other side, while hanging on with his
forepaws in a powerful shoulder-grip. Then he wrenches upwards
and backwards in a swift, violent jerk which topples the animal
over. It is the combined weights of the quarry and the tiger,
coupled with the sudden mighty twist of the neck, that breaks the
victim’s neck.

When a mother tiger or panther comes out on the hunting trail

with her young, they follow behind, copying every action of the
parent and sinking to the ground or behind the cover exactly as
she does. At such times it is dangerous to be too near a tigress. She
is liable to attack you in defence of her young. A pantheress is less
likely to attack, although she will demonstrate by growling
ferociously. Even so, one never can tell, and it is wise to have your
rifle ready when a family procession comes into view.

But whatever you do, and unless utterly unavoidable and in

self-defence, please do not shoot the mother, be it panther or tiger,
for if you do the cubs will invariably escape into the jungle where
they may starve to death, or if they are big enough they may
develop into man-eaters. You should remember they have not yet
learned properly the art of killing their natural food, other
animals. If you interrupt their education at this stage they may,
by force of circumstances which you have created, turn to killing
human beings to appease their hunger. Bear in mind always that a
human being is much easier to stalk, attack and kill than any of
the larger animals.

An interesting period to indulge in this pastime of stalking is

during the Indian winter—that is, the months of November,
December and January—for then is the mating season of both
these species of carnivora.

Of course, you should remember that these animals are mostly

active during the night, and that there is only an off-chance of
hearing or seeing them towards dusk. It is thrilling to listen to the
sound of a tigress calling her mate, and one can almost detect the
note of impatience in her summons. I should warn you, however,
that tigers are definitely dangerous during this season,
particularly when courting the female, or in the act of mating.
Their method is exceedingly rough, both the tiger and tigress often
biting and scratching each other freely.

You may have observed the strange behaviour of domestic cats

during mating. Multiply this many, many times, and you will
have some idea of the savagery of tigers when making love. They
lash themselves into a frenzy and a fury, and woe betide a human
who intrudes upon their privacy at this time of sexual excitement.
The tigress has the reputation of being even more excitable and
consequently more dangerous than the tiger at this period. A
tigress on heat, calling lustily, has often stopped forest operations
and bullock-cart traffic through the jungle over large areas.

Panthers are much the same in this respect, but generally lack
the courage to attack a human intruder, although they will
demonstrate in no uncertain manner.

A panther resembles a cat more closely than does a tiger. The

scratching up of sand or dead leaves by the side of a game-track
reveals where a panther has answered the call of nature and then
covered up the excreta, exactly in the same way as a domestic
cat. A tiger, however, will not bother to do this, but leaves it
exposed in the manner of a dog. The excreta, in both cases,
consists mostly of the undigested hair of the last kill.
 The hyaena, which is a carrion eater, swallows bones and all
complete. So the droppings of this animal are easily recognisable
as hard, white lumps of semi-digested bones. The track of a
hyaena is identifiable in the great difference between the size of
the fore and hind-paws; the forepaws are much larger.

Panthers, like tigers, retract their claws when walking, so that

the difference between a panther’s pug-marks and those of a
hyaena, which are about the same in size, is that the ‘ball’ of the
panther’s pug is much larger than the hyaena’s, while the points
of the claws do not show at all. The hyaena, being unable to
retract its claws, leaves their imprint clearly on the ground.

In the past there has been much controversy between those

sportsmen who have claimed that the panther and the leopard are
two entirely different species of animal and those who have said
that they are one and the same. This argument has died out with
modern times, when it has been recognized that they are indeed
one and the same. Difference in environment and diet has caused
some animals to grow to a much larger size than others. The
forest-dwelling panther, with his richer diet of game-animals,
generally grow, much bigger and has a darker and thicker coat
than the panther that lives near villages, where his food is
restricted to dogs and goats. Also, living among rocks and boulders
as the latter generally does, his coat is paler, and the hair short
and coarse. Incidentally, the darker coat of the forest-dwelling
panther helps to camouflage him very effectively against the
dense vegetation of the jungle, while the paler coat of the ‘village
panther’, as he is sometimes called, makes it very difficult to
detect him among the rocks where he lives.

Very occasionally, however, there are exceptions in both cases,

and Nature appears unaccountably to break her own rule. I have
shot some very large panthers living near villages and far from the
regular jungle, possessing dark rich coats of hair, and some quite
small ones within the forest with pale coats.
 Much the same applies to tigers. Those that have accustomed
themselves to eating cattle become heavy and fat, while the true
game-killers are sleek and muscular, carrying no fat at all, for they
have a far more strenuous time hunting wild game than does the
cattle-lifter, which procures its prey with little or no effort.
Strenuous exercise reduces fat, not only in human beings, but in
tigers also.

Man-eaters of both species are distinct anomalies and the

products of unnatural circumstances, some of which have been
mentioned already.

Panthers can climb quite well and they sometimes ascend trees
after monkeys, or to escape when pursued by wild dogs. Tigers do
not, although I have known one in the Mysore Zoological Gardens
that has accustomed itself to climbing quite high and lying on a
platform that had been specially built for it on a tree within its
enclosure. This is an instance of the fact that tigers, like human
beings, as individuals differ from one another.

Both panthers and tigers hunt monkeys by a quite unique

method. Jungle monkeys are very vigilant and keep a sharp
lookout for carnivora, which are their natural enemies. At the
sound or sight of any of these animals they climb to the topmost
branches, where they are safe. Knowing this, panthers and tigers
charge at the foot of the tree up which the monkeys have climbed,
uttering a series of terrific growls and roars. These fearsome
sounds quite unnerve the poor monkeys, which, instead of
remaining on their perches where they are safe, attempt to leap to
the next tree; or, if that is too far away, jump to the ground from
enormous heights with the intention of making a run to climb
another tree. In this process some of them injure themselves or are
stunned, and fall easy victims to the clever hunter.

One of the most intelligent animals, if not the most intelligent,

in the Indian jungle is the wild dog. Shikaris of earlier days have
variously given this place to the wild elephant, tiger and panther,
but if you have studied the habits of the wild dog you may be
inclined to disagree with them. When hunting deer they send out
‘flankers’, which run ahead of the quarry and ambush it later. In
large packs of thirty or more, these animals are fearless hunters,
and will ring, attack and kill any tiger or panther by literally
tearing it to bits, despite the number of casualties they may suffer
in the process.

Particularly in the forests of Chittoor District, in the former

Presidency of Madras, they have earned quite a reputation for this,
and I know of at least three instances where a very gory battle had
been waged, resulting eventually in the tiger being torn to shreds,
but not before he had killed a half-dozen of the dogs and maimed
many others. I have never come across a panther destroyed in this
fashion because, as I have said before, of their ability to escape by
climbing trees.

The tiger takes to water and will swim across large rivers freely.
Especially in hot weather, he is very fond, during the midday
hours, of taking his siesta by the banks of a shady stream or pool,
sometimes lying in the water itself. He hunts freely on rainy days,
and his pug-marks are often seen in the morning after a night of
pouring rain. This is not so with the panther. A true cat in every
respect, he detests water, abhors rain, and is not given to
swimming, although he can do so in emergencies, such as to
escape from a pack of wild dogs.

The tiger was originally an immigrant into India from the colder
regions of Mongolia. Hence his liking for cool spots in which to
shelter from the heat. The panther is a true native of India and of
the tropics.

Tigers very occasionally mimic the calls of sambar, obviously to

attract and ambush them. Such mimicry is heard very rarely and
only in forests where deer are plentiful. Panthers, however, do not
follow this practice but rely entirely on their silent stalking, their
ability to flatten themselves to the ground and hide in incredibly
small places, and their final quick rush upon their quarry.

It was often said by the sportsmen of the past that the tiger is a
‘gentleman’ while the panther is a ‘bounder’. I think these sayings
have gained popularity from the experiences some of those hardy,
old stalwarts have gained while following wounded animals of
both species with their old-fashioned guns, frequently muzzle-
loaders. Hats off to them, indeed. Ill-armed and awkwardly clad in
the fashions of those days, wearing heavy boots and
cumbersomely thick solar topees, they followed a wounded
animal fearlessly on foot. How different from the modern ‘hunter’
who shoots at night from the safety of a motorcar, the lights of
which dazzle the poor animal and give it not the ghost of a
chance!

A wounded tiger generally betrays his whereabouts by growling

as his pursuer approaches, but a wounded panther often lies silent
and concealed, and attacks the hunter from behind, when he has
passed. Hence there seems to be some justification for those who
labelled the panther a ‘bounder’. Actually, a tiger is generally far
braver and certainly much more formidable, and when he attacks
to kill he finishes that job very thoroughly. A panther, however—
unless he is a man-eater—will maul his pursuer and then escape
rather than kill him outright.

Panthers gnaw at the bones of their kills, even when they are in
a very far advanced state of decomposition. As a rule, tigers do not
visit their kills after the second day. For one thing, they eat much
more and so have finished all there is to eat, after two or three
meals. Also, on the whole, they are cleaner feeders. Decomposed
flesh becomes embedded beneath the claws of both species. This
breeds dangerous germs, and it is the scratches inflicted by these
animals, more than their bites, that lead to blood-poisoning.
Tigers are very conscious of this foreign matter under their claws,
and clean them, in addition to sharpening them, by scratching
upon the soft bark of certain trees. Panthers do this very rarely, so
that their claws are generally more infected. Trees bearing such
claw-marks at the height of six or seven feet, where a tiger has
reared up on his hind legs and cleaned the claws of his forepaws,
are a happy sign to the hunter of the presence of his quarry.

In other ways also, the tiger is a much cleaner feeder. Whereas a

panther starts his meal by burrowing into his kill from the
stomach end, and soon has the stomach, entrails, offal and so on,
all mixed up with the meat of his kill, the tiger makes a vent near
the anus into which he inserts his paw and removes the intestines
and stomach, dragging them about ten feet away before he begins
to eat a clean meal. To facilitate this procedure, he often removes
the tail of the animal by biting it off near the root. The larger type
of panthers found in forests occasionally do the same thing, but
never the normal and smaller beasts, which soon get themselves
mixed up in a repast in which the guts and excreta are all
included.

The cave or den of a tigress and her cubs is very cleanly kept
compared with that occupied by a family of panthers, and seems
conspicuously free of bones and other waste matter which is
almost always present where panthers live.

Apart from the mating season, tigers advertise their presence in

a jungle much more than panthers do. The tribes of aborigines
living in the forests of India will confirm this and will tell you the
rough direction of the trails generally followed by tigers while out
hunting. Their melodious, deep-throated and long-drawn moaning
call, terminating in that never-to-be-forgotten ‘oo-oo-ongh’ that
reverberates down the aisles of the valleys and across the wooded
glens of the jungle in the stygian darkness beneath the giant forest
trees, or in the phosphorescent moonlight, is music to the jungle-
lover’s ears. The harsher but less distance-carrying call of the
panther, very closely resembling a man sawing wood, that
occasionally penetrates the still darkness of the jungle night, is
much less frequently heard.

Another habit peculiar to the tiger is his way of following a

particular beat on his hunting expeditions. This may extend for
miles and miles, maybe a hundred miles; but it invariably follows
the same course; perhaps the bed of a certain dry nullah, along the
banks of a river or stream, through some wooded valley or the
shoulder of a hill. On a favourite trail you may find the pug-marks
of the hunting tiger, imprinted in the powdery dust; and, once
having found them, be sure you will find them again. Some days
may pass, extending into weeks, a month, or perhaps longer,
depending on the distance covered by his beat; but you may be
almost certain that the tiger will pass that way again. He rarely
returns by the route he has gone, but works around in an
enormous circle, coming back to the place where you found his
pug-marks and going on in the same direction once more.

While on his beat, if he is successful in killing an animal, the

tiger will remain in the vicinity for a couple of days till he
demolishes it, when he will resume his itinerary.

It is important to bear this peculiar habit in mind when trying

to anticipate the movements of a man-eater, for he will always
return to the same locality within a roughly calculable number of
days, depending upon the stretch of territory covered by his beat.
You may come to know the number of days and the line of his beat
approximately by plotting on a map the human kills he has made,
and the dates on which he has made them, followed by some very
elementary mental arithmetic.

A panther never seems to follow any such pattern, but is here,

there and everywhere. Like looking for the ‘elusive Pimpernel’,
this habit of appearing anywhere and disappearing just as
abruptly, makes the movements of a man-eating panther almost
impossible to anticipate or forecast. He will turn up quite
unexpectedly to claim his human victim, at a time and place very
far from that predicted by the most experienced and astute of
shikaris.

In this chapter I have tried to give you some hints on ‘still-

hunting’, as well as telling you about some of the habits and
peculiarities of the larger carnivora. I have deliberately abstained
from recounting instances of animals shot by me on such
occasions, as I feel they may not interest you much. After all, the
fun of the game lies in pitting your skill, woodcraft, endurance
and cunning against that of these animals and in beating them at
their own game, rather than in merely killing them. In fact, I
would very strongly advocate that you carry a camera along with
you, and I would ask you to confine yourself to taking
photographs of these very beautiful creatures in preference to
shooting them. Take your rifle with you by all means, as a
protection in emergencies; but try to abstain from needless killing
if you can resist the temptation.

Remember always that a good, cleverly-taken photograph is a

far more meritorious and commendable achievement than any
stuffed trophy hanging on the wall or decorating the floor of your
drawing-room. With the first you can view the animal as often as
you wish in all the beauty of its living grace and strength; whereas
a stuffed trophy, like a cast cocoon or broken eggshell, is just the
husk of a once-beautiful animal which sooner or later will
deteriorate and be destroyed by time and insects.
 2

The Man-eating Panther of the Yellagiri Hills

T WAS mid-afternoon. The tropical sun blazed overhead, A

I veritable ball of fire. The jungle lay still and silent under its
scorching spell. Even the birds and monkeys that had chattered all
morning were now quiet, lulled to sleep in the torpid air.

Beneath the dark shadows of the forest trees some relief was to
be found from the golden glare, even though the shadows
themselves throbbed and pulsated in that temperature. Not the
least movement of the air stirred the fallen leaves that thickly
carpeted the jungle floor, forming Nature’s own luscious blanket
of crisp yellow-brown tints. When the monsoons set in, these same
crisp leaves would be converted into mouldering manure, which
in course of time would serve to feed other forest trees, long after
the jungle giants from which they have fallen had themselves
crashed to earth.

The heavy stillness was occasionally broken by a hollow sound

from the wooden bells hanging from the necks of a herd of cattle
that had been driven into the jungle for grazing. These wooden
bells serve two purposes. The first and main object is to enable the
herdsmen to locate in the thick underbrush the whereabouts of
the animals that wear them. The second object is to frighten off
any carnivora that becomes disposed to attack the wearers. Quite
often the second purpose is successfully achieved, as tigers and
panthers are suspicious animals and hesitate to attack a prey from
whose neck is suspended a strange wooden object emitting queer
sounds. But sometimes again the ruse does not succeed, depending
upon the nature of the particular tiger or panther concerned, and
even more on its hunger at the given moment.
 This particular afternoon was to witness one such exception. A
fat and brown young bull was browsing on the outskirts of the
herd, munching mouthfuls of grass beneath the shade of a clump
of ficus trees. With each mouthful that it tore from the ground it
would raise its head a little to gaze in idle speculation at the
surrounding jungle, while its jaws worked steadily, munching the
grass. Nothing seemed to stir and the brown bull was at peace
with itself and the world.

It would not have felt so complacent, however, if it had gazed

behind. Not a rustle rose as a tuft of grass parted to show two
malevolent green eyes that stared with concentrated longing at
the fat brown bull. The eyes were those of a large male panther of
the big forest variety, and his heavy body, nearly equalling that of
a tigress in dimensions, was pressed low to the ground, the
colouring of his rosettes merging naturally with the various tints
of the grasses.

Slowly and noiselessly the panther drew his hind legs to a

crouching position. His muscles quivered and vibrated with
tenseness. His whole form swayed gently, to gain balance for the
death-charge that was to follow.

Then, as a bolt from the blue, that charge took place. As a

streak of yellow and black spots, the heavy body of the panther
hurtled through the air and, before the brown bull was aware that
anything was happening, the cruel yellow fangs buried themselves
in its jugular. For a moment the bull struggled to maintain its
equilibrium with its forefeet apart, hoping to gallop into the midst
of the grazing herd. But with its air supply cut off, and its lifeblood
jetting from the torn throat, its resistance was but momentary. It
crashed to earth with a thud all four feet lashing out desperately
in an attempt to kick off the attacker. The panther adroitly
squirmed his body out of reach of the lashing hooves, but never
released his merciless grip on the bull’s throat. A snorting gurgle
burst from the gaping mouth of the stricken animal, the feet
kicked less vigorously, and then its terror-stricken eyes slowly took
on a glazed and lifeless expression as death came within a few
minutes of the attack.

Thus did Nathan, the herdsman, lose one of his best beasts, as
the rest of the herd, alarmed by the noise made by the dying bull,
galloped through the jungle for safety to the forest-line that
eventually led to the village, a couple of miles away.

But this was not to be Nathan’s only loss. In the next three
months he lost four more of his cattle, while the other two
herdsmen who lived in the same village each lost a couple. On the
other hand, the panther responsible for these attacks concluded,
and no doubt quite justifiably, that he had found a locality where
food was plentiful and easy to get. He decided to live nearby in
preference to moving through the forest in his normal hunt for
game, which was far more arduous anyhow.

The monsoons then came and with the heavy rains pasture grew
up everywhere and it became unnecessary to drive the herds of
cattle into the jungle for grazing. Grass sprang up near the village
itself, and in the few adjacent fields, and the herds were kept close
to the village where they could be more carefully watched.

This change, of course, was not relished by the panther, and he

became bolder, as he was forced by circumstances to stalk the
herds in the new pastures.

The forest thinned out in the vicinity of the village, while the
fields themselves were completely tree-less. This made the
panther’s approach more and more difficult, and often enough the
herdsmen saw him as he tried to creep towards their charges. On
such occasions they would shout, throw stones at him and
brandish the staves they carried. These demonstrations would
frighten him away.
 Then his hunger increased, he found that he must choose
between abandoning the village herds altogether as prey and go
back to stalking the wild animals of the forests, or adopting a
more belligerent policy towards the herdsmen.

The panther decided to adopt the latter policy.

One evening he crept as far as possible under cover and then

dashed openly towards the nearest cow. Two herdsmen, standing
quite near, saw him coming. They shouted and waved their sticks,
but his charge never faltered till he had buried his fangs in the
cow’s throat. The herdsmen stood transfixed for the few minutes it
took for the cow to die. Then they began to hurl stones and
invectives at the spotted aggressor while he lay with heaving
flanks across the still-quivering carcass of his prey.

When the stones thudded around, the panther let go his grip on
the cow and with blood-smeared snout growled hideously at the
men, his evil countenance contorted and his eyes blazing with
hatred. Faced with that hideous visage and those bloodcurdling
growls the herdsmen ran away.

At this stage of affairs the villagers requested the local forester

to do something to help them; otherwise to enlist help from some
other quarter. The forester, whose name was Ramu, had done a bit
of shooting himself and owned a single-barrelled twelve-bore
breech-loading gun. Although it was part of his duties as the
representative of the government to check poachers, he himself
was accustomed to indulge in a little poaching over water holes
and salt licks, his quarry being the various kinds of deer that
visited such spots, or an occasional jungle pig. As often as was
possible he avoided letting his subordinates, the forest guards,
know of these surreptitious activities, but when that was not
possible he made sure of the guards’ silence by giving them a
succulent leg from the animal he had shot, together with a string
of dire threats of what he would do to them if a word about it was
breathed to the range officer. Despite all these precautions,
however, the range officer had come to know of Ramu’s favourite
pastime. He was a conscientious young officer, keen to uphold the
government’s policy of game preservation, and tried to catch his
subordinate in the act. But that worthy had so far succeeded in
keeping a clean official slate. Perhaps he was too wily, or his
threats to the guards so fearsome that the Range Officer (R.O.)
had not yet succeeded.

So far Ramu had not tried his weapon against any of the larger
carnivora, and when the villagers approached him for help to
shoot the panther he was not over-keen to tackle the proposition.
But the villagers persisted in their requests, and soon it was made
very evident to Ramu that his honour was at stake, for he could
not delay indefinitely with vague excuses of being too busy to
come to the village, or of having run out of stock of ammunition,
and so forth.

Therefore Ramu arrived at the village one morning carrying his

weapon. He was hailed as the would-be saviour of the situation
and immediately took full advantage of the fact by settling down
to a very hearty meal provided by the villagers. After washing this
down with a lotah (tumbler) of coffee, he belched contentedly
and announced his intention of indulging in a nap for an hour
before tackling the business for which he had come.

Ramu awoke a couple of hours later, by which time it was past

midday. He then demanded of the headman that a goat should be
provided as bait. This was done and Ramu set out for the jungle,
accompanied by five or six villagers.

Being the forester in charge of the section he was well-

acquainted with the locality and had already selected, in his
mind, the tree on which to build his machan. This was a large
banyan, growing conveniently at the point where the track from
the village and the forest fire-line met. It also happened that a
nullah intersected the fire-line near the same spot. The panther
was known to traverse all three of these approaches as had been
evidenced by his frequent pug-marks, so that Ramu’s choice was
indeed a wise one; for if the panther walked along the fire-line or
came up the nullah he could not help spotting his goat, while he
himself, in the machan, could see up and down both these
approaches as well as part of the track leading to the village.

On this tree, then, Ramu instructed the villagers who had

accompanied him to build a machan twenty feet or so off the
ground, and being well-skilled in the art of making hide-outs
himself, contrived to conceal it cleverly with leaves, so that it
would be quite unnoticeable to the panther.

It was past four o’clock that evening before the work was
completed. Ramu climbed into the machan and the goat was then
tethered by a rope round its neck to a stake that had been driven
into the ground.

When the villagers left, the goat, finding itself alone, gazed in
the direction of the village path and bleated lustily. Conditions
were as perfect as could be, and the panther heard the goat and
pounced upon it at about six, while the light was still good. Ramu
had loaded his gun with an L.G. cartridge which he fired at the
panther while the latter was holding the goat to the ground by its
throat. There was a loud cough; and the panther somersaulted
before dashing off into the undergrowth. The goat, which was
already dying from suffocation and the wound inflicted in its
throat, was killed outright by a pellet that passed through its ear
into the brain.

Ramu waited awhile, then descended the banyan tree and

hastily retreated to the village, where he told the people that he
was sure he had hit the panther and had no doubt that they would
find him dead the next morning.
 With daylight a large party of men assembled and, headed by
Ramu, went down to the banyan tree. There they found that the
goat had been completely eaten during the night by a hyaena.
Ramu pointed out the direction in which the panther had leaped
and the whole party of men searched in close formation. It was
not long before they came upon a blood-trail on the leaves of the
bushes and lantana, indicating that in truth he had scored a hit.
But of the panther there was no sign, although the party followed
the trail for over a mile before it eventually petered out.

For two months after this no fresh attacks on cattle or goats

were recorded, and everyone, including Ramu, was sure that the
panther had gone away into some thicket and died.

Then one evening a lad of about 16 years was returning to the

village along the same forest line. He was alone. Coming around a
bend he saw a panther squatting on his haunches about twenty
yards away, looking directly at him He halted in his tracks,
expecting the panther to make of as an ordinary panther would
do. But this panther did nothing of the kind. Instead, he changed
his position to a crouch and began to snarl viciously.

The boy turned around and ran the way he had come, and the
panther pursued him. Luckily, at the place he overtook the boy, a
piece of rotting wood happened to be lying across the forest line.
As the panther jumped on his back and bit through his shoulder
near the neck, the boy was borne to earth by the weight, and in
falling saw the piece of rotting wood. Terror and desperation lent
strength to his hands and an unusual quickness to his mind.
Grasping the wood, he rolled sideways and jammed the end into
the panther’s mouth. This caused the panther to release his hold,
but not before he had severely scratched the boy’s arm and thighs
with his claws. Springing to his feet, the boy lashed out at him
again; this unexpected retaliation by his victim caused the
panther to lose courage and he leaped into the bushes. Still
grasping the wood that had saved his life, and with blood
streaming down his chest, back, arms and legs, the boy made a
staggering run for the village.

That was the first attack made upon a human being. The next
followed some three weeks later, and this time the panther did not
run away. It happened that a goat-herd was returning with his
animals when a panther attacked them and seized upon one. The
herdsman was poor and the herd represented all his worldly
wealth. So he tried to save his goat by screaming at the panther as
he ran towards him, whirling his staff. It was a brave but silly
thing to have done, knowing that a panther was in the vicinity
that had recently attacked a human being without provocation.
He paid for his foolish bravery with his life, for the panther left the
goat and leapt upon him to clamp his jaws firmly in his throat.

The goats ran back to the village. Seeing no herdsman returning

with them, some of the villagers wondered what had occurred, but
for the moment did not attach any significance to what they had
noticed. It transpired that this herdsman was alone and had no
relatives, so that it was nearly an hour later and growing dusk
before his absence was really accepted as a fact, and it became
evident that something had happened to him. It was too late by
then to do anything.

Next morning the villagers gathered in a party of about thirty

persons, armed with clubs and staves, and left the village to try to
find the goatherd. They went down the track leading from the
village to the jungle. The hoof-marks of the herd of goats as they
had run back to the village the previous evening were clearly
visible along the trail. They proceeded a little further and there
they came upon the spot where the panther had made the attack.
Clearly impressed in the dusty earth were the pug-marks of the
large spotted cat. There was also a distinct drag-mark where the
panther had hauled his victim away. Scattered at intervals were a
few drops of blood from the throat of the man that had trickled to
the ground. But the earth away from the track was sun-baked and
hard and had absorbed the blood, and it was difficult to locate,
though the drag-mark was quite clear.

The panther had taken his victim off the track along which the
man had been driving his goats, and had hauled the body into the
jungle. But he had not gone very far from where he had originally
made his kill, and within about a hundred yards the group of
villagers discovered the body of the victim. The chest and a small
portion of one thigh had been eaten. Thus the maneater of the
Yellagiris came into existence.

The Yellagiris are a crescent-shaped formation of hills lying

immediately to the east of Jalarpet Junction railway station on the
Southern Railway. The opening of the crescent faces away from
the Junction, while its apex, so to speak, rises abruptly some three
thousand feet above sea level about two miles from the station. A
very rough zigzag path winds up the steep incline, and in places
one has to clamber from boulder to boulder.

Many years ago—in 1941 in fact—I had purchased a farm of

small acreage at the top of this ridge. I had intended keeping this
farm, which is about ninety-five miles from Bangalore, as a
weekend resort, but had not found the time to visit it regularly. As
a result, the open land was quickly being encroached upon by the
ever-prolific lantana shrub.

I had decided to visit this place for about three days to supervise
the removal of the lantana, and when I made this visit I happened
to arrive a few days after the death of the goatherd. The coolies I
had engaged for the work told me about the panther, of which no
news had been published in any of the newspapers. They assured
me that it continued to haunt the precincts of the village, for they
had again seen its pug-marks only the previous day.

The news interested me and I thought I might as well make an

attempt to bag the animal. I had brought neither of my rifles with
me, but only my twelve-bore shotgun, as the Yellagiris abound in
jungle fowl and during the few visits I had made there I had
always shot a couple each time for the pot. Further, with this
object in view, I had brought along with me only two L.G.
cartridges for emergencies, the rest being number six shot for the
jungle fowl. Therefore I would have to make sure of the panther
with the only two L.G. shells available.

I stopped work on the lantana about midday and went back

with the labourers to reconnoitre the ground. It was much as I had
expected. The jungle fell away into a narrow belt of lantana
which ceased only at the few fields that bordered the village.
Clearly visible on a footpath at the end of one of these fields was
the trail of a panther—a fairly large adult male, judging from his
pugs. He had passed that way only the night before.

I went to the village and introduced myself to the Patel, or

headman, whom I had never met before, and told him how I came
to be there. He expressed great pleasure at my presence and was
most enthusiastic in his promises of every cooperation. We held a
discussion and I told the Patel that I would like to buy a goat to tie
up as a bait in the initial stage of my operations against the
panther.

And here was where the Patel’s cooperation was needed, as no

goats were available in his village. It was only with much
difficulty and considerable delay that he was able to procure one
for me from a neighbouring hamlet, a kid that was small enough
in size to ensure that it would bleat when tied up. The Patel
himself accompanied me, and four other men, one of them leading
the goat, the rest carrying hatchets with which to construct a
machan.

They led me back along the track to the place where the
herdsman had been attacked, and finally to the spot at which they
had found his remains. It was densely overgrown with small
bushes of the ‘Inga dulcis’ plant, known as the ‘Madras thorn’ or
‘Korkapulli’ tree. It was out of the question to sit on the ground
there, as the thorns grew so close together as to prevent one from
seeing any animal beyond the distance of a couple of yards. So we
were compelled to retrace our steps along the track for about a
quarter of a mile.

There we came upon quite a large and leafy jack-fruit tree

which, with its thick leaves growing in profusion, seemed to
provide the ideal setting for the construction of a machan. At
about a height of eight feet the first branch led off the main stem
of the tree. The third branch after that extended over the track
itself and bifurcated conveniently at about fifteen feet from the
ground.

Across this bifurcation I instructed my followers to build the

machan. This they set about doing by first lopping small branches
off the neighbouring tree and removing the leaves. They then laid
the lopped sticks across the bifurcation, tying them to the two
arms with vines cut from the jungle. By this means they had soon
made a platform about four feet long by three feet wide. This
would be sufficient for me to sit on. Finally, the four sides of the
machan were well camouflaged with the leaves they had just
removed from the small branches they had cut down to build the
base of the machan. We also took great care to conceal the base of
the platform itself with leaves, so that to a panther standing
anywhere around at any angle, or even directly below, nothing
would be visible of the occupant sitting in the machan, nor would
anything seem to be out of place to arouse his suspicions unduly.

I got one of the men to make a stake out of a piece of wood,

sharpened it a little at one end and then hammered it into the
hard ground with a boulder at a distance of just over twenty feet
from the machan, keeping in mind the fact that I was using a
shotgun.
 When all this was ready I climbed into the machan myself and
made an opening in the leaves to face the stake and in such a
position that I would have a clear view of the goat and a small
portion of the ground around it. By the time we were ready it was
nearly five in the evening.

As I have already stated, I had not come to the Yellagiris to

shoot big game, so I had not brought my night equipment, the
torch that I used to clamp to the barrel of my rifle. Instead, I had
brought a small two-cell affair which I only used in camp. It threw
only a diffused beam and was quite inadequate for the work which
I now had in hand. Further, having no clamp, I would have to hold
the torch itself in my left hand and close to the barrel of the gun.
The outlook was not so good, since I had come during the
moonless period of the month and would have to rely on sounds
and my own senses to judge the presence and exact whereabouts
of the panther in the darkness, would he turn up.

Bearing all these facts in mind, I settled down in the machan

and made myself as comfortable as possible. Then I instructed the
men to tether the goat to the stake and walk back to the village,
talking loudly to each other. Not only would their withdrawal in
this fashion cause the goat to begin bleating as it saw them going
away, but should the panther be watching anywhere in the
vicinity, their noisy departure, coupled with the bleating of the
goat, would induce him to come out early to dinner.

According to instructions, the men tied the goat to the stake

and began to walk back in the direction of the village, talking
loudly. The goat immediately strained at the rope that held it to
the stake and started to bleat so loudly and persistently that I
mentally congratulated the Patel on the choice of the bait he had
selected. I became certain that if the panther was anywhere
around within a mile of this goat he would surely hear its cries
and hasten to his intended victim.
 But nothing that I expected came to pass. The goat called
persistently and loudly, so much so that by the time the sun had
set it had become quite hoarse and its cries dwindled to husky
squeaks. Twilight found the goat so hoarse that it appeared to
resign itself to the inevitable and a night in the open. Folding its
forelegs first, it settled down on the ground and fell asleep. I now
knew there was but little chance of the panther locating the goat
unless it actually happened to pass by and practically stumble
upon it. Still, I decided to wait till about nine o’clock and chance
my luck.

The next two and a half hours were like many others that I had
spent in the jungle under similar circumstances. The calls of the
feathered denizens of the forest had long since died away at least
those that belonged to the day. The only sound that could be
heard occasionally was the peculiar low whistle of the ‘herdboy’
bird. This is a grey night-bird, some eight inches in length which
emits a low but very penetrating cry exactly resembling the
sounds invariably made by herdsmen as they tend their cattle
while grazing in the forest, to keep them together. Hence its name,
or to give it its Tamil original, ‘mat-paya kurvi’, by which it is
known throughout southern India. Incidentally, it is a bird that
appears to live only in jungly regions, or their immediate vicinity,
as I have never come across it in the cultivated areas.

There is nothing more that I can tell you, beyond the fact that
at 9.15 p.m. I decided to abandon the vigil. I shone the torch in the
direction of the goat, but the spreading beam hardly reached the
sleeping animal, which I could just detect as a faint blur as I heard
it scramble to its feet. Had the panther attacked that goat I would
not have been able to see it properly, so I consoled myself with the
thought that perhaps it was just as well the panther had not
turned up.

Climbing down from the tree I untied the goat and, taking it is
tow, went back to the village, where I left it with one of the men
who had helped to put up the machan, instructing him to look
after it until the next day.

Early the following morning I returned to the village to glean as

much additional information about the panther as I could. But
there was nothing more that anybody could tell me, beyond the
facts already related at the beginning of this story, which I slowly
pieced together. Nobody knew exactly from where the panther
had come and nobody could suggest any particular locality in
which he might be living.

The work on my land occupied the next three days, and each
evening of those three days I spent in the same machan, sitting up
with different goats as baits till a few hours before midnight. But
all those three evenings drew a blank, in that I heard no sound of
the panther. Each morning I would scour the vicinity of the
machan, the forest-lines, and various stream-beds, but there were
no fresh pug-marks of the animal for which I was looking, showing
that he had not passed anywhere nearby during those nights. Very
probably he had moved off to some distant part of the Yellagiri
Hills.

On the fourth morning I left for Bangalore, after handing the

village Patel my name and address and money for a telegram
which he was to send by a runner to Jalarpet railway station.

Over a month passed. No telegram came and I decided that the

panther was not a regular man-eater or had perhaps left the
Yellagiri Hills to cross the intervening belt of cultivated plain to
reach the much more extensive range of forest that clothed to
reach the Javadi Hills. This latter range is a wide one and leads far
beyond the Yellagiris in a southeasterly direction towards
Tiruvannamalai, which is a sacred hill inhabited by a sage said to
be possessed of many gifts.

I was quite wrong, as events were to prove.

 Seven weeks passed before the telegram, which I had almost
forgotten, arrived. It told me that the ‘mail-carrier’, who brought
the ‘tappal’, or post, from Jalarpet up the hill to the various
villages and settlers at the top, had been killed by the panther.

The telegram did not reach me till after three in the afternoon.
Nevertheless, by hurrying I was able to catch the Trichinopoly
Express which left Bangalore at seven o’clock and reached Jalarpet
at 10.30 p.m. I had brought my petromax lantern with me, and by
its bright light walked from the station up the hill to reach the
village, eight miles away, just before 2 a.m. Normally I would not
have dared to risk that rough and steep boulder-covered track by
night with a man-eating panther in the vicinity, but I knew that it
would be quite safe as long as I had the petromax burning. My 405-
rifle and haversack of equipment strapped to my back, plus the
light hanging from my left hand, made quite a sizeable and
uncomfortable load up that steep track, and I was drenched in
perspiration by the time I reached the top of the hill. The village
was still a mile away, and a cold breeze chilled my damp clothes
as they dried on my back while I walked along.

I awoke the Patel, who in turn awoke most of the village, so

that a concourse of a hundred dusky faces and gleaming white
teeth surrounded me in the light of the petromax.

The Patel offered me food, which I politely declined, but I told

him I would be grateful for some hot tea. This was soon prepared,
and while sipping it from a large brass utensil belonging to the
Patel, I heard the story he had to tell me.

Actually there was nothing much to tell. After my last visit

everybody had been very careful when moving about in the day,
particularly in the vicinity of the forest. At night they had
remained indoors. Then as the weeks had passed without any
further signs of the panther, as always happened vigilance was
correspondingly relaxed.
 The mail-carrier used to ascend the hill early in the morning,
leaving Jalarpet at about 6 a.m. from the small post office situated
adjacent to the railway station. All the mail trains passed during
the night, from Bangalore as well as from Madras on the east coast
and Calicut on the west coast. Postal traffic to the Yellagiris was
comparatively small, and the few letters or articles that were
destined for the hill-top were placed in individual bags by the
sorters on the various mail trains and unloaded at Jalarpet
Station. The mail-carrier, who was to ascend the hill, would open
these bags in order to place all their contents into the one bag he
carried up, slung across his shoulders or sometimes balanced on
his head.

His one protection—which was intended not so much as a

weapon of protection as an emblem and badge of office, as well as
a sound-device to frighten away snakes—was a short spear, on the
shaft of which were fitted a number of iron rings. This spear he
would carry in his hand, striking the base of it against the ground
at every few paces. The rings would jangle against the iron shaft
and against each other, making the loud jingling-jangling noise
that has been known to the mail-carriers for almost a hundred
years throughout the length and breadth of India.

On that fateful day the mail-carrier had as usual set out from
the small post office at Jalarpet at about six o’clock in the
morning. But he never reached the top of the hill. The villagers
had become accustomed to hearing him and seeing him as he
jingled and jangled his daily route through the main street of the
village. But that morning they had not heard the familiar sound.
With the indifference and apathy peculiar to the East, nobody
worried or thought anything about it.

After the midday meal, a party of men had started to descend

the hill, bound for Jalarpet. About a quarter of the way down,
they noticed the rusty colour of dried blood splashed on the rocks
that formed a trail. They had stopped to wonder about it, when
the sharp eyes of one individual had noticed the mail-carrier’s
spear lying away from the track and near a bush. Guessing what
had happened, the whole party turned tail and hurried back to the
village. There they had gathered reinforcements, including the
Patel, and returned eventually to find the partly eaten corpse of
the unfortunate mail-carrier.

The Patel had written out the telegram and sent it by the same
party of men to be despatched to me from Jalarpet Station. With
all the confusion it had not reached me till after three the
following evening, a delay of some twenty-four hours, although
Jalarpet is just eighty-nine miles from Bangalore. I was also
informed that the police authorities at Jalarpet had removed the
body for inquest and cremation.

By the time all this conversation was over and I had elicited all
the information I required, or perhaps it would be more correct to
say all the information that the Patel and the villagers knew
about the panther, it was past four in the morning. The Patel lent
me a rope cot which I carried to the outskirts of the village, where
I lay down upon it for a brief sleep of two hours till dawn, when I
awoke, not to the familiar calls of the forest, but to the loud
yapping of a couple of curs who were regarding me on the rope cot
with very evident suspicion and distaste.

As I have said, the Yellagiri Hills do not hold a great deal of

regular forest, and there is therefore a complete absence of
aboriginal jungle-folk of any kind. I realised that I would have to
rely upon the villagers and myself to try to discover ways and
means of locating the panther.

One of the questions I had asked earlier that morning concerned

the panther’s possible hide-out. No definite reply had been given
to this, but a couple of cattle-grazers had stated that they had on
three or four occasions during the past few weeks observed a
panther sunning himself in the afternoon on a rocky ledge of a hill
named ‘Periamalai’ or ‘Big Hill’, to give it its English translation.
The Yellagiris themselves form a plateau at the top, and this
Periamalai is the one and only hill rising above the level of the
plateau and forms the highest peak of the crescent-shaped
Yellagiri range. It is nearly 4,500 feet above mean sea level.

I went to the Patel’s house and found him still asleep, but he
soon woke up and offered me a large ‘chumbo’, which is a round
brass vessel like a miniature water-pot, of hot milk to drink. I then
asked him to call the cattle-tenders who had seen the panther on
Periamalai and to ask them to accompany me to the hill and point
out the particular ledge which the panther was said to frequent.

It took some time before these two individuals could be

persuaded to go with me. They were most unwilling and I could
see that they were definitely scared. However, the Patel used his
own methods of persuasion, which included threats of retribution
if they refused, so eventually I was able to set out accompanied by
them.

Periamalai is situated about three miles to the east of the village

and in the opposite direction to the path from Jalarpet, which
ascends to the west. In all, about five miles lay between this hill
and the spot where the unfortunate mailman had been killed. In
addition, practically all the land between was cultivated. The
jungle covering Periamalai itself receded down the slopes of the
Yellagiri range in the direction of that portion of the crescent that
faces north. I was not happy about this as I felt that the cattle-
grazers might have seen another panther entirely, and not the one
that had killed the postman.

Arriving at the base of Periamalai, my two companions pointed

to a ledge of rock that jutted out some 300 feet above, and stated
that that was the spot where they had seen the panther sunning
himself on several afternoons. Thick lantana scrub grew from the
foot of the hill right up to the base of the ledge and to about
halfway up Periamalai, where the regular forest began. I could see
that, as was happening with so many of the smaller forest tracks
in southern India, the lantana pest was slowly but surely
encroaching on the jungle proper and smothering the original
trees. Like the Yellagiri range itself, Periamalai is a rocky hill
consisting of piles of boulders and to look for a panther in that sea
of lantana and among those rocks would be a hopeless task, as the
former was impenetrable.

So I marked out a place under a tree growing at the foot of the

hill and told the men that we would return to the village and
procure a bait, and that they should come back with it and tie it
at the spot I had selected.

Accordingly we went back and the Patel procured for me a

donkey. A goat would have been of no use in this case as I did not
intend to sit up with it. Should it be killed, the panther would
devour it at one meal and there would be nothing left to justify his
return the following night, whereas the donkey was big enough to
warrant the panther coming back for what remained after the first
meal. Against this was the disadvantage that a goat would more
readily and quickly attract the panther by its bleating, whereas a
donkey would be silent.

But I relied on the fact that if the panther lived anywhere on the
hill, from his elevated position he would be able to see the donkey
tied on the lower ground. So I borrowed some stout rope and
instructed the cattlemen to take the donkey up and tether it at the
spot I had already pointed out to them.

This done, the Patel himself and three or four villagers came
along with me to point out the place where the mail-carrier had
been done to death. It turned out to be at a spot about a mile and
a half from the village, just where the track from Jalarpet passed
through a belt of lantana and rocky boulders. I had, of course,
passed the place myself the previous night when ascending the hill
with the lantern, but had not noticed the blood in the lantern-
light. No doubt this had been just as well or my tranquillity would
have been greatly perturbed.

We came upon a few dried splashes of blood on the trail, and my

companions pointed out me a spot nearby to where the
unfortunate man had been dragged and partly eaten. As I have
already said, his remains had been removed to Jalarpet for
cremation, so that there was nothing to be gained by remaining
there any longer.

A cashew-nut tree stood beside the trail about three hundred

yards higher up, and beneath this tree I asked the Patel to tie
another donkey.

Then we walked back to the village, and I suggested that a third

donkey be tied at some place where the scrub jungle came closest
to the village. The Patel once more used his influence to procure
two more donkeys and sent them out by different parties of men to
be tied as I had instructed.

It was past one in the afternoon by the time all this had been
done, and I realized that there was nothing more for me to do but
await events. I could only hope the panther would kill one of
three donkeys that night, provided of course he chanced to come
upon it. Since the panther had made but only a few human kills
thus far, it was clear that he was mainly existing upon other meat.

The Patel set a hot meal before me, consisting of rice and dal
curry, mixed with brinjals and onions grown on his land and made
tremendously hot with red chillies which had been liberally
added. I must say I enjoyed that meal, though the sweat poured
down my face in rivulets as a result of the chillies. My host was
highly amused at this sight and began to apologise, but I stopped
him with the assurance that I did enjoy such a meal. Copious
draughts of coffee followed, and when I finally arose I was a very
contented person.

To pass the time I went down to my small farm and pottered

about for the rest of that evening. You may be interested to know
that this farm of mine consists of only one and a half acres of land,
but it is a very compact farm at that. There is a ‘marking-nut’
tree, from the nut of which a black fluid is extracted for making a
marking-ink generally used by launderers and dhobies for writing
the initials of the owners on the corner of each article they send to
the wash. Once marked, this ‘ink’ cannot be washed out. Three
‘jack’ trees, which are of a grafted variety, produce fruit weighing
from two to twelve pounds each or even more. There are a few
guava trees, some peaches and a vegetable garden. The two
existing buildings, or kottais as they are called are mud-walled
affairs with thick thatched roofs made from a mixture of jungle
grass and the stalks of ‘cholam’ grain. A small rose and croton
garden fronts them. At that time I had about three dozen fowls,
including leghorns, rhodes and black minorcas, and a few ducks.
My drinking-water comes from a small well into which I
introduced some fish, which I had originally brought from
Bangalore to keep the water clean. A small stream in front forms
one of my boundaries, and bamboo trees line the other three sides.
Although such a small place, it is extremely ‘cosy’, and an ideal
retreat for a quiet Sunday visit from Bangalore.

About half the land is low-lying and borders the stream I have
just mentioned. I have tapped some water from this rivulet and
grown a variety of black rice, known as ‘Pegu rice’ and originally
imported from Burma. To my knowledge, my farm was one of the
very few spots in southern India where this black Burma-rice then
grew. I knew it had been sown in many places, but its cultivation
had proved a failure for one reason or another.

An interesting feature about this farm was a story that one of

the two kottais was haunted by the ghost of the brother of the
Anglo-Indian lady from whom I had purchased it in 1941, lock,
stock and barrel, poultry included, for the sum of Rs. 500/-; about
£35 in English money. This man had died of a reputedly mysterious
disease which I was told occurred in sudden attacks of
excruciating pain in his left arm and chest—probably angina
pectoris. He had been very much attached to the small farm and
was said to have spent over twenty-five years there after
purchasing it as waste land. Then he gave it to his sister, as he had
no family of his own. However, as the story went, after his death,
passing villagers had frequently seen him standing before his
kottai in the evenings just as dusk was falling. Thereafter, needless
to say, the villagers avoided the place.

His sister told me nothing about the alleged haunting till the
day after I had purchased the farm and paid the cash before the
sub-registrar when I had registered the sale deed, probably
thinking the ‘ghost’ would put me off the transaction. Then she
told me that her dead brother would sometimes roam about the
two kottais at night, and also that she had clearly seen him many
times in the moonlight attending the rose trees which had been his
special hobby. She hastened to add that the ‘spirit’ was quite
harmless, made no sound or troublesome manifestation, and just
faded away if approached.

I have failed to mention that some very ancient furniture came

to me with the kottais: a bed in each building, a broken-down
dressing table, two almirahs and some three or four rather rickety
chairs. The beds were of the old-fashioned sort, having battens.

I well remember the first night I slept in one of the kottais

(incidentally the one in which the brother had died), for it was a
rainy night and the roof of the other kottai was leaking. I had
spread my bedroll, without mattress, on the battened cot and had
lain down to sleep. The hard battens, however, were irksome and
pressed against my shoulder blades and back. After failing to woo
slumber for some time, I had decided that the floor would be far
more comfortable. Of course, there were no electric lights, so I had
lighted a candle to enable me to remove the bedroll and place it
on the floor, when I had extinguished the candle and lain down to
sleep. This time I was successful and had fallen asleep
immediately.

I do not know when I awoke. It was pitch dark. Something

heavy and cold and clammy moved and rested against my throat,
and what seemed like two icy wet fingers extended across either
side of my neck.

Now I am not an imaginative person. I am not afraid of the

dark. Nor am I superstitious. But in a rush of memory I recollected
the dead brother and his ghost, the fact that I had left my torch on
the windowsill some feet away, and also that I did not know
where I had left the matchbox. These thoughts came
simultaneously, while the cold clammy wet thing distinctly
moved and seemed to press its two extended fingers even more
tightly on either side of my throat. I could feel my hair rising. To
lie there any longer was impossible. With what seemed
superhuman energy I scrambled to my feet and dashed towards the
unfamiliar windowsill where I had left my torch. Probing wildly
in the dark, I at last found that elusive torch. I pressed the button,
expecting to see the ghost and its clammy hands, cold from the
grave, before me! Instead, there on the floor was quite the largest
toad I had ever seen in my life. A huge, black, slimy fellow, almost
a foot long. He had come into the kottai because of the rain.

This just goes to show what human nerves can do. Hardly a few
seconds earlier I had been scared stiff by the thought of the
supernatural and the unknown. Now I laughed to myself as I
guided the toad with the toe of my slippered foot to the door of the
kottai, and then out into the rain.

Next morning all three donkey baits were alive, and so I spent
the day on my land. No one had any news to give about the
panther. Another night passed and the following morning found
all three of the donkeys still in the land of the living. This time
there was a little news. After the death of the mail-carrier the post
was conveyed up the hill by three men instead of one, the party
consisting of the relief mail-carrier who had replaced the poor
fellow that had been killed, together with two chowkidars—
literally, ‘watchmen’—who had been pressed into service to
accompany him as bodyguards. They were armed with crude
spears in addition to the ‘emblem of office’ spear which had once
been the equipment of the deceased mail-carrier and now
automatically fell to his successor.

These three men excitedly reported at the village that they had
seen a panther sunning himself on the ledge of a rock about a
quarter of a mile downhill from the place where the previous
mail-carrier had been done to death.

Upon hearing this news the Patel had despatched a villager to

run and tell me. Taking my rifle, I accompanied him back to the
village, where both the chowkidars offered to come along with me
to point out the rock. We covered the distance of a little over two
miles in good time. But only the bare rock-ledge stared us in the
face. The panther that had been lying there, man-eater or
otherwise, had gone, and it was too hot, too rocky and too
hopeless to search for him among the piles of boulders. However,
the news was encouraging, as it indicated the panther was still in
the vicinity. Before returning to the village and my small farm, I
once again examined the bait under the cashew tree and mentally
selected the branch on which I would fix my machan if occasion
arose.

That night brought good luck, though bad for the donkey
beneath the cashew-nut tree, for the panther killed and ate about
half of him during the hours of darkness.
 Early next morning this fact was discovered by the party of men
whom I had delegated to inspect, feed and water each one of the
three baits in turn. They came back and told me, after having
taken the precaution to cover the remains of the donkey with
branches to protect it from being devoured to the bones by
vultures.

I finished an early lunch and with my greatcoat, torch and flask

of tea and some biscuit, proceeded to the village, where I readily
obtained the loan of a charpoy from the Patel. Four willing helpers
carried this to the cashew-nut tree, where it was slung up and
secured with the ropes we had brought along with us. I personally
supervised the camouflaging of the charpoy with small branches
and leaves, till it was invisible from every direction, as well as
from below. That this job should be done very thoroughly was, I
knew, most essential when dealing with man-eating carnivora.
The slightest carelessness might make all the difference between
success and failure. A leaf turned the other way, with its under-
surface showing uppermost, or any portion of the charpoy being
visible from any angle, a remnant of twigs or fallen leaves at the
base of the tree, any of these would be sufficient to arouse the
suspicion of a man-eater, which is always extremely cautious in
returning to its kill.

All arrangements were eventually completed to my satisfaction,

and the only fault that I could find was that the machan was
rather low, not more than ten feet from the ground. Also that the
cashew-nut tree was easy to climb. It was about two-thirty in the
afternoon when the party of men who had accompanied me left,
after I had instructed them to return at dawn in case I did not go
back to the village myself during the night.

I sat back on the machan and made myself as comfortable as

possible.
 It was a sweltering afternoon, the heat being reflected by the
boulders that were piled around in all directions. The tree itself
afforded little protection from the afternoon sun that beat down
upon me. Indeed, I was glad when evening approached and the
sun began sinking towards the Mysore plateau to the west. Far
below me I could see Jalarpet railway station on the plains, and
the puffs of cream-coloured smoke from the shunting-engines in
the yard. At intervals a train would arrive or leave, and the
whistles of the locomotives could be clearly heard. All else was
silent.

Towards dusk a single peacock wailed in the distance and a

couple of nightjars flitted around the tree. Except for them there
were no signs of any other animals or birds.

Then the shadows of night descended. Sitting on the slope of the

hill facing the west, I could see the plains grow dark as if covered
by a black mantle, while yet the last vestiges of daylight lingered
on the hilltop above me. The lights of Jalarpet began to twinkle
one by one, prominent among them being the blue-tinted neon
lamps of the station platforms and shunting yards. Here and there
I could make out the red and green lights of the railway signals.
From the north a train rolled towards Jalarpet, the bright
headlamp of the engine cutting a swath of light before it. Then the
train encountered an incline and the engine began to labour under
its load. ‘If she can do it … I can do it … if she can do it … I can do
it.’ Her puffs as she struggled to top the rise formed the words in
my imagination, and I listened to the clanking of her worn big-end
bearings. All these sounds seemed so close to me—and yet they
were so far; they were over five miles away at least, as the crow
flies.

Darkness fell around me. It was a moonless night. The heavy

clouds scuttled across the sky, some of them merging with the tops
of the Yellagiri range. No friendly stars shone down, and the
darkness became intense. I would have to rely on my sense of
hearing.

Insects were conspicuous by their absence, and even the friendly

chirp of the wood-cricket was not to be heard. I sat still on the cot.
Now and then a passing mosquito buzzed around my head, to
settle on some part of my face or hands. Then came the faint sharp
sting of pain as it imbedded its needle-pointed proboscis into my
skin. I would move my fingers or hand a little, or noiselessly blow
against my own face by slightly protruding my lower lip. This
would disturb the mosquito, which would either go on its way or
fly around in a further effort to take another bite at me.

I am accustomed to sitting up in the jungle on machans or in

hide-outs and so lost count of the time, for in any case it served no
purpose to keep looking at my wristwatch unnecessarily. I could
not anyway make time pass quicker.

Thoughts of all kinds creep into a man’s mind on such

occasions, some pleasant, some otherwise, and some reminiscent.
I remember that, that evening, for some unaccountable reason, I
began thinking of some way of inventing a new sort of bicycle,
something that one could propel fast and for long distances with
the minimum of effort. Is it not strange what the human mind
may think of when it is forced to be idle?

My reveries concerning this bicycle were disturbed by what

seemed like a faint sigh. I knew the panther had arrived and was
standing over the dead donkey. The muffled sound I had heard had
been made by his expelled breath as he slightly opened his mouth.

I reasoned that to switch on my torch and fire at this juncture

might be premature. Better to let him settle down to his meal. I
wish I hadn’t, for in doing so I lost what might have been a
successful shot, and caused the death of another human being.
 I waited expectantly for the sound of the meat being torn, and
bones being crunched, which would have assured me that the
panther was tucking in at the donkey, but instead I heard nothing.
The moments slipped by and then I became uncomfortably
suspicious that something had gone wrong.

I know from experience how noiseless any of the carnivora can

be when they want to; particularly a panther which can come and
go not only soundlessly, but also without being seen, and that too
in broad daylight. Under the present conditions of intense
darkness this animal might have been a yard away, or a mile
away, for all the difference it made in that gloom.

I glanced down at the luminous dial of my watch, which

showed that it was twenty minutes to nine. I waited without
moving. Nine o’clock came and passed, and then, from a section
of boulders to my right, I heard a deep growl, followed in a few
seconds by another.

Somehow the panther had become aware of my presence. He

could not have smelt me, as panthers have little or no sense of
smell. He could not have heard me, for I had made no sound.
Therefore, he had either looked up inadvertently and become
aware of the machan, or some intuition had warned him. In either
case, he now knew a human being was there. He might then have
tried climbing up into the tree to pull me down, but as likely as
not his sense of self-preservation had warned him that this
particular human being was dangerous to him and not of the same
sort as the men he had killed.

Of course, this panther might not be a man-eater, although in

the light of his present conduct this seemed the less reasonable
explanation.

The growls were initially intended as a warning. As they

increased they were also clearly meant to bolster up the animal’s
own courage. Perhaps he would lash himself into a fury after a
sufficient number of growls to attack the tree on which I was
sitting and try to climb up. As I have had occasion to remark
before, panthers frequently do this with monkeys, whom they
terrify with a series of loud growls before rushing at the trunk of
the tree. Then the monkeys generally fall off or jump down in
sheer terror. As likely as not he expected the noise he was making
to have the same demoralising effect on me.

Very soon the growls increased both in volume and tempo. The
panther was now making a terrific noise. As I had just thought, he
was either trying to frighten me away completely or off my perch;
alternatively, he was building up his own courage to rush the tree.
I prepared for the latter eventuality.

Some more minutes of this sort of thing went on and then out he
came with the peculiar coughing roar made by every charging
panther. As he reached the base of the cashew-nut tree I leaned
over the edge of the cot, pushing aside the camouflaging twigs to
point the rifle downwards while depressing the switch of my
torch. I knew I had to be quick because, as I have told you, the
machan was only about ten feet off the ground and, the tree being
easy to climb, the panther would reach me in no time.

As bad luck would have it, one of the camouflaging branches

fell down upon the panther. No doubt this served to delay, if not
actually to deter, his progress up the tree. But it also served to
screen him completely from the light of the torch. As I looked
downwards I just saw the branch shaking violently and guessed
that it covered the panther.

At that moment I did a foolish thing. Instead of waiting till the

animal could break clear of the offending branch, I quickly aimed
at the spot where I felt his body would be and pressed the trigger.
The report of the shot was followed by the sound of a falling body
as the panther went hurtling backwards to the ground. For a
second I thought I had succeeded in killing him, but that thought
lasted only for a second, for no sooner did he touch the ground
than he jumped clear of the branch in which he had become
entangled, and I caught a momentary glimpse of his yellow form
leaping into the undergrowth before I had a chance to work the
underlever that would reload my rifle.

I shone the torch at the spot where he had disappeared, but

neither sight nor sound of him or his further progress came to me.
Silence reigned supreme. He might be lying dead in the bushes, or
he might be wounded there, or he might have disappeared and be
a long way off. There was no way of knowing.

I continued to shine the torch around for some time and then
decided to sit in darkness in the hope of hearing some sound of
movement. But there was absolutely nothing. I waited for another
hour and then made up my mind to fire a shot into the bushes in
the direction in which he had gone, hoping it would elicit some
reaction if he were lying there wounded. So, switching on the
torch, I fired the rifle at the approximate spot where he had
vanished. The crash of the report reverberated and echoed against
the hillside, but there was no sound or response from the panther.

A goods train started from Jalarpet and began to climb the

gradient to Mulanur on the ghat section that led to Bangalore.
The banking engine at the rear, whose duty it was to help by
pushing till the top of the gradient was reached, began to push
vigorously and its puffing and clanking eclipsed the sounds made
by the engine at the front, whose driver was perhaps taking it easy
because of the ready help behind him.

I waited until 11.30 p.m. The loud whistling from the engine of
the incoming Madras-Cochin Express decided me to come down
from the tree and go back to my kottai for a comfortable night’s
sleep. I felt quite safe in doing this as, had the panther been
wounded and in the vicinity, he would have responded to the
noise of my last shot. Either he was dead or far away. Even if he
had been lying in wait, that last shot would have frightened him
off.

I came down from the cashew-nut tree and by the light of my

torch made my way back to the village, where, before going on to
my kottai, I related all that had happened to the Patel and the
excited villagers.

Early next morning I came back to the village, where at least

twenty willing men assembled and offered to help me. They in
turn, under my advice and directions, gathered half-a-dozen
village curs. Thus, safe and strong in numbers, we proceeded to
the cashew-nut tree and the site of the previous night’s
occurrences.

The remains of the donkey had been untouched. A hole in the

ground, directly below the tree, showed where my bullet had
buried itself in the earth, nor was a speck of blood to be seen
anywhere. We thoroughly searched among the bushes into which
the panther had disappeared and into which I had fired my second
shot, as well as the surrounding boulders and bushes for quite a
wide area, but it was clear that I had missed entirely and that my
bullet of the night before had failed to score the lucky hit I had
hoped for. The panther had got completely away.

Ill-tempered and disgusted with myself, I returned with the men

to the village, where I told the Patel that my time was up and that
I would have to return to Bangalore. However, I asked him to send
me another telegram should there be further developments. Then I
went to the kottai, gathered my belongings and packed them in
my haversack, and soon was repassing the cashew-nut tree on my
descent to Jalarpet, where I caught the evening express from
Madras that got me home by eight-fifteen the same night.
 That was the end of the first round of my encounter with the
Yellagiri man-eating panther.

Contrary to expectations, I heard nothing more from the Patel.

When two months had elapsed I wrote him a letter and received a
reply within a few days stating that there had been no further
news of the animal. This made me think that it may have
relinquished its man-eating habits or have crossed over to the
Javadi range of hills which lay scarcely fifteen miles south of the
Yellagiris. On the other hand, had the latter been the case I would
still have heard through the Press or by government notification if
any people had been killed on the Javadi Hills. I was therefore
inclined to the former theory and felt that the panther had given
up his tendency to attack human beings. Of course, my chance
shot might have found its mark, and the animal may have crept
away to die in some secluded place. But this last theory was
hardly tenable.

Nine more weeks passed before the next news arrived in the
form of a telegram from the Patel, despatched from Jalarpet
railway station, stating that the panther had reappeared and once
again killed a human being. The telegram asked me to come at
once, and with two hours to spare I caught the next train.

This happened to be a slow train which brought me in to

Jalarpet station at about half-past eight that night. There was no
purpose in my climbing the hill immediately, for there was
nothing I could do just then; so I decided to take a few hours’ sleep
in the waiting-room and make the ascent at dawn. This plan did
not prove very successful, however. To begin with, the noise of the
passing trains disturbed me each time I fell asleep, being a light
sleeper. Secondly, the attacks of mosquitoes and bedbugs, with
which the chair seemed to abound, impelled me to walk about the
platform, which I did till five in the morning, when I set off for the
foot of the Yellagiris about two miles away. It was dawn as I began
the climb and I reached the Patel’s village by 7.15 am.
 My friend the Patel greeted me with his usual hospitality and
brass ‘chumbo’ of heavily milked, hot coffee. Then he told me that
the panther had attacked and killed a young woman three
mornings previously, when she had gone to draw water from a
stream running past the base of Periamalai hill. He also informed
me that the people of the village to which the girl had belonged
had arrived shortly afterwards and recovered the remains of the
victim for cremation. Apparently the panther had eaten but little
of the unfortunate woman, perhaps because it had been disturbed
by the party of men searching for her and had not had time to
settle down to his meal.

This time I decided to tie a live bait in the form of a goat and sit
up over it, as my stay on the Yellagiris could not exceed four days,
as I had only that much leave. So the Patel offered to procure one
for me from the same neighbouring village where he had got them
the last time, but said that it would cost a tidy sum of money—
about twenty rupees—as not only were goats scarce on the
Yellagiris but their owners in that village, which was about three
miles away, had become aware of the demand and had raised their
prices accordingly. I agreed and handed over the money, and in
the time that it would take for the goat to be brought, went down
to my farm to see how things were getting along.

At noon, after consuming the cold lunch I had brought with me

from Bangalore, I returned to the Patel’s village only to find that
the goat had not yet arrived.

It was two in the afternoon before the man who had been sent
to fetch the animal returned with a black goat that was rather
old, in the sense that it was past the stage where it would bleat for
a long time when left alone, and so help to attract the panther.
Secondly, as I have said, it was a black goat. Black or white goats
occasionally cause suspicion among certain panthers. A brown
bait, whether goat, dog or bull, is generally the best to use, in that
they resemble in colour the wild animals that form the panther’s
natural food. However, there was no time now to change the goat
and I would have to make the best of circumstances.

The Patel and four or five men accompanied me, the latter
carrying axes, ropes and the same charpoy I had used on the last
occasion. We reached the village to which the girl had belonged in
a little under an hour. There another couple of men joined my
party, who offered to point out the exact spot at which the young
woman had been killed.

It was perhaps three-quarters of a mile from the village. A

stream, bearing a trickle of water, ran from west to east and
skirted the base of Periamalai Hill perhaps a half-mile away. This
stream was sandy and bordered by a thick outcrop of mixed
lantana and wait-a-bit thorns. At the spot where the girl had been
attacked a shallow hole had been dug by the villagers to form a
pool for watering their cattle when the weather became dry and
the rest of the stream ceased to flow. It was to this place that the
girl had come for water when she had been killed the previous day.
The lantana grew quite close to the pool, and it was evident that
the man-eater had stalked her under cover of this thicket, and
from there had made his final pounce.

As matters stood, this panther had again confirmed that he was

most unusual in his habits, even for a man-eater. He had
repeatedly attacked his human victim in broad daylight. Only
tigers do this, as man-eating panthers, being inherent cowards at
heart, usually confine their activities to the hours of darkness. I
was inclined to think that this animal was perhaps already lying
up in the thicket before the girl arrived and could not resist the
temptation of a meal so readily offered.

With this idea in mind, I went down on hands and knees and
began a close examination of the lantana bushes and the ground
in the vicinity, where I shortly found confirmation of my theory,
for one of the bushes provided ample shelter for a regular lie-up.
Beneath it the carpet of dried lantana leaves rendered impossible
the chance of finding any visible track, but a faintly prevailing
odour of wild animal inclined me to confirm my guess as correct,
and that the panther used this place now and then to lie up, as it
offered ideal proximity for attack on any prey that might
approach the pool to drink.

This was encouraging for, if the panther had used it before,

there was every likelihood that he would use it again. Further, as I
have already told you, Periamalai Hill lay about half a mile away.
The panther might have his regular den among the rocks and
caves higher up the hill and would find this lantana lair a most
convenient place in which to await the coming of an unsuspecting
victim.

As I studied these conditions an idea suddenly came to me. I

would create a scene as close as possible to what the panther
might expect it to be. I would tether the goat to a stake beside the
pool to make it appear like an animal that had come there to
drink. And I would forestall the panther’s arrival by hiding myself
beneath that very same lantana bush. Should he hear the goat, or
catch a glimpse of it from higher up the hill, from where it would
be clearly visible, he would make straight for this point of attack
and would find me waiting for him.

I explained my idea to the Patel and the men who had

accompanied me. They thought it clever, but the Patel decided it
was foolish, in that it entailed too great a risk. I convinced him
that there was really little danger as, due to the denseness of the
surrounding lantana and the thickness of the bush itself, the
panther would have difficulty in getting at me from any of the
sides or rear, and could only reach me through the entrance to this
under-cover shelter, while I would be expecting him to arrive from
that direction and would be ready. Further, his attention would be
concentrated on the goat and he would scarcely suspect an enemy
would await him in his own lair.
 The stake which we had brought along was accordingly
hammered deep into the sand with the aid of a stone from the
streambed. I crept under the bush and took my time in making
myself quite comfortable for the night. I also clamped the torch to
the barrel of my rifle, and tested it to see that it was in good order.
This torch I had lately purchased. It was a three-cell arrangement
of the fixed-focus type. Finally, I took a long drink of tea from my
water-bottle before ordering the men to tether the goat to the
stake by its hind legs.

While all these preliminaries were going on the goat had been
kept some distance away, so that it should not come to know that
a human being was sheltering in the bushes so close by; for once it
knew that, there was very little chance of it bleating from a sense
of loneliness. On the other hand, if the goat really felt it had been
left alone, there was much more reason why it should cry out.

While the goat was being tied I remained perfectly silent. After
finishing their job, the Patel and his men went away and I was left
by myself to await what might happen.

It was hot and still beneath the lantana, and long before sunset
it was quite dark where I was sitting. The goat had bleated a few
times at the beginning and then had stopped. I could only hope
that it would begin calling again when darkness fell. But I was
sorely disappointed. Occasionally I had heard the sounds made by
the goat as it kicked and struggled against the tethering rope, but
these had now lapsed into silence and I came to the inevitable
conclusion that the damned animal had gone to sleep.

Of necessity, in my position I had to keep wide awake and alert

the whole night and could not share the goat’s slumbers. I envied
that blasted goat.

Mosquitoes worried me, and insects of all kinds ran over my

body. Bush mice, which are even smaller than the domestic
variety, rustled the leaves and crept along the stems of the
lantana. Once something long and soft slithered through the dry
leaves and along the sides of the bush. It was a snake. Whether
harmless or poisonous I could not know. I sat absolutely
motionless in spite of the mosquitoes and insects, and the
slithering died away.

The panther did not come. No sounds penetrated the silence

under the bush, not even the calls of a night-bird. Time moved on
its long and tedious course. The luminous hands of my wristwatch
very slowly clocked the passing hours. I felt drowsy but dared not
give in to my inclination to close my eyes even for a few fitful
seconds. I tried to think of other things and other events to get my
mind off the panther. The only thing I could think of was to damn
the goat.

The greying light of a new day gradually filtered in, not even
heralded by the call of a jungle fowl, peafowl, or any other bird. I
came out of that bush the most disgusted man in the whole of
India. The goat, which had been lying curled up and fast asleep by
the stake, lazily got to its feet, stretched leisurely, wagged its
stumpy tail and regarded me in a quizzical fashion as much as to
say, ‘Come now, who is the real goat, you or me?’ Knowing the
answer, I refrained from a spoken confession.

Instead, I untethered that wretched animal, which followed me

back to the village where the Patel lived. That worthy, with the
same party of men who had accompanied us the day before, was
just about to set forth to see how I had fared. Telling him to return
the black goat, I said that I would snatch a few hours’ sleep and
then go myself to find a more satisfactory bait. I went to my kottai
and slept till noon.

I was feeling hungry when I awoke, so I opened a tin of salmon,

which I ate with some bread I had brought with me from
Bangalore. The bread had become rather dry, but was improved by
the tinned butter I spread thickly upon it. This served to fill me for
lunch. I had already set my portable Primus stove to boil water for
tea and the beverage was indeed refreshing. While eating my
lunch I brewed a second kettle of tea to put into my water-bottle.
Gathering the necessary equipment for another night’s vigil, I
returned to the Patel’s village. Fortunately the weather was warm
as the previous night, so that an overcoat was unnecessary.

I took the Patel along with me to add force to my argument, and

walked to the village where the goats were available. There, after
some picking and choosing, followed by some red-hot bargaining, I
was able to select a half-grown animal that was more likely to
bleat. It was past 3.30 p.m. when we set out for the place where I
had sat up the night before, but really there was no hurry, as the
spot had already been selected and there was no machan to fix.

Before five o’clock I had crept into the bush, the new goat was
tethered and the men were on their way back.

Hardly were they out of sight and earshot than the goat began
to bleat, and he kept this up incessantly. I silently congratulated
myself on my selection.

With evening it again became quite dark beneath the lantana,

the goat called loudly and I waited expectantly for the panther.
An hour passed. Then I heard an almost imperceptible rustle, the
faintest sound of a dry twig being trodden upon, and I sensed the
panther was coming. The crucial moment had almost arrived.
Now I had to be careful not to shine the torch before the panther
was fully in view. If I did so, I knew he would disappear. On the
other hand, if I delayed too long, he might see me first and perhaps
make a charge, or even vanish.

With all my senses at full stretch, I waited. There were no fresh

rustlings or other sounds. Then I heard a faint hiss. Instinctively I
knew the panther had seen or sensed me. He had curled back his
lips in a snarl, preparatory to the growl that would most likely
follow. That curling of his lips had occasioned the slight hissing
sound I had heard. It was now or never. My thumb went down on
the switch-button of the torch. Its beam sprang right into the twin
reddish-white eyes of the panther. I could clearly see his face and
chest perhaps ten feet away. Aiming quickly at the throat I pressed
the trigger of the Winchester. The panther appeared to come
forward a pace. Then he reared up on his hind legs, but not before
my second bullet took him full in the chest. He fell over
backwards out of sight and threshed the bushes for a few seconds.
Next came the unmistakable gurgling sounds of a dying animal;
then silence.

I waited another half-hour before deciding to take the risk of

leaving the bush. I thought it reasonably safe to do so, as I was
almost sure the panther was dead. Holding the cocked rifle before
me, I crawled out of cover and stood beside the goat. My first
impulse was to cut it loose and take it in tow along with me. Then
the thought came to my mind that the panther I had fired at might
not have been the man-eater after all, but just an ordinary
animal. If that were so, I would need to exercise every precaution
in returning to the Patel’s village in the darkness and could not
afford to hamper myself by leading a goat that would necessarily
distract my attention. So I left it where it was and set out for the
Patel’s abode, where I arrived after slow and cautious walking.
The people were still awake and I told them what had happened.
Then I went to my kottai for a sound night’s sleep.

Next morning we found the panther where he had fallen. An old

male, with a somewhat craggy and pale coat, he showed every
sign of being the man-eater, for his canine teeth were worn down
with old age and his claws were blunt and frayed.

But only time would tell whether I had bagged the real culprit.

By noon I was on my way down the hill with his pelt.

 Many years have elapsed since that incident took place, but no
more people have been killed on either the Yellagiri or Javadi
ranges, and so I am reasonably sure I succeeded that night in
bringing the man-eater to bag.
 3

Old Munuswamy and the Panther of Magadi

HE town of Bangalore, where I live, lies practically in the

T centre of a straight line drawn from the city of Madras, on the
east coast of India bordering the Bay of Bengal, to the town of
Mangalore, on the west coast bordering the Arabian Sea.
Bangalore is on a plateau just over three thousand feet above
mean sea level. Nobody who has lived there can ever forget its;
unique climate—neither too hot nor too cold, and neither too
rainy nor too dry—with lovely misty mornings in the cold
weather, from November to the middle of February, and with
bracing cool mornings even in summer. The name, Bangalore, is
an Anglicised version of the Kanarese words ‘bengal uru’ meaning
‘bean town’ as translated literally, whence it has become known
as the ‘city of beans’; and nobody who has eaten them can ever
forget Bangalore’s luscious fruits and vegetables of both tropical
and European varieties.

Bangalore was far from being a city until the end of the Second
World War, when its strategic military position, its great potential
to grow into a large industrial city, and all its other assets have
joined together to make it the most popular place in India.
Following a wide influx of refugees both during and after the war,
it has trebled its population, has become highly industrialised and
is now a fast-growing city.

But this is not going to be a description of the merits of

Bangalore; it was merely to say that I live in a very beautiful city.
Bangalore is built on a number of hills, and if you stand on any
one of them and look around, you will see three very high hills on
the horizon, respectively to the north, the northwest and the west.
They are all within a radius of thirty-five miles and each is above
four thousand feet in height. The hill to the north is the highest. It
is really not one but three hills, consisting of three peaks together
which make up the Nundydroog group. ‘Droog’ means ‘hill
fortress’, and the easternmost of these three peaks is crowned by
the remains of an old fort, still in a good state of repair, built by
that redoubtable Mahommedan warrior Tippoo Sultan, the ‘Tiger
of Mysore’. It embraces a point overlooking a sheer drop of some
600 feet. This is known as ‘Tipoo’s Drop’, because it was here that
this hoary soldier dispensed with those who annoyed him by
making them walk, blindfolded, on a narrow swaying plank out
over the abyss. If they could walk to the end of the plank and
return, they were spared. There seems to be no record of anyone
accomplishing this feat. Perhaps the plank swayed too much—or
maybe it was made to sway too much. Who knows? Historians are
not very clear on this point.

To the northwest of Bangalore is the hill called Sivanaganga. It

has a temple at the summit and is a place of pilgrimage for
Hindus. It also has a well at the top that is said to be so deep that
it is bottomless. Another version is that this well is the beginning
of a secret underground passage running all the thirty-five miles to
Bangalore.

The third hill to the west is known as Magadi Hill. Viewed from
the rising ground in Bangalore it appears to be sugar-loaded in
shape; but when you get there you find it has two humps like a
dromedary. Between them is a heavily-wooded valley difficult to
enter, for the approaches are slippery; if you should slip, you will
not end much better off than did those blindfolded prisoners with
whom Tippoo amused himself on Nundydroog.

This is the valley that brings me to the beginning of the story,

for it was here that the panther that terrorized Magadi was said to
have his cave.
 Magadi hill is surrounded by gorgeously wooded and hilly
country. To the south lies a stretch of reserved forest, covering a
series of hills, extending southwards for over seventy miles to the
Cauvery river, near a place called Sangam. Not all of this area is
reserved forest, but a large part is, while the rest is thickly covered
with scrub jungle. About midway down this line of hills, and
between the towns of Closepet and Kankanhalli, the peaks cluster
particularly high and closely, and the area swarms with panthers.
This hunting ground is my son, Donald’s, particular paradise. He
has shot forty panthers there and over a dozen bear, I think, and
he is little more than twenty-three years old.

To the west of Magadi hill are plains of low scrub. Black-buck,

hare, peafowl, partridge and quail abound. The hills continue to
the north, but there they are much lower. To the east lies more
hilly country, and Bangalore, about thirty-five miles away. The
Arkravarthy river, a comparatively small stream, crosses the road
to Bangalore near the twenty-three milestone, and it has been
dammed just there. The catchment area is big enough to ensure an
ample supply of water to Bangalore throughout the driest year.
This dam is known as Tippagondahalli, and huge pumps send the
water the remaining twenty-three miles to Bangalore.

There you have the full setting of the country where this
leopard first appeared. It must not be thought that there is
anything special about this animal because I have used the name
‘leopard’. A leopard and a panther are one and the same creature.
For no good reason that I know of, in India we more often call
them panthers.

The events that I am going to relate took place before the last
war.

This panther killed some goats and a village cur or two at some
of the few scattered hamlets that lie at the foot of Magadi hill.
Nobody took much notice of him, for panthers had been doing
that sort of thing in that part of the country for generations and
generations of panthers and the people have grown up with them.

Time passed and he grew more confident of himself. He killed

some young bulls—and some cows too.

Now the bull is a sacred animal in India and no Hindu will

touch his flesh. Nevertheless, the bull does all the hard work. He
ploughs the fields and he draws the bullock-carts. He even turns
the huge stone wheels that grind chunam or limestone. But with
all his many uses and considerable value, people do not begrudge a
panther eating one of their bulls now and again—provided he does
not become too greedy. But when he goes in for killing cows—
which supply milk and butter, from whence comes ’ ghee’, which
is melted butter and a cooking medium used throughout the
length and breadth of the country and of much value—he
commits an unpardonable offence and it is high time something is
done.

In Bangalore there lives—and I use the present tense because he

is still there—an individual named ‘Munuswamy’, who claims to
be a professional ‘gentleman’s shikari’ guide. He is also a rogue.
He brings in items of shikar news to town and passes them on to
novices and greenhorns in the game. ‘Master, there is herd of forty
wild pigs can shoot near Whitefield, only twelve miles away.’ Or,
‘Master, on tenth mile on Magadi Road and eighteenth mile on
road to Mysore City there plenty herds of black bucks got, fifty
animals in each, which master very easily can shoot.’ He demands
a reasonable advance of money for the information, and should he
turn up on the day appointed to accompany the novice to the
place, the latter generally wonders what has become of those
many wild pigs and blackbuck that were said to abound. But do
not underestimate Munuswamy for a moment. He is quick-witted
and a ready liar. ‘See, master,’ he will say, ‘I told you come soon
long time back. You no come. Only yesterday big crowd military
officer sahibs come in car. Them shoot two pigs. All run away
now. Master come again another day, eh?’

Wild pigs and blackbuck are only ‘chicken feed’ to Munuswamy.

To see him at his best is to watch him bringing news of a panther
to some unfortunate greenhorn who is about to learn the lesson of
his life. He will present himself at the gate of the bungalow, or
accost the sahib on the road, with something like this: ‘Sar, me big
gentleman-shikari-guide. Me show master blackbucks, wild pigs,
peacocks, hares, partridge and green pigeons. Or master like snipes
and wild ducks? Them come plenty, plenty in December month—
Kistmiss time got. Master like shoot very very big panther? Him
large one got. Only fifteen miles from here, Kankanhalli road.
Master give fifteen chips advance, me tie live donkey. Panther kill
donkey, me come tell Master. Me also build machan very fine.
Master shoot panther very easy.’

The novice is astounded. Only fifteen rupees for a live-bait? A

panther only fifteen miles away? Who said hunting was an
expensive or difficult hobby?

So the fifteen rupees are handed over to Munuswamy, who then

remembers that master must give him another two rupees towards
his food and three rupees for bus charge, when he brings master
news of the kill. The greenhorn thinks this is very reasonable and
forks out another five rupees. Munuswamy goes away most
contented.

His first call is at one of the many local toddy-shops. He drinks

only ‘toddy’ and eschews spirits in the form of ‘arrack’, which he
says is too strong for him anyhow. But he drinks three bottles of
toddy. This is the fermented juice of the coconut palm. Then old
Munuswamy goes into a deep sleep.

The next day he wakes up and sets about the business of baiting
the ‘panther’ in right earnest.
 In Bangalore there are two animal ‘pounds’ for stray cattle, dogs
and donkeys. The official charge for reclaiming your donkey, if it
has been so impounded, is one rupee. After an interval of about
ten days, unclaimed animals are sold by public auction to repay
part of the expenses incurred in feeding them during those ten
days. These auctions take place about twice a week, and it is a
very simple matter for Munuswamy to attend one of them and
purchase a donkey for about two rupees. Or he may even
wrongfully pose as the owner of one of the impounded animals
and claim possession of it. After all, one donkey looks much alike
another, and there is no means by which the official in charge can
test the truth of Munuswamy’s claim, particularly if he sends a
friend or agent to make it.

So Munuswamy gets the donkey, for which the sahib paid him
fifteen rupees, for only two rupees, thereby making a profit of
thirteen rupees, representing a potential 650 per cent on his initial
outlay. A good beginning indeed.

Then he sets out on a long walk of some miles to wherever he

has told the sahib the panther is to be found and ties the donkey
there for a couple of days. Early in the morning of the third day or
so he kills the donkey himself. This is how he does it. He has one
of those huge penknives that incorporate about a dozen
appurtenances, among them a round sharp-pointed instrument
originally intended to be used, I believe, for removing stones from
horses’ hooves. At least this is what I am told, but I am not quite
sure myself. With this crude instrument, he stabs the unfortunate
animal in its jugular vein, and when it falls down, he stabs it
again, making four wounds in all, two on each side of the throat.
With the blade end of the same pen-knife he cuts open the belly,
scatters the entrails about and tears off some chunks of flesh from
the outer skin. Then he covers the carcass with branches. Lastly,
he removes from a dirty bag he has brought with him a mysterious
object. Can you guess what it is? This is Munuswamy’s ace trick. It
is a panther’s paw, crudely stuffed with straw. With this he makes
a series of ‘pug-marks’ here and there.

With the scene set to his expert satisfaction, for a few annas
Munuswamy thumbs a lift to town in a lorry, and in great
excitement summons the sahib. The greenhorn becomes excited
too. In frantic haste he makes the ‘missus’ prepare sandwiches for
him and tea for his thermos flask, while he himself cleans his rifle,
assembles rounds, torchlight, batteries and a number of other odds
and ends—most of which he never uses and are quite useless
anyhow. Then away he drives with Munuswamy at high speed to
the place where, the ‘panther’ has ‘killed’.

Munuswamy points out the ‘pug-marks’ on the ground and the

panther’s ‘teeth-marks’ on the donkey’s throat, and the sahib is
convinced. He also arranges a machan to be tied, using two
coolies to do so, for whose services he charges two rupees each,
though he pays them only twelve annas. Finally, before the sahib
ascends, he strikes a bargain. If master shoots the panther, he must
give Munuswamy twenty rupees baksheesh. If master misses—that
is master’s own fault—he must give his faithful retainer ten rupes.
If the panther does not turn up—master should not forget that
panthers are very, very cunning animals and sometimes don’t
return to a kill—well, he, Munuswamy has worked very hard in
the hot sun for master’s sake and must get five rupees. The bargain
is struck.

Strangely enough, Munuswamy trusts master, just as much as

he expects master to trust him.

Well, the panther doesn’t come—for the best of reasons: there is

no panther. Munuswamy takes care to pocket his five rupees first,
then consoles master by reminding him that panthers are
unpredictable creatures and that this one might come next time.
He offers to tie another donkey. And so the story goes on and on,
till the greenhorn abandons the idea even of seeing one of these
most elusive creatures and decides to confine his attention to wild
duck or partridge. Even here, Munuswamy is still useful.

You may ask me: ‘How do you know all this about
Munuswamy?’ I was such a greenhorn once and he ‘had’ me no
less than four times. One day an accident occurred—for
Munuswamy. He was pointing out the ‘pug-marks’ to me. A stray
cur had been watching us interestedly and suddenly darted into a
bush and came out carrying a cloth bag. Munuswamy, in great
consternation, gave chase. The dog ran and something spotted
dropped out of the bag. Munuswamy rushed for it and so did I. It
was a panther’s stuffed foot. Then, at the threat of the most
violent death—even more violent than the donkey’s—he related
his modus operandi to me in detail, much as I have told you.

I am a long-suffering individual and believe in the adage to ‘live

and let live’. If there are greenhorns as foolish as I was, just
waiting to be ‘plucked’—well, why should Munuswamy not pluck
them? So, I have never spoilt his game and Munuswamy rather
likes me.

Don’t think that, by telling you this, I am spoiling his game

now, for Munuswamy assumes a different name each time he
presents himself to a new recruit to the band of hunters that
abound in Bangalore. He may be Ramiah, Poojah, Pooniah, or
have a hundred aliases. But in case you should come to Bangalore
at any time and aspire to join our ranks, I will give you one hint
about him—a casual description. If an English-speaking
‘gentleman’s shikari-guide’ presents himself to you—a lean, tall,
oldish, very black man, with long hair drawn to the back of his
head and tied in a knot, and large protruding eyes, whether he is
wearing a turban or cap, dhoti, lungoti or baggy trousers or shorts,
and even if he says his name is Jack Johnson, keep far from him
and lock your purse up safely in a drawer. As likely as not it is my
old friend Munuswamy, the happy-go-lucky ‘crooked’ guide.
 In talking about this individual, I am aware that you may think
I have strayed very far from my story. But really I have not,
because he plays quite a prominent part at the beginning and at
the end of it. And I am sure you have enjoyed making the
acquaintance of this quite unusual and unique character, anyway.

This Munuswamy had come to hear about the activities of the

panther that had begun killing bulls and cows in the Magadi Hill
area. Do not imagine that, although Munuswamy invariably
manufactured his own panthers, he did not know anything about
real ones. He did. In years gone by, when he was younger and
times were not so hard, he had been a genuine shikari himself and
knew a good deal about these animals. So when the information
reached him, he went to Magadi by bus and made a first-hand
investigation, during which he came to understand the panther
had been killing goats and cattle rather frequently.

You will appreciate that because of his methods and the strange
fact that nobody who went out shooting with Munuswamy ever
saw a panther, and very rarely saw anything else, his reputation
as a guide was getting somewhat tarnished. More than half the
homes of gentlemen shikaris, both European and Indian, whether
experienced or novices, were fast closed to him. This was a very
deplorable state of affairs for Munuswamy and reacted directly on
his exchequer and consequently upon his stomach. The time had
come to remedy it and vindicate himself.

The fact that the panther was killing boldly and frequently
should make him easy to bag, and it awoke Munuswamy’s latent
hunting instincts. He decided that he would shoot the animal and
then advertise the fact in town by a procession, in which the
panther would be taken around the streets of Bangalore on a
bullock-cart to the tune of tom-toms. Even better than that,
Munuswamy would have his photograph taken with the panther
and present copies to such of his clients as were still on speaking
terms. To those who were not he would post copies. On the back of
each he would have a short statement to the effect that shikari
Munuswamy had shot this panther on such and such a day, at
such and such a place, because the sahibs who had come with him
had been unable to do so, in spite of all the help he had given
them.

The more he thought of it, the more old Munuswamy thrilled to

the idea. That would give them something to think about. And it
would give a tremendous fillip to his waning reputation.

Having sold his own gun long ago, he somehow contrived to

borrow an old hammer-model .12 bore double-barrelled weapon.
Then he revisited the scene and told the villagers that he,
Munuswamy the old shikari, who had once served with generals
and viceroys, had come to shoot the animal that was causing
them such loss. He said he intended to live in the village of
Magadi, which is situated about four miles northwest of the hill
from which it takes its name, and told them to bring him news
immediately if any of their animals were killed.

Two days later the news came that the panther had killed
another cow. Taking the solitary ball cartridge, and the three
others containing L.G. shot that he had borrowed with the gun,
Munuswamy repaired to the spot, tied his machan and shot the
panther high up in the shoulder with the ball cartridge. The L.G.
in the other barrel—for he had fired both barrels together to make
certain—helped to pepper him too, but the panther got away
nevertheless. Reviewing the situation later, Munuswamy decided
he was too advanced in years to follow wounded panthers.
Moreover, the advantages he might get out of the ‘propaganda
stunt’ that had fired his imagination did not now appear to weigh
sufficiently against the dangers of following up the blood trail left
by the panther. So he decided to call it a day and returned to
Bangalore.
 Weeks passed, and then the old story, which invariably begins
the same way, took its usual course. A panther began to attack
dogs and goats outside some of the villages situated beside the
twenty-two miles of roadway that stretches outwards from
Magadi to Closepet. In two instances the people in charge of the
herds had tried to save their goats and had been attacked. A man
and a boy had been mauled in this way.

Then a jutka-man and his pony entered the picture. Three

persons had detrained one night at Closepet railway station from
the night train from Mysore. As there was no bus service at that
hour, these three men had decided to travel to their destination, a
village ten miles from Closepet, by jutka. A jutka, for those of you
who are unfamiliar with the word, is a two-wheeled vehicle
covered by an elliptical roof of matting reinforced with bamboos,
and is drawn by a small breed of pony especially reared for the
purpose. Jutka ponies resemble the ordinary village ‘tat’, except
that they have shorter manes and shorter tails.

The jutka arrived at its destination and unloaded its passengers.

The driver decided to sleep in the village and return to Closepet
the next morning. He unharnessed his pony and fed it with some
of the dried grass he carried in a gunny-bag, slung just below the
floor of the vehicle. Then he went to sleep.

The pony evidently finished the grass and began to stray along
the village street, hoping to find some more growing there. In this
way it came to the outskirts of the village, which was after all a
tiny place.

From the back of the last hut along the street something sprang
up suddenly against its side, and began to tear at its throat.
Neighing shrilly, the pony galloped back up the street. The
something that had attacked it had tried to hold on, but had lost
its grip on the pony’s throat and fallen off, but not before it had
inflicted a nasty wound. That something had been the panther.
 The sounds made by the terror-stricken pony and the growls of
the panther awoke the jutka-owner, who saw his animal rushing
towards him. It halted, quivering with fright, blood pouring from
its throat. He raised an immediate alarm.

The pony could not haul the jutka; so next day the owner
walked it back to Closepet, where he reported the matter to the
police. News spread and it became known that the area was
threatened by a panther that might any day become a man-eater.

Shortly afterwards a man was pounced upon within two miles of

Magadi village itself and badly mauled. Villagers, tending their
fields some distance away, rushed to the rescue and found him on
the ground, severely bitten and raked by the animal’s sharp claws.
They carried him into Magadi, and to the Local Fund Hospital
there, for attention. A police report was made, and the local
police daffedar, whose rank is about equivalent to that of a
sergeant, being the most senior officer in the village and in charge
of the police chowki or station, set out to make an on-the-spot
examination of the evidence given, accompanied by a constable
with a bicycle.

He was taken to the place at which the ryots had picked up the
injured man. While he was looking at the blood marks and pug-
tracks, and perhaps making copious notes in the way that
policemen do, somebody looked up and said they could see the
panther lying on a rocky outcrop at the top of a small hillock,
hardly two furlongs away. The daffedar saw him, borrowed his
constable’s bicycle, and pedalled furiously back to the village for
one of the three service-rifles that formed the entire police
armoury there.

Though he pedalled furiously back, by the time he reached the

place, his constable and one or two villagers who had remained,
said the panther had disappeared over the top of the hill. The
villagers told the daffedar that if he cared to make a detour around
the hillock—the distance wasn’t very great—he might yet be able
to cut the panther off on the other side.

The daffedar was nothing if not keen and brave, and, taking one
of the villagers along to indicate the short cut, hastened around
the hill, loading a single 303 round into the weapon he carried.
The constabulary in India are armed with rifles of the same type as
the military, with the only difference that the magazines are
generally removed, so that only one shell at a time can be fired,
thus preventing a trigger-happy copper from using his weapon
overenthusiastically at a time of riot of local disturbance. For this
reason, the daffedar had only one round to fire with, and two or
three others in his pocket.

They came to the other side of the hill, but they found no signs
of the panther. Many boulders were scattered about, and the
villager suggested they ascend the hill a little, as the panther was
probably around somewhere. This they did, and from between or
from behind some rocks the panther emerged. The daffedar was
taken by surprise and fired from his hip, missing completely. The
next second saw him on the ground with the panther on top,
biting and clawing at his chest and arms. His companion was in
full flight down the hill.

After the few seconds during which it had vented its rage, the
panther, which had not yet become a man-eater, left the wounded
policeman and sprang back to the shelter of the rocks whence he
had come. The badly hurt daffedar lay where the beast had left
him.

Meanwhile the fleeing villager ran back to the constable and

the other villagers and told them what had happened. The
constable leaped upon his bicycle and made for the police station
in the village, where he summoned the other three members of the
local force and told them their daffedar had probably been killed.
 Taking the remaining two rifles from their racks, and two
‘lathis’ in addition, the four representatives of the law hastened
back to the hill, being reinforced as they went along with more
and more villagers. A party of over ten people finally picked up
the daffedar, who was in a bad way, and carried him back to the
Local Fund Hospital. The next day an ambulance was sent for
from Bangalore, which conveyed him to the Victoria Hospital in
the city.

The reports of the panther’s various attacks had all been

registered, but when he attacked one of their own force—and a
daffedar at that—the police really got busy. It did not take them
very long to find out who had been the root of all this trouble, and
at this stage, old Munuswamy, the rascally shikari guide, re-
entered the scene.

The police caught him. Witnesses had testified that he had built
a machan and sat up for the panther. They also said he had
wounded it. To have done that he must have used a firearm. Did
he have one? Did he possess an Arms Licence? Was he hiding an
unlicensed weapon? Did he borrow it? Who from? Why? When?
Where? Did the owner have a licence? How many cartridges did he
take?

There were a hundred-and-one questions to answer. Altogether,

poor Munuswamy could see he was in for a bad time. The number
of charges against him, culminating with the statement that if the
daffedar died from his wounds he might be charged with ‘potential
manslaughter’,—filled a page and would undoubtedly send him to
jail for a long, long time.

Then Munuswamy’s inborn initiative came to his rescue and he

made his greatest bargain. He undertook to shoot the panther
within four days and lay the body at the feet of the district
Superintendent of Police (D.S.P.). If he failed, the police could do
as they liked with him. If he succeeded, the charges should be
forgotten.

The D.S.P., being a practical officer, was more interested in

having the panther shot than in prosecuting Munuswamy. For it
was obvious that this animal was well on the way to becoming a
man-eater; whereas Munuswamy, with all his rascally ways, was
unlikely to rise to such heights of evil fame. So the D.S.P. gave him
just four days and let him out of the lock-up.

The same afternoon I heard a voice persistently calling, ‘sar,

sar’, at my front door. It was Munuswamy. With tears rolling
down his cheeks—how he got them to flow so instantaneously is a
secret which he has not yet confided to me—he related his whole
tale of woe from beginning to end, and all the information that he
knew or had been able to gather about this panther, much as I
have told the story here.

He had just four days in which to shoot the panther, he insisted,

failing which he would go to ‘big, big jail’ as he termed it.
Laughingly I asked him why he did not run away. The idea had
occurred to him, he admitted, but where else throughout the
length and breadth of India would he be able to find such sporting
sahibs who gave him money so freely; such obliging auctions
where he could pick up live donkeys for as little as two rupees;
and, oh! the many other advantages which come with living in
Bangalore. The old man broke down at these thoughts and his
tears flowed faster than ever. I would not have been surprised to
learn that a few of them were genuine.

Would I please help him by shooting this panther? I would be

saving him, and oh! so many other people that it might yet kill.

I conceded the latter point, but I told Munuswamy frankly that I

wasn’t too interested in the former. He was not offended. I said I
would help him on one condition: that, as he had undoubtedly
been the root of all the trouble, he would have to be beside me and
not run away when the panther was shot.

The old boy actually smiled as he agreed. Strangely, his tears

had vanished entirely.

That very evening I took him down to the house of the D.S.P., to
whom I laughingly recounted the circumstances under which
Munuswamy had presented himself. I told the police officer that I
did not know if he had really been serious in allowing
Munuswamy a reprieve of four days in which to kill the panther,
but I pointed out that if this was so, such a time-limit was an
encumbrance, as I wanted the old rogue with me to assist, and it
would be a nuisance if the police butted in on the fifth day and
took him away.

The D.S.P. replied that he had really meant to give him only
four days in which to fulfil his undertaking, but in view of what I
said he would not interfere so long as I went ahead and tried to
bag this animal. He also helped by handing me a letter, calling
upon all police officials to whom I might show it to render me
every assistance.

Of course I did not tell this to Munuswamy. That would have

made him relax his efforts. Instead, I mentioned that the D.S.P.
sahib was beginning to regret having allowed him as long as four
days and wanted to cut them down to three, but that I had
interceded on his behalf and saved the situation in the nick of
time.

This made Munuswamy more grateful to me than ever, and as

impatient to be off on our trip. In the Studebaker we reached
Magadi Hill early the next morning and started making inquiries
at the various hamlets at its foot, including the place at which
Munuswamy had wounded the panther. Asking questions as we
went along, we worked our way right up to Magadi village itself,
where I spoke to the police constables who had rescued their
daffedar. Thence we set off in the car along the road to Closepet,
stopping at each wayside village to ask questions. In this way we
came to the village where the panther had attacked the pony, and
eventually to Closepet town itself, where the Sub-Inspector of
Police, to whom I showed the note given me by the D.S.P.,
immediately sent for the jutka-man. I interrogated him and he
told me what had happened to his pony.

It took until late that evening to ask all these questions, but in
spite of them I had found nobody who appeared to know where the
panther was likely to be living, or his particular habits. Of course,
I knew there was no hurry, but Munuswamy’s dark countenance
was even more haggard when he realised that one out of his four
days of grace had passed already with no substantial results.

We came back to Magadi village that night and slept in the

travellers’ bungalow.

Early next morning a skinny-looking individual presented

himself and stated that he earned a living gathering honey from
the hives on the surrounding hills, by collecting herbs and other
medicinal roots, and by snaring hare, partridge and quail when he
got the opportunity. He said he had been told the night before that
I had been around with Munuswamy, seeking information about
the panther, and he had come to report that he was almost certain
the animal lived in a cave in the recesses of the cleft between the
two hummocks of Magadi Hill.

I asked him what made him so certain of this. He replied that

some weeks earlier he had been there to collect herbs and had
observed that an animal, dripping blood, had crossed some rocks,
leaving a distinct trail. Following cautiously, he had found
panther pug-marks where the animal had left the rocks. He had
then stopped following. Later, he came to know that on the
previous day someone had wounded a panther not far away. That
somebody had been Munuswamy.

He knew of the cave, having taken honey from beehive in its

vicinity many times in the past. A couple of days previously, just
after the daffedar had been attacked but before my informant had
come to hear of it himself through having been away for a week at
Closepet, he had approached the cave to see if the bees had begun
to build again. He was some distance away from it when an
animal had growled at him. Remembering at once the blood-trail
he had found weeks earlier, he had left the valley as fast as he
could.

This was news indeed.

I started asking questions, and he undertook to lead me to the

cave, provided that I was prepared to creep on hands and knees for
a furlong or so through the dense lantana that led to the valley
and the cave.

I agreed and told Munuswamy that the time had come for him
to fulfil his part of the bargain, which was to accompany me and
be in at the killing of the panther, to atone for his sin in having
wounded it in the first place.

If I had expected him to show fear, I was mistaken. The police

had so terrified him that he was more afraid of the remaining
three days running out without bagging our quarry than of facing
any panther.

I waited for the sun to become hot, while I ate a leisurely ‘chota
hazri’. This was in order to allow the panther time to fall asleep
for the day within his cave. If I arrived there too early, he might
hear me coming and beat a retreat.

We left the bungalow by car at exactly ten o’clock and in less

than fifteen minutes reached a point on the road almost opposite
the valley between the two hummocks of the hill. The lean man,
who had given his name as Allimuthu, indicated that we should
have to get out. I parked the car in the shade of a tree just off the
road and the three of us got down. I worked the under-lever of my
rifle, just to check that it was moving freely. Then Allimuthu,
Munuswamy and I set off for the cave.

The hill is about two miles from the road. We reached the base
and started climbing towards the valley, which was no longer
visible, because of the trees around us. Over their tops I could just
see the summits of the two hillocks above, and to the right and left
of us.

We climbed for an hour and it was a stiff ascent. Then we came

to a veritable sea of lantana bushes which had entirely enveloped
the trees and the lesser jungle. This was the place. Allimuthu
indicated, where we would have to crawl through and under the
lantana for some distance.

I can assure you that covering the next furlong or so of ground

was a strenuous effort. We were perspiring and scratched by thorns
already as it was. Allimuthu crawled ahead; I followed closely,
and Munuswamy was even closer behind. By the time we
negotiated that lantana-belt we were dripping with sweat and my
khaki shirt and pants were torn in many places. I am sure I left
small portions of my face, neck and hands hanging from many of
the barbed hooks that serrate each branch of lantana shrub.

We eventually broke free of the belt and entered the valley

between the hummocks. It was strewn with boulders everywhere,
covered to half their height by spear-grass. Allimuthu whispered
that the cave was to the left and about three-fourths of the
distance along the valley. It was an impossible place in which to
spot a panther, even at a short distance. A dozen tigers would
have been equally invisible there.
 I took the lead now, with Allimuthu behind and Munuswamy
immediately behind him. I kept to the right and skirted the foot of
the right-hand hummock, so that if the panther charged from the
cave, or any cover to our left, I should have a chance to see it
coming. We drew opposite the cave. There was an overhanging
cleft in the rock above it. I noticed that this rock was pitted with
barnacles of wax that had been the sites of old honeycombs,
although there appeared to be no fresh ones. The inside of the
cavern was hidden by the long grass and piles of rocks that lay
scattered outside it, many of which had apparently rolled down
the hillside from above.

Then we heard it. An unmistakable growl. Allimuthu reached

out to touch my shoulder to stop me, but I had already caught the
sound.

It might have been made by a panther—or it might have been

made by a bear.

I stopped to think. There were two courses open to me. There

was no doubt that the sound had come from in front: from the
cave or some place very close to it. I could throw stones or
advance a little closer. I felt afraid to follow the latter course. The
creature, whatever it was, could rush down upon me from the
higher level of the cavern. If I failed to see it coming between the
grass and rocks, or missed it with my first shot, I could expect real
trouble.

Discretion got the better of valour and I whispered to Allimuthu

and Munuswamy to hurl stones in that direction. They did so.

Nothing happened.

With my rifle cocked and ready, I watched for the slightest

movement in the scene before me.

They hurled more stones, but still nothing happened.

 Then I noticed a slight movement of the long grass away to the
right, leading up the hill, beyond the side of the cavern where it
adjoined the sloping ground behind.

That movement might have been caused by the breeze or by

some animal slinking through the grass. Of one thing I was
certain, it was definitely not a bear. Bruin is black in southern
India, and I would easily have picked out such a black object
against the brown grass. Nor for that matter could Bruin sneak
about in such fashion—not even if he tried. He is a blundering
type, who either bursts upon a scene or bursts away from it.

I strained my eyes and then saw part of the spotted shape as it

drew level with the height of the rock that overhung the cavern.

The animal had stopped moving now and was undoubtedly

looking back at us, although I could not make out its head or face
in the grass. A couple of seconds more and it might be gone.

I covered that spotted patch in my sights and gently pressed the

trigger.

The panther shot up and out of the grass, bent up double like a
prawn, and then rolled backwards down the slope and was hidden
from view in the grass. Scrambling upon a boulder, I tried to look
down and see him. There was nothing to be seen.

I waited for ten minutes; then I crept forward, after motioning

to Allimuthu and Munuswamy to take cover. Every now and then
I leaped on to a boulder to see if I could catch a glimpse of the
animal.

Eventually I did, and all my caution was unnecessary, for the

panther was quite dead. That snap shot of mine had been a lucky
one. The .405 bullet had passed through the back of his neck and
into his skull.
 Examination showed where the ball from Munuswamy’s gun
had travelled clean through the animal’s back, high up and behind
the shoulder-blades. It had made a big hole in leaving and had
caused a nasty open wound in which maggots were crawling. Two
L.G. pellets were embedded in the skin, but the wounds caused by
them appeared to be healing. The main wound, however, would
eventually have caused the animal’s death, if it had not made him
a man-eater before then. This was a middle-aged male, just under
seven feet in length.

We had a lot of trouble lugging his body through that infernal

lantana thicket, but we made it after more toil and sweat.

That evening we laid the body before the D.S.P’s feet. Exactly
forty-eight hours had passed since I had asked him to extend the
time limit of four days. But Munuswamy and I had accomplished
the task in half that time. The D.S.P. was all smiles.
 4

The Black Panther of Sivanipalli

IVANIPALLI has always been a favourite haunt of mine

S because of its proximity to Bangalore and the fact that it lends
itself so conveniently to a weekend excursion or even a visit of a
few hours on a moonlit night. All you have to do is to motor from
Bangalore to Denkanikota, a distance of forty-one miles, proceed
another four miles by car, and then leave the car and walk along a
footpath for five miles, which brings you to Sivanipalli. The
hamlet itself stands at the edge of the Reserved Forest.

Nearly three miles to the west of this small hamlet the land
drops for about three hundred feet, down to a stream running
along the decline. To the south of the hamlet another stream flows
from the east to west, descending rapidly in a number of cascades
to converge with the first stream that runs along the foot of the
western valley. To the east of Sivanipalli itself the jungle stretches
to a forest lodge, Gulhatti Bungalow, situated nearly five hundred
feet up on a hillside. East of Gulhatti itself, and about four and a
half miles away as the crow flies, is another forest bungalow at a
place called Aiyur. Four miles northeast again there is a Forestry
Department shed located near a rocky hill named Kuchuvadi. This
is a sandalwood area, and the shed houses an ancient huge pair of
scales which are used for weighing the cut pieces of sandalwood as
they are brought in from the jungle, before being despatched to
the Forestry Department’s godowns at the block headquarters at
Denkanikota.

Northwards of Sivanipalli, thick scrub jungle extends right up to

and beyond the road, five miles away, where you have to leave
the car, before setting out for the hamlet on foot.
 Sivanipalli itself consists of barely half-a-dozen thatched huts
and is hardly big enough to be called even a hamlet. A
considerably larger village named Salivaram is found three miles
to the north, just a little more than halfway along the footpath
leading to the main road.

Fire-lines of the Forestry Department surround Sivanipalli on all

four sides, demarcating the commencement of the surrounding
reserved forest at distances varying from half a mile to a mile from
the hamlet. There is a water hole almost at the point where two of
these fire-lines converge at the southeastern corner. The two
streams that meet the west of the village at the foot of the three-
hundred-foot drop wind on through jungle in the direction of
another larger village named Anchetty, about eight miles
southwestward of Sivanipalli itself.

I have given this rather detailed description of the topography of

the surrounding region to enable you to have in mind a picture of
the area in which occurred the adventure I am about to relate.

It is an ideal locality for a panther’s activities, with small rocky

hills in all directions, scrub jungle, heavy forest and two streams
—apart from the water hole—to ensure a steady water supply, not
only for the panthers themselves, but for the game on which they
prey. Because of this regular supply of water, a fairly large herd of
cattle is quartered at Sivanipalli, which is an added attraction, of
course, so far as these felines are concerned!

As a result, quite a number of panthers are more or less in

permanent residence around the area. That is the main reason
why I was attracted to Sivanipalli the first day I visited it in 1929.

The jungle varies in type from the heavy bamboo that grows in
the vicinity of the water hole to the thick forest on the southern
and western sides, with much thinner jungle and scrub,
interspersed with sandalwood trees, to the east and north.
 The countryside itself is extremely beautiful, with a lovely view
of the hills stretching away to a hazy and serrated blue line on the
western horizon. Banks of mist float up from the jungle early in
the morning and completely hide the base of these hills, exposing
their tops like rugged islands in a sea of fleecy wool. On a cloudy
day, the opposite effect is seen, for when storm clouds settle
themselves along the tops of the hills, entirely hiding them from
view, only the lower portions of their slopes are visible, giving the
impression of almost flat country.

I have spent many a moonlit night ‘ghooming’—derived, from

the Urdu verb ‘ghoom’, meaning ‘to wander about’—the jungles
around little Sivanipalli. They hold game of every description,
with the exception of bison, in moderate numbers. There is always
the chance of encountering an elephant, hearing the soughing
moan of a tiger, the grating sawing of a panther, or the crash of an
alarmed sambar as it flees at your approach while you wander
about the moonlit forest. You will not be able to see them—except
perhaps the elephant, for both species of carnivora, and the
sambar as well, are far too cunning and have long ago seen or
heard you coming.

You may stumble upon a bear digging vigorously in the ground

for white ants or tuber-roots, or sniffing and snuffling loudly as he
ambles along. You will undoubtedly hear him, long before you see
him as a black blob in the confused and hazy background of
vegetation, looking grey and ghostly in the moonlight.

As far back as 1934 Sivanipalli sprang a surprise. A black

panther had been seen drinking at the water hole by a herdsman
returning with his cattle from the forest where he had taken them
for the day to graze. It was shortly after five o’clock in the
evening, which is the usual time for the cattle to be driven back to
the pens in the village to be kraaled for the night. It is the custom
to drive them out in the mornings to the jungle for the day’s
grazing at about nine, or even later, and to bring them back fairly
early in the evening, the apparently late exodus and early return
being to allow time for the cows to be milked twice a day.

Thus it was only a little after five and still quite light when the
herdsman saw this black panther standing beside a bush that grew
close to the water’s edge, calmly lapping from the pool. He swore
that it was jet black and I had no reason to disbelieve him, for
there seemed no real point in a deliberate lie. When the herd
approached, the panther had gazed up at the cattle; but when the
herdsman appeared amidst his beasts it just melted away into the
undergrowth.

Now the black panther is not a separate or special species. It is

simply an instance of melanism. A black cub sometimes, but very
rarely, appears in a litter, the other cubs being of normal size and
colour. Black panthers are said to occur more in the thick
evergreen forests of Malaya, Burma, Assam and similar localities
than around this district. They have also been seen and shot very
occasionally in the Western Ghats of India. I have every reason to
believe the view that they prevail in these heavy evergreen forests,
for then their dark colour would afford considerably better
concealment. At the same time, as they are simple instances of
melanism, they should occur anywhere and everywhere that
panthers exist, regardless of the type of the jungle prevailing. I
have only seen one other black panther in its wild state, and that
was when it leapt across the road on the ghat section between
Pennagram and Muttur near the Cauvery river, at about six one
evening. They are one of Nature’s—or rather the jungle’s—
mysteries that has never been quite satisfactorily solved.

If you look closely at a black panther in a zoo, you will discover

that the rosette markings of the normal panther are still visible
through the black hair, although of course they cannot be seen
very distinctly.
 When the herdsman saw this black panther, he came to the
village and told the people all about it. A black panther had never
before been seen or heard of in this area and his tale was generally
disbelieved. Having seen the animal with his own eyes, of course,
he had no doubts, although he sincerely believed that it had not
been a normal or living animal he had laid eyes upon but Satan in
just one of the numerous forms he often adopts in the jungle to
frighten poor villagers like himself.

Some weeks passed and no one saw or heard of the black

panther again. The herdsman’s story was forgotten.

One day, some months later, in mid-afternoon, with the sun

shining brightly overhead, another herd of cattle was taking its
siesta, squatting with closed eyes or lazily munching the grass in
the shade of neighbouring trees. The beasts lay in little groups of
two to half-a-dozen. The two herdsmen had finished their midday
meal of ragi balls and curry, which they had brought along with
them, tied up in a dirty piece of cloth, and were fast asleep, lying
side by side in the shade of another tree.

It was indeed a peaceful scene, as from an azure sky the tropical

sun sent down its fiery rays that were reflected from the earth in
waves of shimmering heat. The herd of cattle was relaxed, drowsy
and unwatchful when the black panther of Sivanipalli took his
first toll.

Appearing unexpectedly, the panther fastened his fangs in the

throat of a half-grown brown and white cow, but not before she
had time to bellow with pain and leap to her feet, lifting her
assailant off the ground with his teeth locked in her throat.

The cow’s agonized cry awakened one of the sleeping herdsmen,

who was astounded by what he saw. He awoke his companion to
look upon the Devil himself in an unexpected black form, and
they watched as the stricken cow dropped to earth to ebb out her
life, kicking wildly. The black panther maintained his grip. Thus
she died. The men had leapt to their feet.

Ordinarily, in the event of an attack by a panther on one of

their cattle, they would have rushed to its rescue, brandishing
their staves and shouting at he tops of their voices, if not actually
to save the life of the victim, at least to drive off the attacker
before he could drag away the kill.

In this case neither of them found the nerve to do so. They just
stood rooted to the spot and gazed in astonishment. As they did so,
the panther released his hold on the throat of the dead cow and
looked in their direction. Although he was some fifty yards away
they could clearly see the crimson blood gushing from the cow’s
torn throat and dyeing the muzzle of the panther a deep scarlet
against the black background of fur.

They turned tail and fled.

When the few villagers of Sivanipalli heard this account, they

were very reluctant to go out and bring back the carcase before it
was wholly eaten. This they would most certainly have done had
the killer been a normal panther, but the presence of this unheard-
of black monstrosity completely unnerved them. They had been
told of a panther described as being jet black by the herdsman who
had first seen him at the water hole. Being villagers themselves,
they had allowed a wide margin for exaggeration in that case, but
here were two more herdsmen, both saying the same thing. Could
it be really true?

After that day, the black marauder began to exact a regular toll
of animals from Sivanipalli. He was seen on several occasions, so
that there was no more doubt in the minds of any of the villagers
as to his actual existence and colour.

When the people came to know of his presence in the jungle,

forcibly brought home to them by these frequent attacks on their
animals, even their usual lethargy and apathy was shaken and
they became more and more careful. Eventually a stage was
reached when the cattle were not driven out to graze beyond a
radius of about a quarter of a mile from the village.

Finding that his food supply was being cut off, the black panther
started to extend his field of operation. He killed and ate animals
that belonged to herds coming from Anchetty to the southwest
and from Gulhatti and Aiyur to the east. He even carried off a
large donkey from Salivaram which, as I have said, lay to the
north of Sivanipalli and well outside of the forest reserve proper.

Just about this time I happened to pay a visit to Sivanipalli

accompanied by a friend. We had gone there after lunch on a
Sunday, intending to take an evening stroll in the forest and
perhaps get a jungle fowl, or a couple of green pigeon for the pot.
The story of the advent and activities of the black panther greatly
interested me. Only once before had I seen one of its kind outside a
zoo, and I was therefore determined to bag this specimen if
possible.

I offered to pay the villagers the price of the next animal killed
by this panther if they would leave it undisturbed and inform me.
They must go by bus to the small town of Hosur Cattle Farm,
which was the closest place to a telegraph office, where a message
could be sent to me at Bangalore. I also asked them to spread the
same information to all persons living at places where the panther
had already struck. Finally, as a further incentive and attraction,
I said that I would not only pay for the dead animal, but give a
cash baksheesh of fifty rupees to him who carried out my
instructions carefully.

Anticipating a call within the next few days I kept my portable

charpoy-machan and other equipment ready at Bangalore to leave
within a few minutes of receiving the telegram. But it was over a
fortnight before that call eventually came. Moreover it arrived
late! That is to say, it reached me just before four o’clock in the
evening. I was on my way by four-fifteen, but it was about seven-
fifteen and quite dark by the time I reached Sivanipalli.

I noticed that the telegram had been handed in at Hosur Cattle

Farm at about one-thirty that afternoon, which was far too late,
apart from the additional delay that had taken place at the
Bangalore end because it had been classed as an ordinary message,
instead of an express telegram, as I had specified.

There was a man named Rangaswamy living at Sivanipalli, who

had assisted me as shikari on two or three previous occasions, and
it was this man who had sent the telegram from Hosur Cattle
Farm to say that the panther had made a kill at ten that very
morning, shortly after the cattle had left the village for grazing.
The herdsman in charge, who like the rest had been told of my
offer to pay for the animal that had been killed, with a cash bonus
as well, had very wisely not touched the carcase but had run back
to Sivanipalli with the news which he had given to Rangaswamy,
who in turn had made a great effort to reach Denkanikota in time
to catch the twelve-fifteen bus. This he had just managed to do,
reaching the Hosur Cattle Farm telegraph office by one o’clock.

Commending Rangaswamy and the herdsman for their prompt

action in sending me the news, I now had to decide between trying
to stalk the panther on his kill with the aid of torchlight or
waiting at Sivanipalli until the following evening to sit up for
him. The former plan was a complete gamble as there was no
certainty whatever that the panther would be on the kill, or
anywhere near it, when I got there. At the same time I could not
find any very convincing excuse to justify spending the next
twenty-four hours cooped up in the hamlet doing nothing.

I enquired where the kill had taken place and was informed that
it was hardly half a mile to the west of the village, where the land
began its steep descent to the bed of the stream about three miles
away. It seemed too temptingly close and this decided me to tell
Rangaswamy and the herdsman that I would endeavour to bag the
panther that very night while he was eating the kill, if they would
lead me to a quarter of a mile from the spot and indicate the
direction in which the kill lay. I felt I could trust my own sense of
hearing and judgement to guide me from there on.

They were both against this plan and very strongly advocated
waiting till the following evening, but I said that I would like to
try it anyhow.

By the time all this talk was finished it was ten minutes to eight
and there was no time to be lost, as the panther would THE
KENNETH ANDERSON OMNIBUS probably be eating at that very
moment. I clamped my three-cell, fixed-focus electric torch which
was painted black to render it inconspicuous, to my rifle and
dropped three spare cells into my pocket together with five spare
rounds of ammunition. Four more rounds I loaded into the rifle,
keeping three in the magazine and one in the breech. Although
the .405 Winchester is designed to carry four rounds in the
magazine and one ‘up the spout’, I always load one less in the
magazine to prevent a jam, which may occur should the under-
lever be worked very fast in reloading. Lastly, I changed the boots I
had been wearing for a pair of light rubber-soled brown ‘khed’
shoes. These would to a great extent help me to tread lightly and
soundlessly. I was wearing khaki pants and shirt at the time, and I
changed into the black shirt I generally wear when sitting up in a
machan.

Rangaswamy and the herdsman came along with me up to a dry

rivulet. Then the latter told me that this rivulet ran almost
directly westwards with just two bends in its course to the spot
where the panther had killed. He said the dead cow had later been
dragged about two hundred yards inside the jungle roughly
northwards of the place where the rivulet completed the second
bend.
 Their instructions were clear enough and I was grateful for the
two bends in the stream which enabled them to be so specific.
Telling the men to go back, as I would eventually be able to find
my own way to Sivanipalli, I started out on my attempt.

I considered the wisest and most silent approach would be along

the bed of this dry stream rather than along the top of either of its
banks. Any slight sounds I might inadvertently make would then
be muffled and less audible to the panther. Secondly, by walking
along the bed of the stream I could easily follow its course without
having to shine my torch to see where I was going, which I might
have to do if I were to walk along the bank where the vegetation
would impede me, the more so because it was very dark indeed
and the sky very overcast, the clouds completely hiding the stars
and whatever pale light they might have cast.

Accordingly I moved forward very carefully and soon felt the

stream making its first curve, which was in a southwesterly
direction. After a while the stream started to turn northwards
again, and then straightened out to resume its westerly course. I
had passed the first of the two bends the herdsman had mentioned.

Not long afterwards it curved into its second bend, but this time
in a northerly direction. I moved as carefully as possible to avoid
tripping upon any loose stone or boulder that might make a noise.
Although from the information I had been given I knew the kill
was still about three hundred yards away, panthers have very
acute hearing, and if my quarry were anywhere in the immediate
vicinity, if not actually eating on the kill, he would hear me and,
as like as not, make off again.

Fortunately the rivulet was more or less clear of boulders and

bushes along this part of its course and this helped me to edge
along silently. A little later it had completed its northward turn
and it began to curve southwards. After a few yards it straightened
out once more and resumed its main westerly direction.
 I halted. I had reached the place at which the panther had killed
the cow and from where he had dragged the kill into the jungle for
about two hundred yards to the north. I knew that I must now
leave the rivulet and strike off into the undergrowth to try and
locate the carcass and the killer, whom I hoped to surprise in the
act of eating. In the deep gloom I had only my sense of hearing to
guide me.

I tiptoed towards the northern bank of the stream which was, at

that spot, only breast-high. With my feet still on the sandy bed, I
gently laid the rifle on the bank and, folding my arms across my
chest, leaned against it, listening intently.

Five minutes passed, but there was no sound of any kind to

disturb the silence. Perhaps the kill was too far away to allow me
to hear the panther eating; that is, if he was on the kill and if he
was eating.

Putting my weight on my hands, I gently drew myself up to the

top of the bank, making no sound as I did so. I then picked up the
rifle and started to move forward very, very slowly. The darkness
was intense. At the same time I knew I had really little, if
anything, to fear from the panther should he discover me, as he
was not a man-eater and had shown no inclination at any time to
molest human beings. Nevertheless, this was my first experience
with a black panther and I had heard several of the usual stories
about them being exceptionally dangerous and aggressive. That
made me quite nervous, I can honestly tell you.

Inching forward, I stopped every few yards to listen for sounds

that would indicate that the panther was busy eating. Only they
could guide me, as it was hopeless to expect to see anything
without the aid of my torch, which could only be used when I was
close enough to fire. The slightest flicker of the beam now would
drive the panther away should he happen to see the light.
 I went along in this fashion, taking what seemed an
interminable time. Perhaps I had progressed seventy-five yards or
more when, during one of the many stops I made to listen, I
thought I heard a faint sound coming from in front and a little to
the right. I listened again for some time, but it was not repeated.

Bushes and trees were now growing thickly around me, and my
body, in pushing through the undergrowth, was making some
noise in spite of the utmost care I was taking to prevent this. So
were my feet as I put them down at each tread. I tried pushing
them forward by just raising them off the ground and sliding them
along, but I was still not altogether silent. I did this not only to try
and eliminate noise, but to disguise my human footfalls should
the panther hear me. He would certainly not associate any sliding
and slithering sounds with a human being, but ascribe them to
some small nocturnal creature moving about in the grass and
bushes; whereas the sound of an ordinary footfall would
immediately convey the fact that there was a man in the vicinity.
An uncomfortable thought came into my mind that I might tread
on a poisonous snake in the dark, and the rubber shoes I was
wearing did not protect my ankles. I dispelled that thought and
tried walking around the bushes and shrubs that arose before me.
This caused me to deviate to some extent from the northerly
course towards the dead cow I had been instructed to follow.

I stopped every now and then to listen, but the sound I had last
heard was not repeated. It was some time later that I concluded
that I had far exceeded the distance of two hundred yards from the
rivulet at which the kill was said to be lying and also that I had
hopelessly lost all sense of direction, enveloped as I was amongst
the trees and scrub, under an overcast sky.

Then suddenly I heard the sound I had so long been hoping to

hear—the unmistakable sound of tearing flesh and crunching
bones.
 I had been lucky indeed. The panther was on his kill at that
moment and, what was more, was actually engrossed in feeding.
Now all I had to do was to try to creep sufficiently close to enable
me to switch on my torch and take a shot. But that was all very
well in theory. The idea was far easier than its execution.

To begin with, the sounds did not come from the direction in
which I was moving, but to my left and some distance behind me,
indicating that I had not steered a straight course in the darkness.
I had veered to the right, bypassing the kill. Perhaps the reason I
had not heard the sound of feeding earlier was because the
panther had only just returned. Or—and it was a most
discomforting thought that came into my mind—maybe he had
heard me in the darkness as I passed and deliberately stayed quiet.

I paused for a few moments and listened so as to make quite sure

of the direction from which the sounds were coming. In the
darkness I guessed the panther to be anything from fifty to a
hundred yards away.

I now started to slide my feet forward very slowly and very

cautiously towards the noise.

If the panther had dragged his kill into or behind a bush it would
be impossible for me to get the shot I hoped for. On the other hand,
all the advantages would be with the panther were I to fire and
wound him, and if he attacked—the proposition was altogether a
most unpleasant one.

At the same time, I tried to encourage myself by remembering

that never before had this panther molested a human being, and
that the light from my torch, when eventually I flashed it would
fill him with fear and keep him from attacking me, if it did not
drive the animal off entirely.

It is difficult to describe truthfully the minutes that ensued, or

to recount what I actually did. My mind and senses were so alert
and intense, that I negotiated all obstacles in the way of trees and
undergrowth automatically. I knew that as long as I could hear
the sounds made by the panther as he feasted I could be certain
that he was fully engaged on the task at hand and was unaware of
my approach. It was only when these sounds ceased that I would
have to look out, for then the panther had heard me and had
stopped his feeding to listen.

The sounds continued and so did I, creeping forward cautiously,

never putting my foot down till I had tested each step with my
toe. When I heard or sensed a leaf rustle beneath me, I groped for a
place where I could tread more silently. All the while I kept my
eyes strained upon the darkness before me and my ears pricked for
the sounds of feeding.

Then suddenly those sounds stopped, and an absolute, awful

silence engulfed me.

Had the panther stopped eating for a while of his own accord?
Had he finished and gone away? Was he just going away? Or had
he heard my stealthy approach and was even at that moment
preparing to attack? The alternatives raced through my mind and I
came to a halt too.

I remained thus, silent and stationary, for some time. Just how
long I have no idea, but I remember that I was thinking what I
should do next. To move forward, now that he had stopped eating,
would certainly betray my approach to the panther—that is, if he
was not already aware of my presence. However careful I might
be, it would be impossible for a human being to move silently
enough in the darkness to be inaudible to the acute hearing of
such an animal. On the other hand, if I stayed put and kept quiet,
there was a chance that I might hear the panther, should he
approach, although panthers are well known to move noiselessly.
 Of the two courses of action, I decided on the latter, so just stood
still. As events were shortly to prove, it was lucky that I did so.

For a few moments later a very faint rustling came to my

straining ears. It stopped and then began again. Something was
moving. It could have been anything. It was a continuous sort of
noise, such as a snake would make as it slithered through the grass
and undergrowth. But a panther could just as easily cause it by
creeping towards me on his belly. I can assure you that it was a
very frightening thought.

One thing was certain. The sound did not come from a rat or a
frog, or some small jungle creature or night-bird. Had such been
the case, the faint noise would have been in fits and starts; in
jerks, as it were, each time the creature moved. But this was a
continuous sort of noise, a steady slithering or creeping forward,
indicating slow but continuous progress. It was now certain
beyond all doubt that the sound was being made by one of the two
things: a snake or the panther.

I have taken some time in trying to describe to you my

innermost thoughts as they raced through my mind. In fact, they
raced through so fast that I had made up my mind within a few
seconds of hearing that ominous, stealthy, creeping approach.

Another few seconds longer and I had decided that the panther
was certainly creeping towards me, but as long as I could hear him
I knew I was safe from any attack. Then abruptly the noise ceased.

Next came the well-known hissing sound comparable to that

made by an angry cobra when it exhales the air from its body in a
sudden puff. The panther was beginning to snarl. Very shortly he
would snarl audibly, probably growl, and then would come the
charge. I had heard the same sequence of noises often enough
before and knew what to expect. Quickly raising the rifle to my
shoulder, I pressed the switch of the torch.
 Two baleful reddish-white eyes stared back at me, but I could
make out nothing of the animal itself till I remembered I was
dealing with a black panther, which would be practically invisible
at night.

Perhaps it had at first no vicious intentions in approaching me,

but had just sneaked forward to investigate what it had heard
moving about in the vicinity of its kill. But having identified the
source as a hated human being, that hissing start to the snarl
showed that the black panther had definitely decided to be
aggressive. His eyes stared back at the light of my torch without
wavering.

I had plenty of time in which to take careful aim. Then I fired.

Instead of collapsing as I hoped and expected, or at least biting

and struggling in its death-throes, the panther sprang away with a
series of guttural roars. Had I missed entirely, or had I wounded
the beast?

I felt certain that I could not have missed, but that was a
question that could only be settled by daylight. I turned to retrace
my steps.

This time, of course, I was free to use my torch, and with its aid
I walked back roughly in the direction I had come.

I had thought wrong, however, and floundered about for half an

hour without being able to regain the rivulet up which I had
approached.

I looked at the sky. It was still cloudy and I could not pick out a
single star that would help set me, even roughly, in the right
direction to Sivanipalli village. Then I remembered that the land
sloped gently westwards from the hamlet towards the ravine
formed by the two rivers to the west. Therefore, if I walked in a
direction that led slightly uphill I could not go wrong and would
surely come out somewhere near the village.

I started walking uphill.

But I did not reach Sivanipalli or anywhere near it. To cut a long
story short, it was past eleven-thirty that night when I landed, not
at Sivanipalli or its precincts as I had expected, but more than
halfway up the track leading northwards to Salivaram. After that,
of course, I knew where I was and within half-an-hour had
reached the village.

There I awoke Rangaswamy and related what had happened.

There was nothing more to do then than bed down for the night.

I have told you already that Sivanipalli was a small place

boasting scarcely half-a-dozen huts. Rangaswamy himself was a
much-married man with a large household of women and children
and I could not expect him to invite me into his hut. So I lay down
in a hayrick that stood a little off the main path and pulled the
straw, already damp with dew, over me to try and keep warm.

If you should ever wish to undergo the lively experience of being

half-eaten alive by the tiny grass ticks that abound in and round
forest areas in southern India, I would recommend you to spend a
night in a hayrick at Sivanipalli. You will assuredly not be
disappointed. The grass tick is a minute creature which is
normally no larger than the head of a pin. After it has gorged itself
on your blood it becomes considerably larger. But it is a most
ungrateful feeder. Not only does it suck your blood, but it leaves a
tiny wound which rapidly develops into a suppurating sore. This
increases in size in direct proportion to the amount of scratching
you do to appease the intolerable itch and eventually turns into
quite a nasty sore with a brown crust-like scab, and a watery
interior. Moreover, should many of these creatures favour you
with their attention at the same time, you will surely get a fever
in addition to the sores.

I hardly slept at all during the rest of that confounded night, but
spent the remaining hours of darkness scratching myself all over.
Dawn found me a very tired, a very disgruntled and a very sore
individual, who had most certainly had the worst of that night’s
encounter with the enemy—in this case the almost microscopical
little grass tick.

The first thing to do, obviously, was to make some hot tea to
raise my morale, which was at a decidedly low ebb, and with this
in view I went to Rangaswamy’s hut, only to find the door closed
fast. It was evident that the inmates intended making a late
morning. This did not fit in with my plans at all, so I pounded on
the solid wooden structure and called aloud repeatedly. After
quite a time I heard sounds of movement from within. Eventually
the wooden bar that fastened the door on the inside was
withdrawn, and a very tousled-headed, sleepy Rangaswamy
emerged.

I instructed him to light a fire, which he started to do on the

opposite side of the village road by placing three stones on the
ground at the three points of a triangle, and in the middle making
a smoky fire with damp sticks and straw. I had not brought any
receptacle with me for boiling water, so I had to borrow one of his
household earthenware pots, which he assured me was absolutely
clean, a statement which I myself was not quite prepared to
believe from its appearance.

However, the water eventually boiled. I had put some tea leaves
into my water bottle, after emptying it of its contents, poured in
the boiling water, re-corked it and shook it in lieu of stirring. In
the meantime the inmates of the other huts had come to life. They
watched me interestedly. Some offered little milk, and someone
else contributed some jaggery, or brown sugar, for which I was
very grateful, having also forgotten to bring sugar. We boiled the
milk and put some lumps of jaggery into my mug, adding tea and
boiling milk. Believe it or not, it brewed a mixture that did have
some resemblance to tea.

Breakfast consisted of some eggs which I purchased and hard-

boiled over the same fire. By about seven I had restored enough
interest in myself and events, after my dreadful encounter of the
previous night with those obnoxious little ticks, to think of doing
something about the panther.

I asked Rangaswamy to get the herdsman who had accompanied

us the previous night and who had not put it an appearance so far
that morning, or one of his companions, to collect a herd of
buffaloes if they were obtainable and drive them into the thick
undergrowth to dislodge the panther, as I felt confident that I had
not missed the brute entirely with my one shot.

All present answered that there were no buffaloes in Sivanipalli;

and no one was willing to risk his cattle being injured in a possible
encounter with the panther. Just then my missing companion of
the night before—the herdsman who had accompanied me—
turned up. He said that he had a friend at Salivaram who owned a
muzzle-loading gun. He had wanted to borrow the gun so as to
come along and assist me, and with that in view he had set out to
Salivaram early that morning while it was yet dark.
Unfortunately, his friend was away with his gun and so he had
been unable to borrow it. He had returned empty-handed.

I thanked him for his thoughtful intention to assist me, but

inwardly I was more than thankful that he had been unsuccessful
in borrowing the muzzle-loader. With an inexperienced user, a
muzzle-loader can become mighty deadly weapon and I confess I
would have felt most nervous with him and that gun behind me.
 Having failed to obtain the use of buffaloes, I then tried to enlist
the cooperation of the owners of such village curs as there were at
Sivanipalli. After some humming and hawing, one solitary cur
was produced. She was a lanky bitch, with ears cut off at their
base, entirely brown in colour, with a tremendously long curved
tail. The typical example of village ‘pariah dog’, as they are
called, whose ears had been amputated when a puppy because of
the ticks which would in later life have become lodged on and
inside them. With villagers, it is a simple process of reasoning to
come to the conclusion that it takes less effort, and far less time,
to cut off the ears of their dogs when they are puppies than
periodically to remove scores of ticks in later life.

By a strange coincidence, this bitch was named ‘Kush’, which

reminded me of the name of the dog ‘Kush Kush Kariya’ owned by
my old friend of jungle days,* Byra the poojaree. I don’t know if
this name is a favourite among the dog owners of the forest areas
of Salem district, or whether it just lends itself to a natural sound
emitted to attract the attention of any dog. Personally I am
inclined to the latter idea. Whatever it may be, I did not know
then that this bitch Kush would conduct herself every bit as
precociously as her namesake, the animal owned by Byra.

Finally, accompanied by Rangaswamy, the herdsman, Kush and

her owner, we set off to try and find out what had become of the
panther.

We retraced our steps of the night before to the spot where my

companions had left me, then followed in my own footsteps along
the two bends in the rivulet and finally climbed its northern bank
at the place I had chosen the previous night.

Thereafter I led the way with cocked rifle, Kush running

between me and her owner, who came last in file. Between us
came Rangaswamy, with the herdsman behind him.
 As I had already discovered the night before, the undergrowth
was dense, so that there was no means of tracing the exact course
I had followed only twelve hours previously; nor, being daylight,
was I able to pick out any of the trees or bushes I had negotiated in
the darkness, although I knew roughly the direction in which I
had gone.

The herdsman, of course, knew where the kill lay, but I did not
want to go directly to it, my idea being to find, if possible, the
place where I had fired at the panther. I did not succeed. Those
who have been in jungles will understand how very different in
size, shape and location just a small bush appears in daylight
compared with its appearance at night. Darkness greatly
magnifies the size of objects in the forest, distorts their shape and
misleads as regards direction.

To help me find what I was looking for, I got the herdsman to

lead us to the dead cow, which he found without difficulty.
Incidentally, it had been half-eaten, although of course there was
no means of knowing just then whether the panther had fed before
my encounter with it, or whether I had entirely missed him and he
had returned to feed after I had left. Panthers sometimes return to
their kill if they are missed, although such behaviour, in my
experience at least, is not very common.

Having reached the kill, I now tried to recollect and recast the
direction from which I had come, so as to try and follow my own
footsteps from there and eventually come to the spot where I had
fired. Unfortunately I had no means of knowing exactly how far
the panther had crept towards me, but had to rely entirely on my
own judgement as to how far away he had been when I first heard
him feeding. Sounds in jungle at night, when both the hearer and
the origin of the sound are enveloped by the surrounding
undergrowth, can be very deceptive, and the distance they may
travel is hard to guess for that very reason. I felt that to the best of
my knowledge, I could have been standing anything from fifteen
to fifty yards from the dead cow.

Deciding approximately on the distance where I might have

been standing, I paced off those fifteen yards and got one of the
men to mark the spot by bending down a small branch. Then I
paced another thirty-five yards to attain the maximum distance of
fifty yards, which I judged would be about the greatest that could
have separated me from the feeding panther I had heard the night
before. Here we bent another branch.

Somewhere in between these two markers, and very

approximately in the same direction as I was walking, I knew I
should find some sign of whether my bullet had struck the
panther. If I did not find anything then I would have to conclude
that I had completely missed him.

By this time I was also sure that the panther, if he had been
wounded, was not lurking anywhere in the immediate vicinity,
for had that been the case he would undoubtedly have given some
sign by now, hearing us walking about and talking. That sign
would have been in the form of a growl, or perhaps even a sudden
charge. The absence of any such reaction and the complete silence
led me to conclude that even if I had hit him, the wound was not
severe enough to prevent him from getting away from the spot.

I instructed my three companions to cast round in a circle, and

search carefully for a possible blood-trail. I joined them, and it
was not very long before Kush, sniffing at something, attracted her
owner’s attention. He called out that he had found what we were
looking for. Gathering around him and the bitch we saw an
elongated smear of dried blood on a blade of lemon grass.

My spirits rose considerably. Here was proof that I had not

missed. The height of the blood mark from the ground indicated
that I had wounded my quarry somewhere in the upper part of his
body, and as I knew I had fired between his eyes as they had
reflected my torchlight, my bullet must have grazed his head.
Alternatively, if he had happened to be crouching down with
raised hindquarters at that time (a rather unlikely position for a
panther to adopt when creeping forward), my bullet might be
embedded itself somewhere in the rear part of his back.

This was where Kush showed her merit. She was a totally
untrained cur, but she instinctively appeared to sense what was
required of her. For a little while she sniffed around wildly and at
random, then started to whine and run ahead of us.

We followed and found more blood smears on leaves and blades

of grass where the panther had passed. Between the bushes and
clumps of high grass there were spots of blood on the ground too.
This was an encouraging find, as it showed that the animal had
been bleeding freely, clear evidence that the wound was not just a
superficial graze.

The blood itself had mostly dried, except in some very sheltered
places. There it was moist enough to be rubbed off by the fingers.
However, it was neither thick nor dark enough to suggest that my
bullet had penetrated a vital organ, such as a lung.

Kush set out very rapidly in a westerly direction, and it was

quite obvious she was following a trail that would eventually
bring us to the sharp decline in the land, down to the bed of the
stream flowing from north to south before it joined the other
stream lower down and turned westwards. This stream, before its
confluence, is known as the Anekal Vanka. The combined streams
are called Dodda Halla, which in the Kanarese language literally
means the ‘Big Gorge’. It has this name because so many sections
flow through ravines and gorges as they twist and twine a
torturous path past the village of Anchetty. There the river
changes its course abruptly and turns southwards, past Gundalam,
to its eventual junction with the Cauvery river. It is this same
stream, the Dodda Halla, that was once the haunt of the man-
eating tiger of Jowlagiri,* but that is another story. I have explored
every section of it, right up to the place where it joins the
Cauvery, and have nicknamed it the ‘Secret river’, partly because
of the fact that due to the many miles of rough walking entailed in
following its course, few people come that way, and it is
delightfully lonely and far away from the sight and sound of
human beings; also because I have discovered secrets of geological
interest along its banks. I hesitate to divulge them, for with their
publicity must automatically follow the next necessary evil, the
violation of the sanctity of one of the most delightfully isolated
jungle localities in Salem district.

Returning to events as they occurred that morning. The

undergrowth was very dense, but to the unerring instinct of Kush
this appeared to offer no obstacle. In fact, the trouble lay in
keeping up with her. Her small and lithe brown body dodged in
and out between bushes and outcrops of ‘wait-a-bit’ thorn. Our
legs, hands and arms were severely lacerated by these thorns
because we were moving at a foolish speed in order to keep the
bitch in sight, taking no precautions whatever against a sudden
attack by the wounded panther if he happened to lie immediately
ahead of us. At times the brambles and other obstructions slowed
us down, and Kush would get far ahead and disappear. It then
became necessary to whistle her back, and when she did so, which
was only after some minutes, she appeared to experience some
difficulty in picking up the trail again.

We had no rope with us, so I borrowed the herdsman’s turban

and knotted one end of the cloth around Kush’s neck, giving the
other end to her owner. But it was a small turban and the cloth
too short. The man had to stoop down to retain his hold, while
Kush strained, spluttered and coughed in her anxiety to forge
ahead.
 In this fashion we progressed until we eventually reached the
edge of the plateau where the land began to fall away sharply to
the bed of the Anekal Vanka stream, which we could see between
breaks in the tree-tops below us, the sun glinting on the silvery
surface of the water as it meandered from side to side on its sandy
bed. The stream itself was three-fourths dry at that time of the
year.

A little later we came across the first concrete evidence that the
panther had begun to feel the effects of his wounds. He had lain
down in the grass at the foot of a babul tree and had even rolled
with pain, as blood was to be seen in patches and smears where he
had rested and tossed. Kush spent a long time at this spot and
evinced another unusual characteristic by licking at the blood.
Ordinarily a village cur is terrified of a panther, but Kush, as I
have said already, was an unusual animal, and it was indeed very
lucky that her owner had been willing to bring her along.
Normally, villagers who will not hesitate to lop off the ears of a
puppy at their base will vote that it is a cruel practice to employ a
dog for tracking down a wounded panther or tiger and will flatly
refuse to be parties to such a deed. As it was, without the
invaluable aid rendered by this bitch, we would never have been
able to follow the blood trail as we did that morning. It would not
have been visible to normal human eyesight in the heavy
underbrush.

As we descended the deep decline, vegetation became sparser

and the ground became bare and rocky. Boulders were scattered
everywhere, interspersed with tufts of the tough long-bladed
lemon-grass.

Then we reached a stage where there were only boulders, big

and small, and the descent had almost ended. This was the high-
level mark reached by the waters of the stream when in spate
during the monsoon.
 Here, with the end of the vegetation, tracking became easy.
Drops of tell-tale rusty brown, where blood had fallen from the
wounded animal and splashed on the rocks, revealed its passage.
Judging from the distance we had come and the quantity of blood
that the panther had lost, it appeared to be more severely hurt
than I had at first imagined. The wound must have been a deep
one and the bullet had probably struck an artery. Had it been
elsewhere, particularly in some fleshy part of the animal, there
was a possibility that the bleeding might have lessened, if not
ceased entirely, by the natural fat under the skin coming together
and closing the hole made by the bullet.

We reached the narrow bed of the stream in which the water

was still flowing. Here the panther had crouched down to drink,
and there were two sets of blood marks, one nearer to the water’s
edge than the other. The marks further away indicated more
bleeding than those closer. This was curious and it puzzled me
greatly at the time, considering I had fired only one shot the night
before. The solution was an even greater surprise.

At one spot the panther had stepped into his own gore and had
left a clear pug-mark on a rock just before he had waded across the
stream. The mark had been made by the animal’s one of the
forefeet and its size suggested a panther of only average
proportions that was probably male. The blood had been washed
off the foot by the time the animal had reached the opposite bank,
but the dried drops on the stones and boulders continued.

After crossing the stream the panther had changed his course
and had walked parallel with the edge of the water and alongside
it for nearly two hundred yards, then he had turned to the left and
begun to climb the opposite incline. The stones and rocks once
more gave way rapidly to vegetation, and again we negotiated
thickets of long grass, thorny clumps, small scattered bamboos and
trees.
 Up and up the panther had climbed, and now so did Kush on the
trail, conducting herself as if she had been specially trained for the
job. Eventually we came to the road which leads from
Denkanikota to Anchetty and which intersects the forest on its
way downwards to the latter village. We had come out on this
road exactly opposite the ninth milestone, which we now saw
confronting us at the roadside. Incidentally this was the road on
which I had parked my car near the fifth milestone when I had left
it the evening before to walk to Sivanipalli.

Many carts had traversed the road during the night and in the
earlier hours of that morning, and the scent was completely lost
for a moment in the powdery brown dust. But Kush had no
difficulty in picking it up on the other side, and we followed
behind her.

The grass and bamboos gradually gave way to more thorns and
more lantana, which tore at our clothing and every part of our
anatomy they touched. In places, where the panther had crept
beneath the lantana and thorn bushes, an almost impenetrable
barrier confronted us. There was no way through and there was no
way around, leaving no alternative but to follow by creeping on
our bellies beneath the bushes.

My rifle was an encumbrance in such places and conditions,

and I cursed and swore as the thorns tore at my hair and face and
became embedded in my hands, body and legs. The plight of my
three companions was infinitely worse, as they wore thinner and
less clothing than I did. Perhaps their skins were thicker—I really
don’t know. But I am sure that the language that floated from all
four of us would have won us prizes in any Billingsgate contest.
Only Kush was unperturbed, and from her position ahead she kept
looking back at us, clearly impatient at the slow, clumsy progress
we were making.
 But this time it was also evident that the wounded animal was
heading for a large hill that lay about half a mile behind a hamlet
named Kundukottai. This village was situated between the
seventh and eighth milestones on the Denkanikota-Anchetty road
which we had just crossed. The top of the hill was known to hold
many caves, both large and small, and what was worse, the
arched roofs of some of the larger caves had been chosen by the big
jungle rock-bees as safe and ideal places in which to construct
their hives. I had often seen these hives as I had motored along the
road to Anchetty on previous occasions.

I felt that my chances of bagging the black panther were

becoming very dim indeed. Looking for him amongst those caves
would be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. In
addition, the panther had the bees to guard him if his place of
retreat happened to be one of the many caves they had chosen for
their hives. I can assure you that these rock-bees, when disturbed,
can be most formidable opponents.

We plodded along and broke cover below the line of caves where
the thorn bushes thinned out and became less numerous owing to
shelves of sloping rock, worn glass-smooth by centuries of
rainwater as it ran down from above.

The scent led up and across the sloping shelf of rock to one of
the larger openings that loomed above us. From where we stood
we could see the black masses of at least half-a-dozen beehives
hanging from the roof of the cave, each about a yard long by about
two feet wide. The remains of old abandoned hives were scattered
here and there amongst them, the wax sticking out from the rock
in flatfish triangles of a dirty yellow-white colour, perhaps nine
inches long.

My canvas-soled shoes enabled me to climb the slippery shelf

without much difficulty, while the bare feet of my companions
helped them even more. Kush’s claws made a faint clicking sound
as she scampered up the rock ahead of us.

We reached the entrance to the cave where a subdued rustling

sound was all-pervading. It came from the movements of millions
of bees as they crawled in and about the hanging hives above us.
There was also a continuous faint droning, that arose from the
wings of the busy insects as they flew in from the jungle with
honey from the wild flowers, which they would store in the hives,
and from those departing on a trip for more.

The little creatures were absorbed in their duties and paid no

attention to us, but we realized that if we happened to disturb
them, these same little creatures, so unoffending and peaceful
now, would pour on to us in a venomous attack like a torrent of
black lava and sting us to death in a matter of a few minutes.

We stood before the entrance of the cave, where the blood trail,
very slight now, was still visible in the form of two tiny dried
droplets. They showed that the wounded beast had gone inside.

Near its mouth the cave was comparatively large, some twenty
feet across by about twenty feet high. Daylight filtered into the
interior for some yards, beyond which all was darkness. I counted
nine separate beehives, all of great size, suspended from the roof of
the cave close to the entrance. The floor was of rock and appeared
to be free of the usual dampness associated with such places. No
doubt this accounted for the cave being inhabited by the panther
—and the bees, too. For these animals and insects, particularly
the former, dislike damp places.

I whispered to my three companions to remain outside and to

climb up the sloping rock by the sides of the entrance to a point
above the cave, and on no account to go downhill, as that was the
direction in which the panther would charge if he passed me.
They disappeared, and Kush and I entered the cave.
 From that moment Kush seemed to know there was danger
ahead. Gone was her erstwhile courage, and she slunk at my heels,
gradually falling behind me.

I walked forward as far as I could see in the dim light that

filtered in from outside. At most, this might have been for about
thirty feet. Then we came to a halt. I could go no further as, not
anticipating that my quarry would enter such a cave, I had not
brought my torch with me from the village.

There were now two alternatives either to try to arouse the

wounded animal, or to return to Sivanipalli for the torch, telling
the men to keep watch from their position of comparative safety
above to guard against the panther slinking out before I came
back. I should, of course, have followed the second course. Not
only was it safer, but more sure. I suppose, really, I felt too lazy to
go all that way back and return again. So I thought I would give
the first plan a trial and if possible save myself the trouble of a
long walk.

I whistled and shouted loudly. Nothing happened. I shouted

again. Kush, who had been simpering, then started to bark. Still
nothing happened.

The cave had narrowed down to about half its dimensions at the
entrance. Only silence rewarded our efforts. The deep, dark
interior was as silent as a grave.

Had the wounded animal died inside? This seemed unlikely, as

there was no evidence that the panther had lain down again after
the first rest he had taken before crossing the Anekal Vanka
stream. Had he left the cave before our arrival? This might easily
have happened; but again there was no evidence to suggest that
such was the case.

I looked around for something to throw. Just one large stone lay
close to my feet. I picked it up in my left hand and found it heavy.
 I am left-handed, for throwing purposes, although I shoot from
the right shoulder. I had already cocked my rifle, and, balancing it
in the crook of my right arm, threw the stone under-arm with as
much force as I could muster. It disappeared into the blackness of
the cave. I heard it strike the rock floor with a dull thud and then
clatter on in a series of short bounces.

The next instant there came the all-too-familiar series of

coughing roars as the panther catapulted itself at me out of the
darkness. Being a black panther, I could not see it till it emerged
from the gloom, two or three yards in front of my rifle. I fired—but
the impetus of its charge made the panther seem to slide forward
towards me. I fired again. The confines of the cave echoed and re-
echoed with the two reports.

Then all hell was let loose. The sound of the bees, which had
been registering all this while almost subconsciously on my
hearing as a faint humming drone, rose suddenly to a crescendo.
The daylight coming in at the entrance to the cave became
spotted with a myriad of black, darting specks, which increased in
number as the volume of sound rose in intensity. The black objects
hurled themselves at me. The air was alive with them.

I had aroused the wrath of the bees. Gone was all thought of the
panther as I whipped off my khaki jacket, threw it around my
exposed back and face and doubled for the entrance.

The bees fell upon me as an avalanche. They stung my hands.

They got through the folds of the jacket and stung my neck, my
head, my face. One even got down under the collar of my shirt and
stung my back.

The stings were horribly painful.

I slid down the sloping rock up which we had climbed just a

short while before. As from far away, I could hear Kush yelping in
anguish. As fast as I moved, my winged tormentors moved faster;
the air was thick with them as they dive-bombed me mercilessly, I
remembered comparing them to Japan’s suicide pilots, who
sacrificed their lives and their machines by literally throwing
themselves upon the enemy. Similarly, each bee that stung me
that day automatically sacrificed its life, for the end of every bee’s
sting is barbed, and in trying to extricate the point after it has
stung an enemy the insect tears out its sting, with the venom-sac
attached. These remain embedded in the skin of the victim. Thus,
in stinging, the bee does irreparable damage to itself, from the
effects of which it dies very soon.

I reached the foot of the sloping shelf with the bees still around
me. In desperation I crawled under the thickest lantana bush that
was available. Always had I cursed this shrub as a dreadful
scourge to forest vegetation and a pest to man, encroaching as it
always does on both jungles and fields, in addition to being an
impediment to silent and comfortable movement along game
trails; but at that moment I withdrew my curses and showered
blessings on the lantana instead. It saved my life. For bees must
attack and sting during flight, another resemblance they bear to
the aforementioned dive-bombers. Clever as they are, they have
not the sagacity to settle down and then creep forward on their
feet to a further attack. The code with them is to dive, sting and
die. The closeness of the network of lantana brambles prevented
their direct path of flight on to my anatomy. And so I was
delivered from what would have been certain death had the area
just there been devoid of the pestiferous lantana I had so often
cursed before.

For no matter how fast I had run, the bees would have flown
faster and descended in their thousands upon me.

All the nine hives had been thoroughly disturbed by now, and
the buzzing of angry bees droned and drummed in the air above
me. I lay still and silent under the protecting lantana, smarting
from the many stings the creatures had inflicted on me during my
flight.

It took over two hours for the droning to subside and for the bees
to settle down to work once more. I felt very sleepy and would
have dozed were it not that the pain of the stings kept me awake.
The hot burning sensation increased as my skin swelled around
each wound.

It was three in the afternoon before I could crawl out of the

lantana and wend my way downhill to the road; from there I
walked to Kundukottai village. There I found my three followers.
They had almost completely escaped the attention of the bees at
their vantage point above the entrance to the cave. The bees had
evidently concentrated their attack on the moving enemies
immediately before them—myself and poor Kush, who was also
with the three men now. She had been badly stung, and I had no
doubt that the panther had also received their close attention.

All of us walked to the car where I had left it the day before.
After we had piled in, I set out for Denkanikota, where there was
a Local Fund Hospital and Dispensary. It was quite late in the
evening when we roused the doctor. He took us to his surgery in
the hospital and with the aid of a pair of tweezers removed the
stings embedded in Kush and myself. We had received,
respectively, nineteen and forty-one barbs from those little
demons in the cave. The doctor applied ammonia to our wounds.

We spent the night in the forest bungalow at Denkanikota. The

beds there are of iron with no mattresses. So I lay in an armchair.
The three men slept on the verandah with Kush.

The stings brought on an attack of ague and fever. Kush

suffered, too, and I could hear her whimpers. My neck, face and
hands were still swollen. One bee had succeeded in registering a
sting not far from the corner of my left eye, causing it partially to
close.

Dawn made me look a sorry sight with my swollen eye and puffy
face as I stood before the one blurred mirror the bungalow boasted.

We waited till past ten and then drove back to the ninth
milestone. Retracing our steps—but this time along cattle and
game trails where walking was comparatively easy—we came to
the place below the rock-shelf where we had stood the day before.

The bees were once again busy at their hives. All was peaceful
and serene.

Leaving the three villagers, I climbed the slope with Kush for the
second time and cautiously approached the cave. I knew I was safe
from the bees unless I disturbed them again. And I was almost sure
my two shots the previous day had killed the panther. Even if they
had not, the bees would have completed that work.

I was right. Lying a few paces inside, and curled into a ball, was
the black panther, dead and quite stiff. Kush stayed a yard away
from it, sniffing and growling. I put my hand over her mouth to
quieten her for fear of disturbing those dreadful bees and bringing
them down upon us once more.

Walking out of the cave, I beckoned to the men to come up to

me. Together we hauled the panther down the slope. The
herdsman, who carried a knife, then lopped off a branch to which
we tied its feet with lengths of creepervine. All four of us then
shouldered the load and carried it to the waiting car, where I slung
the dead animal between bonnet and mudguard.

At the Denkanikota forest bungalow I removed the skin. It was a

male panther, of normal size, measuring six feet seven inches in
length. The rosettes showed up distinctly under the black hairs
that covered them. It was the first—and incidentally the only—
black panther I have ever shot.

It was difficult to detect the bee-stings, embedded in the black

hair, but I told the men to make a careful count of the barbs they
extracted, which I personally checked. There were 273 stings in
that animal, confirmed by the number of barbs extracted. There
must have been many more that escaped our attention.

I rewarded the men for their services and returned to Bangalore

well compensated for the punishment I had received from the bees
—for I had a black panther skin, which is something very
uncommon—and I had a wonderfully sagacious dog, Kush, whom
I purchased from her owner for seven rupees.

There is one thing I nearly forgot to mention. You will

remember that I had discovered two separate blood marks at the
spot where the panther had stopped to drink in the Anekal Vanka
stream. One of them had shown signs of greater bleeding than the
other, and because I had fired only one shot I had wondered about
it at the time. The reason was now quite clear. My one bullet,
aimed between the eyes, had missed its mark, had furrowed past
the temple and ear and embedded itself in the animal’s groin. The
second wound was the one that had bled severely. The first was
only superficial. Evidently the body had been slightly twisted and
crouched for the spring as I had fired that night, just in time.

Of the two shots fired in the cave, one (the first) had struck the
panther in the chest, and the other, as the panther skidded
towards me, had entered the open mouth and passed out at the
back of the neck.

___________

* See Nine Man-eaters and One Rogue

 5

Snakes and Other Jungle Creatures

UCH has been written about the animals of the Indian jungle
M that is of great interest to people to whom any sort of animal
and any forest form sources of secret attraction. Yeoman authors
like Dunbar-Brander, Champion, Glasfurd, Best, Corbett and a
host of others have blazed the trail and have recorded the habits of
these animals as they personally experienced them. Some of them
wrote a half-a-century ago, a time when, it must be remembered,
the jungles of the Indian peninsula were literally alive with game,
particularly carnivora. There writings were always appreciated,
but it is only now that the real intrinsic value of their momentous
works comes to the fore, and it will be safe to say that as the years
roll by and the wild life of India becomes a thing of the past, the
records of these great men will be of ever-increasing value,
preserving for posterity knowledge that no riches could ever hope
to buy.

It is a significant fact that the shikaris of India and even the

great white hunters of Africa, who started their careers as trophy
seekers or, in the latter case, as professionals, have during their
lives invariably found an increasing love for the animals of the
forests which they once hunted and killed. The great majority of
them came to eschew the habit of killing in favour of the worthier
but more difficult art of wild animal photography and the study of
nature.

In the early years it was considered a rather hazardous

undertaking to enter the jungle on a shooting trip. Apart from the
dangers from the animals themselves which were deemed very
great, there were the risks in the form of various poisonous snakes,
scorpions, spiders and other creatures, and the threats to health in
the jungle diseases such as malaria, black-water fever and so on.

For instance, in my father’s day a journey to the forest at the

foothills of the Nilgiri mountains, or to the jungles that clothed
the districts of Shimoga and Kadur in Mysore state, or to the area
around the Western Ghats, was considered a very risky
undertaking. The mists that shroud these tracts in the early hours
of the morning were regarded as a direct cause of bronchitis,
pneumonia and particularly malaria. The jungle beasts were said
to be most bold and terrifying.

The old writers have, on the contrary, shown us that the wild
creatures were far from aggressive in their habits, and that almost
without exception they were afraid of the human race. Science
has since taught us that no poisonous spiders, lizards or frogs exist
in India and only a few varieties of poisonous snake; also that
bronchitis and pneumonia can be contracted anywhere, even in
the hottest and driest cities of India. Sir Ronald Ross has shown
that a particular species of mosquito carries the malaria parasite
and not the damp mists and air of the forests. That parasite is
found not only in jungles but throughout the length and breadth
of the land. The malarial mosquito breeds in stagnant water and
dirty drains, and such places abound even in the largest cities.
Campaigns and measures by the authorities have done much to
mitigate these evils, and medical science has produced rapid and
almost certain cures for the complaints themselves, so that they
no longer arouse the dread they once did.

As regards the dangers from wild animals and snakes, one’s own
experience has been and always will be the best teacher. But with
a very few exceptions, and those in only particular places, it is
safe and true to state that the dangers of a sojourn in the thickest
of forests are far less than those run by a pedestrian when crossing
any busy city street. The writers of the past have all shown this.
 Of course a greenhorn to the game sometimes does something
foolish that may involve him in trouble, but that trouble is
entirely the outcome of his own inexperience and ignorance.
Experience, particularly for him who is not only willing but
anxious to learn, is easily acquired.

The tiger is acclaimed the king of the Indian jungles because the
lion is not to be found anywhere except in the Gir Forest in the
Gujarat peninsula, where it is very strictly protected. The tiger is a
magnificent, beautiful and lordly animal, but it is the elephant
who is in actual fact the real lord of the Indian forests by virtue of
his great bulk, enormous strength and sometimes unpredictable
temperament. As a rule he is certainly a far more dangerous
animal than the tiger, and aborigines living in areas where both
these animals abound treat the tiger, with the exception of course
of a man-eater, with contempt, while they have the greatest
respect for the wild elephant. Walk along a jungle trail with any
of these aboriginal tribesmen. Even should you be so lucky as to
spot a tiger or panther, he will point it out to you with good-
natured indifference. But should the sound of the breaking of a
branch come to his ears, he will immediately halt in his tracks
and say the one word in his vernacular which means ‘elephant’,
judge the direction from which the sound came and endeavour to
find a way that avoids passing anywhere near the locality in
which the elephant is feeding.

This inherent caution is the outcome of the accumulated jungle

experience of his forebears and himself. They and he have come to
know the uncertain nature of these mighty beasts, and so they
avoid taking any unnecessary risk.

As a matter of fact the wild elephant is in general a harmless

creature, subject to moods and subject to sudden excitement,
fright and irritation. To this generalisation there are four
exceptions.
 By strange contrast, and unlike African elephants, the greater
the number in an Indian elephant herd the less the danger from its
individual members. The four exceptions are: the accredited
‘rogue’ elephant that has already killed a human being, a ‘musth’
elephant in that periodical sexual state peculiar to the male of the
species, occasionally a single male feeding apart from the herd,
and a female accompanied by a young calf to protect which she
will readily give her life. It is to be noticed that in each of these
four cases the danger arises from a single animal and not from the
herd. African elephants are reported to have the ability, when
occasion demands, of acting collectively when they attempt to
charge down upon a hunter en masse. The Indian elephant does
not do this.

But in any of the four instances listed, the individual animal

can be very dangerous and a creature of terrible destructiveness. It
will pursue a human being inexorably, sometimes for as much as a
mile, provided the man can keep going that far, till it can run him
down. Then it will tear him literally limb from limb, or squash
him to a pulp by stamping upon him and rubbing him into the
ground with its feet, or beat him against the trunk of a tree or
whatever happens to be handy, or toss him high into the air.

While sitting at a water hole deep in the forest I often amuse

myself at the expense of the wild elephants that come there for
their daily drink and wash-up, by calling like a tiger or imitating
the sawing sound made by a panther. In the former instance, the
elephants, if in a herd, usually trumpet shrilly and dash away to
the accompaniment of much crashing of branches and
underbrush. It is delightful to watch mothers with young babies
practically carry their youngsters before them by supporting them
under their bellies with their trunks, as they hurry away from the
presence of that supposed tiger lurking somewhere in the bushes
beside the water. Should an elephant have come alone, it
invariably stands quite still when it hears the call, flaps his ears
forwards to catch the sound and endeavours to scent the
whereabouts of the enemy by ‘feeling’ the air with its trunk. Then
it will turn around and slip silently into the jungle. An occasional
elephant stamps its feet and tosses its head and trunk to and fro in
anger, but within a minute, it too will disappear from the scene. I
have not encountered a single elephant that stood its ground
while I continued making the tiger-call. Obviously, despite their
size and strength, they lack the nerve to remain in the presence of
that dreaded feline. I have read somewhere that the elephant’s eye
has the property of magnifying the object it looks upon. Naturally
this would make a tiger or a human being appear relatively larger
to the elephant than they are in reality. Perhaps this is the real
explanation of why elephants are afraid of tigers, panthers and
human beings too.

Panther calls produce a somewhat different effect. If in a herd,

the male elephants become aggressive and show signs of being
prepared to defend the young. But a single elephant invariably
makes off, although not nearly in such a hurry a when a ‘tiger’
calls. One or two have stamped the water of struck it with their
trunks and then continued drinking. But it was clear they were
decidedly nervous and uncomfortable.

These amusing little experiments of mine clearly indicate that

elephants are far from courageous creatures, despite their great
bulk and strength. On the contrary, they are decidedly nervous
and timid. Perhaps I am safe in saying that, like all ‘bullies’, they
will only take the fullest advantage of a situation in which their
enemy shows signs of fearing them. But attack, apart from the four
exceptions mentioned, particularly against anything that might
retaliate, is not on the bill of behaviour of the average elephant.

Elephants appear to have an instinctive dislike for white

objects. For this very reason milestones and furlong stones along
roads in elephant-infested areas are painted black, for such
objects, if white, would be immediately uprooted and flung away
as soon as an elephant caught sight of them. For the same reason it
would be unsafe to dress in white and roam in an elephant forest,
for it would only invite attack. In years gone by white, solar
topees were the vogue on the ground that, besides being sunproof,
they kept the head of the wearer cool by reflecting the sun’s rays.
A gentleman of my acquaintance was once wandering in a jungle
wearing such a white helmet. Why he wore it in the jungle I do
not know, for apart from the aversion of elephants it would be
very conspicuous and render hopeless any chance of successfully
stalking living creatures. Anyhow, he wore it. He and his tracker,
a Sholaga, were going along the ridge of a hill when they noticed
an elephant about two hundred yards away, feeding on the other
side of a clearing and a little higher up the hill. At the same
moment the elephant saw them. Normally it would not have seen
them at that distance, for elephants have extremely poor sight,
and the breeze was blowing towards them, so that it could not
have scented them. But that shining white helmet could not be
missed against the green and brown background of the jungle. The
elephant trumpeted and gave chase. The hunter and the Sholaga
turned tail and fled. Fortunately the Sholaga was an experienced
tracker, with years of recorded service and prestige in taking ‘sahib
log’ into the jungle. He did not desert his protégé, but ran along
behind him, telling him in which direction to run. The elephant
gained on them rapidly. Then the Sholaga overtook the huntsman,
snatched off his white hat and threw it to the ground, while
urging the sahib to keep on running. The elephant reached the hat
and lost interest in chasing them further. Needless to say, that
nice piece of headgear also lost all semblance of shape by the time
the elephant was through with it. He had not been interested in
pursuing or harming them, but it had been too much to ask him to
tolerate that dreadful white object. He just had to obliterate it.

Fights among male elephants have been known to go on, with

but a few pauses for rest, for as long as three days. A fight may be
occasioned by rival tuskers for the favours of a bulky lady,
although such examples are few. More often it happens when
driving a male elephant in musth out of the herd when his
attentions to the ladies of the herd become too troublesome.
Mostly it happens when a young bull, attaining the fitness that
comes with the prime of his life, challenges the master bull of the
herd for its leadership.

During such struggles, the bulls do great injury to each other by

gouging with their tusks at any portion of the foe’s anatomy that
may offer itself. It goes without saying that during and after these
fights the contestants are in the vilest of tempers and woe betide
any living thing they may see.

There was an instance of a forester belonging to the Salem

District Forestry Department who came upon a pair of bulls
engaged in such a struggle in the fastnesses of the Dodda Halla
valley of the Salem district. In that case a strange thing happened.
The erstwhile contestants forgot their enmity and thundered down
upon him together. He was a sorry mess when eventually his
departmental colleagues came upon his remains some days later.

I have written about ‘rogue’ elephants in some of my earlier

stories, so I won’t add much about them here, beyond saying that
they are the nastiest customers one could encounter in a jungle.
Once having heard their trumpet-like screams of rage and hate,
and seen their huge bodies bearing down upon you through bush
and undergrowth, with trunk curled inwards, ears extended and
short tail erect, you will remember the experience till your dying
day. The degree of punishment they will inflict on a human being
if they catch him varies. One rogue in the foothills of the Nilgiris
tossed a forest guard high into the air. In falling, he became
impaled on the broken end of a bamboo stem and eventually died.
The rogue elephant of Segur, shot by the Reverend Bull, was a
comparatively small animal, but was noted nevertheless for his
sagacity and ferocity. He would literally stalk a human being or
ambush him from behind a rock or clump of bamboos. He caught a
coolie woman on the Segur road, stamped her flat, rubbed her
remains into the ground with his feet and then playfully tore off
the silver anklet she was wearing, as well as the string of wooden
beads around her neck, both of which he threw some yards away.
There was the case of a convalescent forester in the Coimbatore
district who was suffering from guinea-worm. After long periods
on sick leave, he eventually became so lazy that he would not—or
more probably could not—work. He was transferred to the
Biligirirangan Mountain Range, which is an area infested with
elephants. It also harboured a rogue at that time, which had long
been proclaimed as such but had never been shot. One day this
man had the misfortune to meet the rogue. It chased him. In
running he twisted an ankle while crossing a stream. The rogue
caught up with him and tore him apart. It rampaged around his
scattered remains for three days after that and would not permit
any traffic to pass, before it had the grace to leave and allow his
relatives to gather for cremation what remained. There was
another rogue near Bailur in the same district which threw a
bullock cart with its oxen off the road. It was killed by Mr Van
Ingen, the famous taxidermist of Mysore.

It must be remembered that the incidents I have mentioned

above were committed by rogue elephants and hence are unusual.
The normal elephant, as I have tried to show, is a timid, retiring
creature without any signs of boldness or bravery in its make-up.

For sheer, unsung grit, a wounded wild boar is the biggest-

hearted animal in the Indian jungle. Within his comparatively
small bulk, contrasted against the much larger animals, he packs
more courage, more ferocity and determination, and above all
more individual dash and stamina and thirst to kill than any
animal I know. Wounded elephants, bison, and even tigers and
panthers will invariably try to escape at first and only retaliate
when cornered. But wound the old wild boar and just let him
know where you are, and down he comes upon you. No lancer at
Balaclava ever charged with more gallantry and determination
than will ‘porky’ if you wound him and then reveal your position.
 The tiger very closely follows the elephant as the most
interesting animal in the jungles of India. I think he is fascinating.
Except for the periodic man-eater which takes to killing and
eating human-beings and becomes a terror within an area perhaps
of some hundreds of square miles, the tiger otherwise well deserves
the label of ‘gentleman’.

Hunting him might very truly and justifiably be considered the

king of all sports. Following him up when wounded is indeed a
hazardous undertaking and calls for the best possible junglecraft
on the part of the hunter. But to leave a wounded tiger in the
jungle without attempting to finish him off is not only cruel, in
that the wounded beast continues to suffer, but cowardly too,
having regard to the poor folk who live in and near that area. For
that very wound may be the point in his life that turns him into a
man-eater. Moreover, he is a gallant opponent. He tries at first to
avoid a conflict, but if followed and pressed too hard invariably
turns and fights to the last.

A well-known military person of Bangalore, the Rev. Mr. Jervis,

once followed a wounded tiger in Kumsi in the Shimoga district. It
attacked him and practically chewed through his arm. His Indian
car driver, who was also acting as his gun-bearer, but
unfortunately knew nothing about using firearms, most pluckily
drove the beast off his master while it was mauling him, by
attacking it with the butt-end of the spare shotgun he was
carrying. Very richly did he deserve, the reward he was given by
the congregation of the church for this heroic act. The
unfortunate padre was carried to the Kumsi travellers’ bungalow,
where the local doctor, with the best means available to him at
that time, amputated the minister’s arm, which was torn to
shreds. The arm was later buried in the compound of the
bungalow beneath a tree. A special carriage was attached to the
next train running to Bangalore and the Rev. Mr. Jervis was sent
back, though he died in the Bowring Hospital in Bangalore the
next day and was duly buried with full military honours.
 The panther does not approach the tiger in size, strength or
grandeur. He can also be a very mean foe. I have said before that
even man-eating panthers, despite their proclivity for human
flesh, generally share the fear of the human species that is
distinctive of the rest of their kind. They will rarely attack from
the front, but will almost without exception creep upon their prey
unawares from behind, as a rule favouring the hours of darkness
for such an attack.

The average panther has a propensity for dog flesh which he

appears to regard as a delicacy. There were a couple of panthers
living on a small hillock crowned by a temple, hardly a mile out of
Kollegal town in Coimbatore district. They made themselves a
perfect nuisance to the American missionaries who lived not far
from the foot of that hill, by eating up their dogs just as fast as the
worthy missionaries could replace them. Eventually the panthers
became so obnoxious that the local Sub-Inspector of Police,
accompanied by some youths of the town, volunteered to get rid of
them by smoking them out of the cave in which they lived. As a
preliminary step, the grass in the area was fired. When that failed
to expel the miscreants, lighted torches were thrown into the
cave. This had the effect of bringing them out at the double, and
in the fracas that ensued one panther was killed and some boys
were hurt. The other got away after mauling one of the older
members of the party. A missionary by the name of Buchanan
went after it but was mauled, while the panther escaped.

‘Bruin’, the sloth bear of the south Indian jungles, is a short-

sighted, bad-tempered animal; not brave by any means, but
extremely excitable. He is generally a coward. Very recently a
family party of three sloth bears—father, mother and rather a big
junior—walked into a cave near Closepet in which a panther had
already taken up his abode. The panther attacked the three bears.
Junior fled on the spot. The two older bears tried to resist, but
their courage turned to water before the razor-sharp claws of the
infuriated panther, and they also fled. Not only that, but the he-
bear was in such a hurry to get away that he did not look where he
was going and rolled down a rock about a hundred feet high and
broke both his forelegs. The villagers speared him to death the
next morning.

Should he see or hear you coming the sloth bear will dash off at
speed. If you meet him suddenly at a corner, he will attack
without provocation—not impelled by bravery but by fright and a
desire to get away from your presence. Possibly he thinks you may
try to prevent him doing so, and to make sure that you do not he
sets about mauling you. And he will do that very thoroughly, his
objective being the eyes and face of the offending being, which he
will invariably tear with his blunt four-inch talons. And he will
make a better job of it by biting too. I have seen jungle-folk who
had been attacked by bears: the wounds inflicted have been really
ghastly, leaving the victims with disfigured faces for the rest of
their lives.

Bruin often behaves like a clown when digging for roots or

burrowing into the nests of white ants. The sounds he emits can
resemble anything from a bagpipe being inflated to the droning of
an aeroplane, from the buzzing of an angry wasp to the huffing of
a blacksmith’s bellows, the latter being a sort of background
accompaniment to the buzzing and humming sounds. He will
twist and contort his body into all shapes provided he can get at
those tasty roots or at those most delectable and delicious
termites. He is a heavy sleeper, often sleeping in the shallow holes
he has dug in the ground, or between rocks, or in caves, or under
shady trees and in grassy areas. He snores so audibly as to be
clearly heard at a distance. When he is not snoring, an
unsuspecting man may almost tread upon him before he awakens.
That sudden awakening will almost certainly cause the startled
bear to attack without a second thought.

The Sholagas of Coimbatore are very plucky in dealing with

bears. They have been known to split open the skulls of many of
these animals with their short, sharp axes. The bear rises upon its
hind legs to reach for the face of its victim, thereby exposing its
own head, face, throat and chest, and rendering it vulnerable to
the sweeping stroke of an axe wielded by a powerful and
determined man. The short, black woollen blanket, which a
Sholaga generally carries wrapped around his left arm, serves as
the only shield.

Although a vegetarian or insect-eater by nature, ‘Bruin’ is not

averse to carrion. I have caught him several times robbing rotten
meat from a tiger’s or panther’s kill.

One of the potential dangers of any jungle are the many

varieties of reputedly poisonous snakes that are said to infest the
forests. Actually the great majority of snake stories told to the
visitor are grossly exaggerated. As a rule, snakes of all varieties are
comparatively few in jungle districts and are not often
encountered. They exist in much larger numbers in fields and near
villages, the reason being that in such places grain is grown.
Millions of field-rats live in holes in the ground to eat the grain.
And the snakes eat the rats.

Furthermore, as far as humans are concerned, in the whole

peninsula there are only five varieties of poisonous snakes capable
of inflicting a lethal dose of venom. There are other species of
poisonous snakes, too, but their bites would only cause a local
swelling and some pain. The deadly varieties are the king cobra or
hamadryad, the cobra, the Russell’s viper, the saw-scaled viper or
‘pursa’, and the krait. The coral snake has a very poisonous bite,
but its mouth is so tiny as to prevent it from getting a grip
anywhere on a human being; apart from which, it has a very
docile nature. The pit vipers are all poisonous, but a bite from
them is never fatal except in very rare cases where the person
bitten suffers from a weak heart and dies more from shock than
the effects of poison. Most of the sea snakes are extremely deadly,
some of them having venom as much as twelve times the strength
of the cobra’s; but of course they are only to be found in the sea.

Roughly speaking, the strengths of snake venoms and their

consequent fatality, is as follows: a Russell’s viper’s poison is
about twice as lethal as that of the saw-scaled viper; the cobra’s
poison three times as strong as that of the Russell’s viper; and the
krait almost twice as poisonous as the cobra. The king cobra’s
venom is not quite as strong as that of the ordinary cobra, bulk for
bulk, but being a big snake, measuring sometimes fifteen feet and
more in length, it makes up in quantity for this slight deficiency of
strength, injecting about four times as much as is held in the
glands of a cobra, so that a bite from this snake, which is
incidentally about the largest poisonous snake in the world,
causes death about three times as fast as an ordinary cobra’s bite
would do.

The hamadryad is found only in hilly regions in the midst of the

evergreen forests where the rainfall is very heavy. It lives entirely
in jungles and avoids human habitation as far as possible. Its food
consists of other snakes, which makes it very difficult to keep in
captivity. A specimen died in the Mysore Zoo recently after a full
year of starvation, during which every effort was made to provide
it with food in the form of various snakes of the nonpoisonous
varieties, all of which it steadfastly refused to eat till eventually it
died of starvation. Its death caused quite a controversy in the Press
of Mysore, where some of the people of the city, on religious
grounds, ventilated their strong disapproval of this cruel act on
the part of the authorities at the zoo.

The hamadryad, as I have said, is a huge snake, generally of an

olive-green colour, banded with white. In Burma and the Malayan
region the male is said to be almost jet black, although the white
bands still persist. The hood is not so well developed in proportion
to the length of the snake as in the common cobra, and does not
bear the well-known ‘vee’ mark. It is said to be very aggressive,
attacking on sight, particularly the female of the species while
guarding her eggs, which she lays in a nest prepared from fallen,
mouldering leaves. However, this aggressiveness I have not
experienced myself, although I twice met a hamadryad at very
close quarters. The first time I was digging out tree ferns for my
garden in Bangalore, while at the same time attempting to catch
some rare fish with flaming-red tails that were swimming in a
stream deep down in a valley of the Western Ghats, near a place
called Agumbe. The fish, by the way, were for my aquarium at
home. I saw what looked like the head of an iguana lizard peering
at me from a thicket of ferns. I was wading in the bed of the
stream at that moment and approached to have a closer look,
when the hamadryad—and not an iguana as I had thought—
reared up and towered quite six feet above me from its elevated
position on the bank. The reptile was trembling with rage, and its
black eyes glittered as it exhaled the air noisily from its body. I
was not carrying even a stick, so I stood perfectly motionless.
After some moments the trembling subsided, the inflated hood
went down, the snake lowered itself and slithered across the
stream not five feet away. Halfway across it halted, and regarded
me again to see what I was going to do. I did nothing and I still did
not move. Then it resumed its course and disappeared amongst the
ferns on the other bank.

On the second occasion I was sitting behind a tree on a forest

fire-line near Santaveri, on the Baba Budan hills, while a tiger-
beat was in progress. Suddenly I heard a peculiar whistling sound
from the jungle behind my back. It somewhat resembled the alarm
signal made by a bull-bison, and accordingly I expected the bison
to show up, when a hamadryad broke cover and crossed the fire-
line quite close to me. In that case, however, I doubt if the snake
even saw me as I did not move a muscle.

Most people to whom I have related these two incidents say that
I saved my own life by not moving, and that had I done so the
snakes would have attacked at once. Having never been attacked
before by one of these big reptiles I cannot offer any opinion.
However, there is no doubt that I was more lucky than the
unfortunate German zoologist who came to Agumbe some years
ago to catch a pair of hamadryads for a zoo. He caught the male
first without trouble. A couple of days later he attempted to catch
the female. She bit him. He died there in the jungle itself. In that
instance the old proverb that ‘the female of the species is more
dangerous than the male’ proved itself to be literally true. Against
this I remember witnessing many years ago at Maymyo, in Burma,
the performance put up by a wayside snake charmer. Incidentally
she was a Burmese lady, and a very beautiful one at that, as I can
still recollect. She took a hamadryad out of a basket and danced
before it till it had extended itself some feet above the ground
with hood inflated. Then she deliberately kissed it on the mouth. I
examined the snake later. It had its poison glands and its fangs.
But the hamadryad was a male I remember, and as I have said, she
was a very lovely Burmese lady. Perhaps that was why she met
with more chivalrous treatment than that unfortunate German
scientist.

The ordinary Indian cobra is too well-known to require much

description. Contrary to the stories told, it rarely exceeds six feet
in length. There are two varieties in India, the first with the
widely-publicised spectacle ‘vee’ mark, which is called the
‘biocellate’ variety, and the other with only a single white spot on
its hood, ringed with black. This is known as the ‘monocellate’
variety. Here and there specimens are met with that have no mark
at all, although their hoods are just as well developed.

Colouring is a very unreliable means of identifying cobras, as

they are to be found in all varieties and shades from jet black to
various kinds of brown and even reddish, whitish or greenish hues.
Grey and brown are the most common colours. Even young cobras,
when they are hatched and are just six inches long, are deadly
venomous. They are also far more aggressive during the first two
years of their lives. They mellow in temperament as they grow
older, and very old specimens are not given to biting without
extreme provocation. At this age they can be completely tamed
while in full possession of their fangs and poison sacs.

Cobras lay quite soft-shelled eggs, about fifteen in number, each

about the size of a pigeon’s egg, in a shallow hole or among
decaying leaves. To hatch these eggs successfully requires indirect
heat from the sun together with considerable humidity. Without
humidity they shrivel up.

The krait averages about three feet in length and is a slender

black snake with white rings around its body. It is very swift in
movement, but at the same time is very shy and nervous and
generally dies in captivity within a day or two of being caught, for
no apparent reason.

The king cobra, the cobra and the krait are known as ‘colubrine’
snakes, and their venom causes a collapse of the entire nervous
system as a primary symptom. Each has two fixed fangs, the
length of the normal cobra’s being about a quarter of an inch, the
hamadryad’s about half an inch, and the krait’s about one-eighth
of an inch.

The ‘viperine’ snakes are the Russell’s viper and the saw-scaled
viper. They also have two fangs, one on each side. These lie flat
against the back of the mouth when not in use, but can be erected
and rotated about their base as an axis. The fangs of a big Russell’s
viper grow to a full inch and can pierce through a soft-leather
boot, putties, pants or thick woollen stockings. A cobra’s or krait’s
fangs, being ‘fixed’ and not rotatable, cannot do this. The
Russell’s viper itself is a stout snake growing to a little over five
feet in length and possessing three rows of diamond-shaped
markings running down its back (one to the centre and one on
each side), joined together in chain-like fashion and of a rich dark
brown. For this reason it is sometimes called the ‘chain-viper’.
 The saw-scaled viper hardly exceeds two feet in length and is a
brown snake with white ‘notch’ markings across its back. Its
distinctive feature is that it possesses rough keeled-back scales.
When annoyed, it coils round and round against itself, the scales
producing quite a loud rasping sound in the process. This gives it
its Indian name of ‘pursa’, ‘poorsa’ or ‘phoorsa’, which is a
phonetic rendering of the sound made by the rasping scales.

The ‘colubrine’ snakes have grooves down the backs of their

fangs along which the venom trickles when ejected from the
poison-sacs. The ‘viperine’ snakes have channels down the centre
of the fang itself, like the needle of a hypodermic syringe, for the
passage of the poison. Naturally, because of this, the wearing of
thick socks, putties, long trousers and soft boots is practically no
obstruction to the bite of a viperine snake, although they may do
so to that of a colubrine, for, being exposed, most of the venom
will be absorbed by the material itself or dispersed against the
leather of a boot. The longer, rotatable, hypodermic-like fangs of
the two deadly vipers ensure that the unfortunate victim receives
a lethal dose more or less intact, just as it is expelled from the
venom glands. This is particularly so in the case of a Russell’s
viper, the tremendously long fangs of which will penetrate any
normal material.

The chief effect of viperine venom is to cause haemorrhage,

which gives the victim a good deal of pain.

Of course, it is impossible to name more than average periods of

time for a bite by any one of these reptiles to prove fatal to a
human being. The other factors involved are the age, health,
constitution and physique of the victim; the size of the snake itself
and whether it has bitten any other creature recently; and the
amount of venom that has actually entered the victim’s blood
stream. The average time in which death normally occurs might
be as follows:
 In the case of the hamadryad, about ninety minutes; the krait,
two to three hours; the cobra, four to six hours; the Russell’s viper,
twelve to thirty-six hours; and the saw-scaled viper, anything
from three to seven days.

The nonpoisonous snakes of India are very many in number.

Perhaps the most interesting is the python or rock-snake, which
may measure up to eighteen feet in length, while the Malayan
variety grows to thirty-five feet. It kills its victim by coiling
around it and crushing it to death, after which it swallows the
whole animal. The victims, of course, range in size from rats and
rabbits to pigs and small deer, according to the size and capacity
of the snake itself. During the Burma campaign against the
Japanese an account was given of the shooting of a ‘reticulated
python’—which is the name given to the Malayan species which
is also to be found in Burma—over forty feet in length. In its
death-throes it vomited the body of a Jap soldier it had swallowed,
complete with helmet. I do not vouch for the truth of this story,
although it appeared in the Press. The idea that a python covers its
victim with slime before swallowing it is quite erroneous. Its jaws,
like those of all snakes, are not hinged together, but are quite
separate units. The outer skin being very elastic, it is easy to see
that a snake can swallow creatures several times the size of its
head and girth.

Other nonpoisonous snakes include many varieties of ground

snakes; several species of very slender whip-like and fast-moving
tree snakes; stout, lethargic worm-like sand snakes; and a large
number of fresh-water snakes. One of the sand snakes possesses a
blunt tail which looks like a second head, so much so that it is still
widely believed that this reptile has two heads, one at either end.

I have always been fascinated by snakes, and for no other

apparent reason I formed the habit of keeping them as pets at the
age of eight years. As a result, I was considered quite frightful
among the girls and something of a terror at school. I know I got
quite a kick out of releasing reptiles in cinemas, in Sunday school
and even in Church. The name of ‘snake-charmer Anderson’ still
clings to me to this day, in my forty-eighth year.

Snake venom has many medicinal uses, and I am certain is a

still unknown remedy for many ailments and conditions. The fact
is that this field has not yet been thoroughly investigated and
exploited owing to the danger consequent upon experimenting on
a human being with these venoms. Viperine poison in small
diluted doses and in accordance with the laws of homeopathy,
where the small dose of a particular poison is known to counteract
a large dose of that same poison has been proved of, sterling value
for the very condition of haemorrhage which it produces when a
large or lethal dose is administered. This venom is used by dentists
and others to stop excessive bleeding after a tooth extraction or
minor operation.

Similarly, colubrine venoms, which in large doses bring about a

complete collapse of the nervous system, are efficacious in minute
doses in cases of epilepsy and other nervous complaints.

The Haffkine Institute in Bombay prepares a series of anti-

venom injections as an antidote for the bites of all five poisonous
species, obtainable separately for any of the varieties, provided
the offending snake has been identified; or in a combined form for
all the species, if there is no certainty as to by which snake a
person has been bitten. The serum is prepared by progressively
injecting horses with increasing quantities of snake-venom,
beginning with a minute dose, till they become immune and are
able to tolerate three to four times a lethal dose without ill-effect.
Then blood is drawn from a vein in the thigh of the horse so
immunised, and from this blood the anti-venom serum is
eventually prepared.

When I came to hear of how the serum was prepared I was

greatly intrigued and determined to prepare my own stock. I
procured two old ponies and a donkey from sources I still hesitate
to reveal and started to immunise them with initial doses of cobra
poison, injected with a small 3 cc hypodermic syringe I had bought
for the purpose. Unfortunately my knowledge in those days of the
initial dose to be given was rather sketchy, with the result that
within a very few hours I had to arrange for the disposal of the
corpses of the said two ponies and the donkey. I also recollect that
my father was very annoyed.

Just before the last war I was doing quite a good business in
exporting snake venom in crystallised form to interested
institutions in the USA, particularly cobra venom. The average
cobra produces roughly one cubic centimetre of venom every four
to five days, which when crystallised weighs about one gramme,
for which I was getting approximately one and a half dollars. I had
twenty cobras, which therefore earned me thirty dollars worth of
poison every five days, or a hundred and eighty dollars a month.
Not a bad business considering the snakes cost me nothing
whatever to feed beyond a frog or lizard each every ten days.
These were caught for me by a fifteen-year-old Indian boy, such a
servant being known as a ‘chokra’. His salary for this work was
seven rupees a month which, shall we say, is the equivalent of ten
shillings in English money.

The venom is collected from a reptile by holding it by the neck

with its mouth pressed against a glass cup covered by a thin piece
of diaphragm rubber or bladder-skin. The snake bites the rubber,
and in doing so ejects the poison from its glands, which trickles
into the cup. The idea of the very thin rubber is to avoid loss of
venom at the surface. Some care has to be taken not to injure the
reptile by allowing it to break its teeth against the glass. Some
layers of electrical insulating-tape around the edge of the cup
serves this purpose.

Cobras are easily handled, as they expose their heads by raising

themselves for about a third of their length off the ground while
inflating their hoods. It is then comparatively simple to press a
stick down firmly across the back of the hood, pin the snake to the
ground and grip it by the back of its neck. Russell’s vipers, saw-
scaled vipers and kraits are far more dangerous, both because they
hide their heads beneath the coiled folds of their own bodies and
are, moreover, exceedingly quick in movement, far outclassing the
cobra. In addition, the exceedingly long and rotatable fangs of a
Russell’s viper make him a nasty customer, requiring very careful
handling.

Cobras in general are also easily tamed. The specimens in the

itinerant snake charmer’s basket have been rendered harmless by
removing their fangs and poison-sacs. The fangs grow again,
roughly in a month’s time, but once the poison-sac is removed the
reptile is harmless for life, as the venom cannot be secreted. A
Russell’s viper’s poison-sacs cannot be removed because they are
situated very near the brain and close to a big artery in the mouth.
An operation to remove the sac causes this snake to die not only of
blood, but it injures the brain, to which it succumbs in a short
while. The snake-charmers therefore stitch the upper and lower
lips together at both corners with needle and thread, and feed the
unfortunate reptile once a week through a bone funnel inserted
down the throat from the centre of the mouth. An egg-flip is the
usual nourishment. The same artificial and forced feeding is
practised on cobras that frequently refuse to swallow their natural
food when in captivity.

Their habit of infrequent eating is what makes all snakes so easy

to keep. Normally a meal of a rat, frog, lizard or small bird will be
sufficient for a period of a week or ten days, according to the size
of the snake. In this respect, strange to say, the smaller species are
more voracious than the larger. Pythons eat less frequently, at
intervals of fifteen days to a month, according to the size of the
animal that formed the last meal.
 In writing this rather long account of snakes my purpose was to
depict the interesting features shown by each of them. One feature
is common to all snakes, both poisonous and nonpoisonous,
except, it is said, the hamadryad; that they are all afraid of and
avoid man. They will not go out of their way to attack or bite a
human, but will do their utmost to slither away out of sight when
hearing one approach, and will only bite if actually trodden upon.
This they do out of fear and in self-defence. Incidentally it is
useful to know that snakes have no sense of hearing through an
organ resembling an ear. Their ‘hearing’ lies in the ability to feel
vibrations through their bodies. Thus the stories we hear of a
snake-charmer’s flute, and other musical instruments and sounds,
‘charming’ a cobra are a myth. It is not the snake-charmer’s music
that holds their attention, but the rhythmic swaying of his body,
head and hands when playing the instrument the causes the cobra
to move itself from side to side in keeping with his motions while
watching them. By this token, shouting, singing or whistling
when walking along some dark footpath in India will not serve to
frighten away a lurking snake, whereas heavy boots or the tapping
of a stick against the ground most definitely will.

Every snake casts its outer layer of skin two to three times a
year. This comes off ‘inside-out’ in the manner of a removed sock
or glove, and is accomplished by the snake rubbing and coiling
itself against some rough surface or obstacle.

Both poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes are classified generally

under two headings—oviparous or viviparous. The former lay
eggs, which hatch out after some days, whereas the latter give
birth to living youngsters. The possession or absence of venom has
no bearing on this factor, as both poisonous and harmless species
are to be found under each heading. For instance, the cobra lays
eggs, whereas the Russell’s viper and python give birth to their
young alive.
 Of all the five species of poisonous snakes, the ordinary cobra
lives to a great extent close to human beings and will be found
inhabiting ant hills and other holes in every field or near any
dwelling-place. Strangely, he is rarely met with in a jungle. The
hamadryad is just the opposite, as I have already said, and keeps
entirely to the jungle. Russell’s vipers are found more in forests
and grassy places than near human habitations. Kraits are not
very common anywhere, and the saw-scaled viper lives mostly in
arid, sandy regions.

When in the jungle, short of carrying tubes of anti-venom

injections, which in any case require to be kept in a refrigerator
because they decompose rapidly, the only reliable remedy for a
bite from a poisonous snake is immediate deep cutting into the
wound with a sharp knife, followed by sucking out as much of the
poisoned blood in the vicinity as possible, in order to minimise the
quantity of venom absorbed. Incidentally, none of the venoms are
poisonous if swallowed, so that there is no fear of secondary
symptoms due to this sucking-out of poisoned blood. In fact, cobra
venom is fed to trained cocks and partridges in order to make them
more aggressive when participating in the staged fights often
conducted by the Moslems in this part of India. High sums of
money are placed as bets on the winner, and this is one of the
standard methods of winning the jackpot.

The tying of an effective ligature above the bite requires time

and some skill. Also the method is impracticable if the person
happens to be bitten anywhere on the trunk. In any case, before
the ligature can be effectively tightened, the venom has
invariably entered the bloodstream. Pouring crystals of potassium
permanganate into the bite helps to neutralize the venom to a
slight extent through chemical action, but deep incisions have
first to be made before the crystals can effectively penetrate the
tissues and play their part. For this reason I always carry a small
razor-sharp penknife in my pocket when in the jungle.
 I know a man who was bitten in the foot by a cobra. He was a
poacher and he had the presence of mind to pour a heap of the
loose gunpowder he was carrying in a bag for his muzzle-loader on
to and around the bitten part. Then he ignited the powder with a
match, with the result that he burned a deep hole in his leg which
still causes him to walk with a slight limp. But he lived. I know
another man, a snake-charmer, who was bitten through his thumb
by a cobra. He placed a knife over the second joint and brought a
heavy stone sharply down on the back of the knife with his free
hand, requiring more than one blow to complete the amputation.
He must have suffered agony and almost bled to death;
nevertheless, he pulled through and is alive today. In a third
instance I was once camped at Muttur forest bungalow when a
man awoke me at dawn to say he had been bitten in the foot by a
cobra nearly an hour earlier. He said he was a cartman returning
to Pennagram with a cartload of cut bamboos; the evening before
he had encountered a herd of wild elephants by the roadside.
Being afraid, he had turned his cart about and returned to the
fellers’ camp. About 4 a.m. that morning he had set forth again,
walking behind his cart so as to be able to escape more easily if he
ran into the elephants again. Probably the cartwheel had passed
over the snake and injured it. He said he felt a sharp pain and
looked down to see a snake fastened on to his foot. He kicked out,
and the snake let go and made off, but not before he had had time
to see by the inflated hood that it was a cobra. After being bitten
he had walked the two miles to the bungalow, hoping someone
could help him. I lost no time in lancing the wound deeply, and
with the aid of a forest guard walked him up and down the
verandah to keep him from falling into a coma. But it was not
long before I could see that my efforts would be in vain. The
unfortunate cartman began to drool at the mouth, his eyes rolled
upwards, he staggered like a drunken man and his speech became
inarticulate. I managed to get his name and that of his family,
who lived in the village of Erigollanur, a mile beyond Pennagram.
Then he suddenly became a dead weight in our arms. He had lost
consciousness. By 8.30 a.m. he was dead. I sent the forest guard to
inform his relatives and the Pennagram police. The relatives came
in a bullock-cart by 2 p.m., and set up a loud wailing. Then came
the police. They wanted to know why there were blood marks all
over the floor of the forest bungalow where we had walked the
man about; why I had cut him; why he had died. Finally the
corpse was put into the bullock-cart and sent to the police station,
and I was asked to go too. I refused point-blank. The chief
constable pondered over my refusal awhile and then compromised
with instructions that I should remain in the forest bungalow till
the results of the post-mortem, which would be held on the dead
man, had been reported. I readily agreed to do that. Then the
party left for Pennagram, seven miles away, from where the body
was sent by bus to the General Hospital at Salem town, forty-two
miles distant, for a post-mortem. Back came the answer after three
days. The cartman had died of cobra bite. On the fourth day the
police informed me that I was no longer under suspicion.

In the whole thirty-nine years during which I have handled

snakes, I have been bitten only once, and then by a cobra. It
happened in 1939. I had just caught the snake when it slipped from
my grasp and bit me on the second finger of my left hand. But I am
still alive; nor did I have to blow up or cut off my finger. For
fortunately the incident happened on some land I own nine miles
out of Bangalore and I was able to drive in my car to hospital and
receive antivenom treatment. As a result, the bite itself produced
no unpleasant symptoms; but the injection certainly did, for on
the third day I suffered a very severe reaction and temporary
partial paralysis of both legs. However, calcium and other
injections put that right within a day.

In conclusion, I would like to mention a strange belief that was

widely held in southern India, that a stationmaster named
Narsiah, working at Polreddipalayam Station on the Southern
Railway and situated not very far from the city of Madras, could
cure any person of poisonous snakebite provided he was informed
by telegram. The belief became so widespread that the railway
authorities gave preference on its own telegraph system to any
such message addressed to this stationmaster. I had heard many
accounts of his miraculous cures from authentic sources, and
there are hundreds of people alive in southern India today whose
lives were saved by him. The modus operandi was that, as soon as
Mr Narsiah received a telegram informing him of someone being
bitten, he would go to a certain tree growing in the station yard,
tear off a shred of his dhoti or loin cloth, tie it to a branch of the
tree, say a prayer, and then send a telegram in reply informing the
patient that he would live provided he abstained from tobacco,
alcohol and coffee. Invariably the victim survived.

Alas! Mr Narsiah had to answer the great call himself and has
since passed away. But he will never be forgotten. I do not know if
his secret died with him, but I fear so, as no reports of any
successor to his healing work in the realm of snakebite have come
to me since then.
 6

The Killer From Hyderabad

ORTH of Mysore state, in the days of the British Raj, lay the
N districts of Bellary, Anantapur, Kurnool and Nandyal, all
belonging to the former Madras Presidency. North of these again
lay Hyderabad state, which was the dominion of the Nizam of
Hyderabad, a staunch ally of the British regime and a descendant
of a ruler who was an off-shoot of the once all-powerful
Mohammedan Moghul Emperor at Delhi.

Hyderabad state now no longer exists and part of the Nizam’s

wide dominions have been amalgamated with Anantapur,
Kurnool and Nandyal to form a portion of the linguistic Telugu
state of Andhra Pradesh, which is about the second largest in the
new Union of India, being exceeded in area only by Madhya
Pradesh to the north.

However, this story dates from long ago when these areas,
although predominantly Telugu-speaking, belonged to Madras.

In those days these districts were largely undeveloped because

the rainfall was scarce, the climate viciously hot for ten months of
the year (while the remaining two months are simply
uncomfortably hot) and the population by no means dense.
Except for the towns of Anantapur, Kurnool and Nandyal, which
gave their names to the districts of which they formed the
capitals, the rest of the land was peopled by small villages
scattered widely over the area.

The railway line from Bombay to Madras was the principal

arterial link which traversed the districts. It passed through a
railway colony known as Guntakal Junction. This main arterial
link was a broad-gauge section, with its lines 5 ft. 6 ins. apart. At
Guntakal three separate metre-gauge sections branched off. One
led westwards towards Bellary and Hubli; one led southwards
towards Bangalore in Mysore state; the third led eastwards,
passing through Dronachellam and Nandyal to Bezwada, and
thence to the east coast of India. At Bezwada it linked up with
another broad-gauge arterial section joining Madras and Calcutta,
while at Dronachellam a metre-gauge line branched
northeastwards to Secunderabad and Hyderabad. The metre-gauge
engines and rolling stock were naturally smaller and much lighter
than those of the broad-gauge lines.

After leaving Guntakal, Dronachellam and Nandyal, the

eastern metre-gauge line passes through an area of forest for five
stations, named in order Gazulapalli, Basavapuram, Chelama,
Bogada and Diguvametta, before going on to Bezwada. This
forested portion, which forms the setting of my story, is more or
less in the midst of a jungle belt stretching northwards across the
Krishna river into the former Hyderabad state, and southwards
towards the town of Cuddapah.

The metre-gauge trains are slow, and it is still a common

experience for the drivers of the up and down mails that pass in
the night to see wild animals running across the lines in the beam
of the engine’s headlight, or to run down a wild pig or a deer that
attempts a last-minute crossing.
 From the five stations which I have named only rough and stony
cart-tracks and footpaths wend their way into the surrounding
jungle. There were no motorable roads in those days. This was one
of the main factors that helped to preserve the fauna of the
locality from being badly shot-up, as has happened in jungle areas
traversed by good roads. Enthusiastic but misguided and
unsporting hunters use these good roads by spending their time
from dusk to dawn shining spotlights from motorcars into the
jungle and shooting at any animal whose eyes reflect the glare.
More often than not these hunters are not even aware of the kind
or nature of the animal at which they fire. This wanton and
wicked practice has done and continues increasingly to do
immense damage to wild animals, as the females and young of all
species are being indiscriminately slaughtered, while a still larger
number crawl away sorely wounded to die lingering and agonizing
deaths in the jungle. The British government in its time tried to
stop this poaching, and the Indian government is still trying. The
first was, and the second is, altogether unsuccessful, and the
terrible havoc still goes on. What is more, this will always be the
case till either the public becomes conscious of the fact that wild
life is a national asset and should not be wantonly destroyed; or
alternatively, until wild life itself is completely wiped out.

However, as I have said, because of the fortunate absence of

motorable roads, the Gazulapalli-Diguvametta area has so far
been spared to some extent the curse of the night-prowling
motorcar butcher, and there one may camp in the jungle
reasonably sure of not hearing the hum of a car, followed by a
dazzling beam of light, the sudden cessation of sound as the car is
brought to a halt, the report of a gun or rifle and perhaps the
agonized shriek of a wounded or dying animal.

The indigenous inhabitants of this area are a Telugu-speaking

tribe known as Chenchus. Like all aborigines, they go about
scantily clad, the main items of clothing in both men and women
being torn and dirty loin cloths. The men carry bows and arrows,
and most of them adorn themselves with beads or feathers around
their necks. Peacock feathers are a favourite ornament for special
occasions when stuck into their matted hair. They are fond of
alcoholic liquor, which they make from the juice of the sticky
mhowa flower, or from the bark of the babul tree. Indeed, because
of the presence and abundance of the mhowa tree, these people
were always a great problem to the excise officers in the days of
British rule, and they are a still far greater problem to the Andhra
government where the policy of ‘Prohibition’ prevails in certain
parts of the state.

However, this tale did not set out to be a protest against night
shooting from cars, nor as a discussion of the policy of
‘prohibition’; nor is it even a sketch of life of the Chenchus. It
concerns a man-eating tiger that terrorized the area, off and on,
for some four years. This animal began his activities in the forests
which belonged to Hyderabad state, where he fed on Chenchus
and lonely travellers for half a year before he wandered
southwards and dramatically announced his arrival at Chelama
by carrying off and devouring a ganger who left the station early
one morning on a routine patrol of the railway line in the
direction of Basavapuram to the west.

In those days, particularly, the area was always well stocked

with tigers, but these, due to the plentiful supply of natural game,
seldom interfered with the local people except occasionally to
carry off cattle. The disappearance of the ganger was therefore not
attributed to a man-eating tiger at the time, as his remains were
never found, and it was thought he had just decamped from the
area for reasons of his own. Only in the months that followed,
when Chenchus vanished here and there, were suspicions aroused
that something untoward was happening, and people began to
think that a tiger might be the cause of these disappearances. Even
then there was no definite evidence of the presence of this man-
eater, as tiger tracks along the jungle paths were common and
there was nothing to connect the missing ganger and other
Chenchus with earlier victims in the more distant northern parts
of the jungle within Hyderabad state.

It was some three or four moths after the incident of the ganger
that this tiger revealed his presence. Two charcoal burners were
returning one evening to a tiny hamlet known as Wadapally, near
the fringe of the forest. They were walking one behind the other
when about half a mile before reaching their destination the
leading man noticed the speckled form of a hen-koel fly from a
nest rather high in a tree. Now you may wonder why I stress that
this bird was a hen-koel of speckled plumage. It is because the
male koel is jet black and therefore quite unidentifiable with the
female, which is a deep grey speckled with white. The koel is
perhaps the largest member of the cuckoo family, the Indian
‘brain-fever bird’ being another. Like all cuckoos, the koels do not
build their own nests, but lay their eggs in the nests of other birds
and leave the hatching to them.
 Now the fact that the leading Chenchu had seen the speckled
hen fly from a nest was irrefutable evidence that she had just laid
an egg there. Chenchus not only find koel’s eggs hard to come by,
because they might be laid in any bird’s nest, but they regard them
as a great delicacy. He drew the attention of his companion to the
lucky circumstance. The second man, who was younger, began to
climb the tree with the intention of plundering the eggs. He had
almost reached his objective when he heard a scream below him.
Looking down, he was amazed to see a tiger walking away into
the jungle with his companion dangling from the beast’s mouth
and screaming for help.

The man on the tree scrambled to its topmost branches while

the tiger faded from sight with his still-wailing victim.

Night fell, but the Chenchu in the tree dared not risk coming
down. He spent the next twelve hours there, shivering with fear
and cold, and expecting the return of the tiger at any moment.
Next morning, when the sun was well up, he started yelling at the
top of his voice in the hope that someone on the outskirts of
Wadapally might hear him. The wind happened to be blowing in
that direction and his cries were eventually heard, when a party
of villagers set forth to find out what it was all about.

Thus it was that the man-eater officially announced his

presence in the Chelama area.

The Chenchus from Wadapally conveyed the news to the

stationmaster at Chelama, who telegraphed up the line to
Nandyal, from where in turn the news was conveyed to the Police,
the forestry department, the railway authorities, and to the
Collector of the district. Tongues began to wag, and the various
mysterious disappearances of the other Chenchus and of the
ganger, four months previously, were linked together and laid at
the door of the man-eater.
 Normally, when the presence of a man-eater in any particular
area of jungle is confirmed, the Forestry Department throws open
the surrounding forests for ‘free shooting’ without licence, to
encourage hunters to eliminate the killer. This step was
automatically taken, but the announcement by the Forestry
Department met with no appreciable response, because few
sportsmen cared to try their hand at bagging a man-eater in a
district almost bereft of roads, where they would need to walk
every inch of the ground without any transport.

One or two railway officials made half-hearted attempts by

‘trolleying’ up and down the line between Gazulapalli and
Chelama with loaded rifles expecting, or at least hoping, to come
across the tiger very obligingly seated beside the track, just
waiting to be shot. But their expectations and their hopes did not
work out, nor did the man-eater oblige. And not only did they see
no tiger, but more Chenchus began to fall victims to the invisible
devil week by week, till the death toll, inclusive of the ganger,
rose to eleven. Of these only two victims were followed up by
bands of villagers armed with staves, hatchets and bows and
arrows, and their scattered remains recovered. No trace was found
of the others, due both to the difficult terrain and the
unwillingness of the people to risk their lives in attempting to save
what they well knew to be carcasses already half-eaten.

Such behaviour may be regarded as indifferent and callous. But I

would remind the reader that these poor folk were unarmed and
not organized to deal with the man-eater. The jungle covered a
vast expanse of heavy forest, with but few footpaths winding
through the dense undergrowth, piled boulders and wooded
ravines which lay in all directions. Everybody knew that should
the man-eater be bold enough to charge a group of persons, at
least one of them would fall a victim. Nobody wanted to be that
victim. So who could reasonably blame them for not venturing
out? In true eastern philosophy there seemed to be no sense in
sacrificing another life to find the body of one who was already
dead.

After these eleven killings, the man-eater appeared to have left

the area for some time, as no further incidents were reported there
for three or four months, though they began to appear again near
the Krishna river. Then, and then only, did it become apparent
that the former Hyderabad man-eater and the man-eater of
Chelama were one and the same animal.

In Hyderabad state the call for hunters to kill the tiger met with
greater response, and one or two of the Mahommedan Nawabs (or
landowners) started active operations against the animal.
Eventually the tiger overplayed his role by killing a traveller quite
close to a hamlet named Madikonda. In this case he was driven off
before he had time to eat even a portion of his victim, and news of
the incident was carried to the Nawab of the area, who happened
to be in camp a few miles away.

The Nawab answered the call and came posthaste to the spot,
very fortunately before the body of the victim had been removed
for cremation, and he was able to construct a machan on an
adjacent tree in which to await the tiger’s return to its
undevoured prey. Being a nomad, the unfortunate victim had no
relatives in the locality to claim his body, and this factor had
provided the only chance this tiger had so far afforded of being
shot.

But at this stage the Nawab’s good luck was impaired by an

unexpected thunderstorm which almost synchronized with the
return of the tiger. Or that was what the Nawab claimed.
Whatever the cause, he unluckily failed to kill it when he fired,
and the morning light revealed a few traces of blood which had
not been washed away by the rain. At least, he had the
satisfaction of knowing that he had hit the tiger, although nobody
was able to follow up and locate its carcass the next day. The
Nawab hoped that it was dead, and so did everybody else.

Again an interval of some weeks elapsed. Then a Chenchu, who

devoted his time to snaring partridges and jungle fowl near
Gazulapalli, failed to return home for his midday meal. He had set
out that morning on a visit to the traps that he had placed in
various parts of the jungle the day before, saying he would be back
by noon, as was his habit. But midday passed and the shades of
evening fell and still he did not show up, and his wife and only
son, a boy of twenty, grew anxious. Of course they had heard of
the killings in the vicinity of Chelama, but those had taken place
some months previously and everyone had since forgotten about
the incidents. Now, with the absence of the trapper who was the
breadwinner of the family, their misgivings and fears returned in
full force.

In recording the exploits of man-eaters, it is rather noticeable

that they follow a more or less regular pattern of happenings. The
‘villain of the piece,’ the aforesaid man-eater, makes his
appearance suddenly, generally after being incapacitated from
pursuing his natural prey through being wounded by some hunter.
More rarely he, or quite as frequently she, has learned the habit
from a parent who had a weakness for human flesh. The killings of
human beings, few and far between at first, increase in number as
the animal gains confidence in its own prowess and power over
the helplessness of the human race as a whole. A strange feature
in all man-eaters, whether tiger or panther, is the fact that,
despite their growing contempt for humanity in general, a subtle
sixth-sense of caution, which some hunters think is cowardice,
pervades their whole nature. They will always attack the victim
unawares, generally when he is alone or at least at the end, or at
the head of, a moving file of persons. Instances are very very rare,
indeed, when such a man-eater has charged a group of people. On
the other hand, instances have been many in which the would-be
victim has resisted and somehow fought for his life, and the man-
eater has abandoned its attack and fled. This is more the case with
panthers than with tigers, for the simple reason that the latter are
such powerful animals that few live to tell the tale once a charge
has been driven home. It is this inherent caution or cowardice,
call it what you like, which is the common feature of all man-
eaters and makes their early destruction a most difficult problem.
As various attempts to circumvent them are made, and fail, the
hunted animal naturally becomes more and more cautious and
cunning as it appears to realize that a special price has been
placed upon its head.

The man-eating tiger has a habit of following a particular ‘beat’

or route, which may extend over some hundreds of miles, halting
in the vicinity of villages or hamlets for a week or two and then
moving on again. In this way, not only does he escape when things
are becoming too hot for him, but he arrives at fresh pastures and
fields of opportunity where the inhabitants are unaware of his
coming. By the same token, when he leaves a particular locality
and the killings cease, the natural apathy and forgetfulness of the
villagers makes them feel that the danger has passed and they
become careless in their movements, ensuring another easy victim
for the tiger when he eventually comes that way again. For he
works around the territory in a huge and rough circle, and
according to the extent of his beat will surely pass that way once
more—maybe after a month or two, maybe much longer.

As I have mentioned earlier in this book, if one has the patience,

and provided sufficient information is available, which is often
most difficult to achieve, with the aid of a map of the area and by
means of marking with a cross the locality of each human kill
with the date on which it occurred, it is possible to assess not only
the whole extent and area of the tiger’s range of operations, but to
anticipate its return to each locality within the margin of a
fortnight. This is one of the main factors that helps the hunter
who scientifically plans the killing of a man-eating tiger to
accomplish his task.
 In the case of a panther there is no evidence of a regular beat.
He is here, there and everywhere. He kills mainly at night and
very rarely during the hours of daylight. Being small, a man-
eating panther can hide anywhere. As he grows bolder and bolder
he often reaches a stage where he attacks and drags inmates out of
their huts. I believe there are few authenticated cases of tigers
doing this. On the other hand, a tiger will attack his human prey
at any time of the day, lying in ambush beside forest paths or near
the outskirts of a village.

I have related the story of the coming of the ‘Chelama Man-

eater’, or, as he came to be better known, the ‘Killer from
Hyderabad’, as I pieced together the facts at a much later date. To
follow his exploits in detail after he killed and partially ate the
Chenchu bird-trapper who used to live in Gazulapalli, and whose
remains incidentally were recovered by his son, might bore you.
Each incident was much the same in nature, the tiger repeatedly
changing his location between the Gazulapalli-Chelama section
in the south and the Krishna river in Hyderabad to the north. This
area of operations was immense, as you will understand if you
glance at the map. Moreover, after the wound inflicted on him by
the Nawab at Madikonda, he doubled and redoubled his normal
man-eater-like caution, till he gained the reputation of being a
very devil incarnate—a sort of supernatural fiend. That
unfortunate affairs caused him to adopt the practice of eating as
much as possible of his human victim immediately after the
killing, when he would abandon the body and very rarely return
for a second meal. Not only did this habit immeasurably increase
the difficulties of the few shikaris who went after him, but the
killings themselves soon increased in number as the tiger was
forced to prey on a fresh victim more often than would ordinarily
be the case in order to appease his hunger, each time abandoning
the remains of the last one. The area being large and remote, little
publicity was given to the animal’s depredations; and when it was
given, all that appeared was a brief paragraph in one of the local
newspapers, at infrequent and sporadic intervals, informing a
disinterested public that the man-eater had claimed yet another
victim. In this manner, in some three and a half years of activity,
the tiger accounted for about eighty persons before serious notice
began to be taken of the very real menace he had become.

The death of eighty persons in the jaws of a single tiger might

appear colossal to the man living in a city. It certainly is so by all
Western standards. But in a land as vast as India, where the
average expectancy of life is at present well below thirty years,
and in former days was very much lower—where famine, flood
and sickness account yearly for thousands of lives; where
snakebite causes the deaths of many thousands more; and where
the birth rate is advancing to an alarming figure each year in spite
of early mortality and all the causes of death—eighty people being
eaten by a tiger was but a drop in the ocean, and nothing to worry
about unduly. Indeed, relatively speaking, it reflected in the tiger’s
favour as a connoisseur in human flesh, considering the fact that
he had only achieved this total in a period of some 1,300 days. It
not only dubbed him as a very modest eater of human-beings, but
what was very important to the hunter, indicated that he was
obviously varying his human diet by killing animals for food, both
domestic and wild. He would therefore not be averse to taking a
bait should the hunter afford him the opportunity.

Apart from the man-eater of course, there were many other

tigers, and panthers too, operating both in the Hyderabad jungles
and to the south, so that the number of cattle and other domestic
animals killed each year was always large. It was impossible under
the circumstances even to guess how many of these ‘natural’ kills
could be ascribed to the man-eater, and how many had been made
by other carnivora; but it was certain that the man-eater had been
responsible for a number of them for, as has already been
indicated, he could not have subsisted on human kills alone for
such a length of time. Here was another favourable feature. The
man-eater could be baited with tethered cattle provided the
hunter was able to estimate his line of ‘beat’ and could reasonably
forecast his visit to a locality by allowing a plus or minus factor of
a fortnight each way, before and after his due date of arrival. This
plus or minus factor could be worked out on the map from his
earlier record of kills.

I had read accounts in the Press from time to time about the
depredations of this animal, and had received quite a few letters
from officials in the Forestry department inviting me to try my
luck at bagging it. To these I had turned a deaf ear, mainly because
I found it difficult to spare the time from my work for a protracted
visit, and also because the area in which it was operating was
much too far from Bangalore to permit me to get there in time
after receiving news of his arrival in any particular locality or of a
human kill. At the same time, I have always been interested in
news of the presence of a man-eater, be it panther or tiger, and the
doings of a ‘rogue’ elephant. In this case I had already written to
the Forestry department and Police authorities of both the Madras
presidency and Hyderabad state to obtain all possible information
about the animal, together with the most important data: the
localities where human kills had occurred and the dates on which
they had been perpetrated. This data I had jotted down on a map
of the place and date of each incident. Thereafter, a study of the
map indicated that this animal appeared to spend from two to
three months operating between Gazulapalli and Chelama, before
moving northwards into Hyderabad for the next four months or so.
Then it returned again. The distance from Gazulapalli to
Basavapuram is six miles, and from Basavapuram to Chelama five
miles, and allowing for overlapping forest tracts the whole stretch
of jungle between these areas covered a distance of about fifteen
miles. Not only were these stations much closer to Bangalore than
the more distant areas in Hyderabad, but they were much smaller
in area, and were linked by part of the metre-gauge system of
railway to Bangalore. The Hyderabad sections were not, and no
motorable roads connected them. Lastly, the southern area was
more populated, and I could therefore expect greater cooperation
and earlier news of a ‘kill’ than would ordinarily be the case were
I to start operations in the Hyderabad jungle.

You will see, then, that I had been toying with the idea of
making an attempt for some time, when my indecision was
brought to an end by the tiger himself. This happened when a
permanent-way inspector (P.W.I.) on the railway was one
morning carrying out a routine inspection of the line from
Chelama towards Basavapuram by trolley. On the Indian railways
these trolleys are simple wooden platforms on two pairs of wheels.
The platform itself is scarcely more than six feet long, surmounted
by a rough bench on which the railway officer sits. It is pushed by
two coolies called ‘trolley-men’, who run along barefooted on the
rails themselves. Practice makes them experts at placing their feet
on the rails, necessitated in addition by the fact that were they to
miss the rail and tread on the ballast they would find it very
painful. They push the trolley uphill at a walking pace, run along
the rails at some eight miles per hour where level ground prevails,
and jump on at the back of the trolley when a downhill section is
reached. The officer controls the speed of the trolley by a
handbrake, and the whole assembly is lifted off the line at stations
to make way for passing trains.

That day the trolley was negotiating a cutting through rising

ground, when the P.W.I. applied his brakes and stopped it to get
down and examine the ditches which draw off rain-water on
either side of the track. The party had plenty of time at their
disposal, as the next train was not due for another two hours. One
of the trolley-men remained seated on the trolley, while the P.W.I.
walked along the side of the ditch. The other man climbed up the
bank of the cutting, which was about seven feet in height, seated
himself on the top and took out a beedi. This is the name given to
cheap Indian cigarettes made of uncured tobacco wrapped in its
own leaf. He contentedly lit it and began to smoke.
 The P.W.I. walked further away from the trolley, the man seated
on it lay back and began to doze, while the smoker on top of the
bank threw away the stump of his first beedi, took another and lit
it, drew the smoke deeply into his lungs and regarded his superior
officer with disinterested eyes while expelling the smoke from his
nostrils.

The ditch had not unduly eroded and, after walking a hundred
yards or so, the P.W.I. turned around to cross the line and retrace
his steps along the other side and inspect the ditch there. As he did
so, he glanced backwards and saw the trolley with the coolie
sleeping on it, and then glanced upwards to the other coolie seated
on top of the cutting smoking his second beedi. On either side the
jungle bordered the line to within fifty yards, but some stray
bushes had sprung up and grew much nearer. The P.W.I. noticed
one such bush—a rather larger one—growing a little way beyond
the smoker and what appeared to be a round ‘something’ sticking
out from one side of it. This ‘something’ moved. The glare from
the sun was reflected by the leaves of the bush in a myriad of
scintillating points of light. In contrast the lower portion of the
bush and the round ‘something’ lay in shadow. The mysterious
object moved again, and the P.W.I. stared, wondering what it
could be. Then it seemed to flatten itself and merge with the
ground, and was completely lost to sight.

He crossed the track and started walking back to the trolley.

Now his eyes scanned the opposite ditch. He had dismissed the
object from his mind. But that was only for a few seconds. For he
heard a piercing shriek. He looked up in time to see the coolie on
the embankment being drawn backwards and then vanishing from
sight, still screaming. Wondering what could be the matter with
the man, the P.W.I. ran up the bank of the cutting to get a better
view, when he saw a large tiger walking calmly away into the
jungle with the coolie trailing from his mouth, his hands and legs
kicking feebly. Then the tiger and the man were seen no more.
 The P.W.I. was too shocked to move, but stood transfixed to the
spot for a full minute or so. Then he was galvanised into action.
He rushed down the bank to the railway track and pounded back
along it towards the trolley as fast as he could. Meanwhile the
sleeping coolie had been awakened by his companion’s screams. In
his confused state of mind he was not aware of what noise had
actually awakened him, or of what was happening. He looked up
to see his officer running towards him.

When the P.W.I. reached the trolley he shouted at the stupefied

coolie, ‘Bagh Reddi ku laikka gaiya’ (a tiger has taken Reddi)
followed by the words, Trolley ku dhakkalao, juldhi’ (push the
trolley quickly). The coolie needed no further exhortation after
that. Both of them commenced to push the trolley along the lines
as hard as they could, till it reached the downward slope and
began to roll on its own accord. Then they jumped on and allowed
it to career madly downhill away from that dreadful place.

Much publicity was given in the Press to this latest killing, and
the P.W.I. came in for severe criticism from all quarters, being
dubbed a coward for deserting a fellow human being at a time of
need, a moral murderer, and something which should have been
born as an insect and not as a man. I wonder how many of his
critics would have acted differently had they been in his place.
You should remember it had all happened so suddenly. Further, he
was completely unarmed.

I felt the time had come for me to try to meet this man-eater. So
that night I was seated in the train that steamed out of Bangalore
and the afternoon of the next day saw me detraining at
Gazulapalli.

It seemed to me wisest to begin operations from one end of the

area and work forwards towards Basavapuram and Chelama,
rather than the other way round. To start haphazardly somewhere
in the middle was unsystematic and depended too much on luck.
Further, and most important of all, I needed local help and a
guide, as I had little knowledge of the district, having visited it
only casually once before. I had brought along with me the map
on which I had marked the tiger’s beat, and I hoped to be able to
locate the son of the bird-trapper who had been one of the man-
eater’s earlier victims. I felt the youth would be a promising and
useful ally.

As soon as the train drew out of the station I made friends with
the stationmaster and the few members of the railway staff
attached to the small station. When they became aware of my
mission they clustered around and said that they were very glad
that I had come, and that they would do everything they could to
help me. I was a bit handicapped because the local dialect was
Telugu, of which I could speak only a few words. This was
partially compensated for by the fact that most people there
seemed to understand a little Tamil and Hindustani, both of
which languages I speak fairly well. Somehow we got along and
could understand each other. The stationmaster of course knew
English, and he became my main interpreter.

To begin with, I explained that it was essential I should know

some more about this tiger, especially any peculiarities regarding
his appearance or habits, in order that I should distinguish him
from any of the other tigers I might encounter. To this the station
staff replied that all they knew was that he was a very large tiger.
Of course, they had all seen tigers crossing the railway track from
time to time, but they knew of no particular characteristic that
would identify this tiger from any of the others. But, they
suggested, one or other of the two forest guards who lived in the
village might know better and be able to help me.

At this stage I asked if they could summon the son of the trapper
who had been eaten by the tiger. They replied that they knew him
by sight, but did not know exactly where he lived, beyond the fact
that he lived somewhere in the jungle. They were sure the forest
guards would be able to give me more information in this respect.

At my request a ganger was sent to call the forest guards, and in

a matter of twenty minutes or so these individuals turned up. One
of them was a Mahommedan named Ali Baig, with whom I could
converse in Hindustani. The other was a Chenchu named
Krishnappa, who spoke only Telugu. I waved them to the shade of
a large mango tree growing behind the station, seated them on the
ground, sat down myself and then got down to real business.

Using Ali Baig as an interpreter for the Chenchu forest guard, I

played the opening gambit in the game of contacting the man-
eater by offering a substantial reward to whoever first gave me the
information that would lead me to it. At this both gentlemen
pricked up their ears. Ali Baig said he would lead me to it even if it
cost him his life. The Chenchu said—through Ali Baig—that he
would do the same, except that he would not like to lose his life,
and provided he knew exactly where the tiger was to be found, so
as to be able to lead me there.

I appreciated that candid reply. Like all aborigines, I felt that

the Chenchu was being truthful and practical too.

I began questioning them about the tiger. Both claimed to have

seen him. Since the time the killings had begun they had never
ventured into the jungle alone, but always together and armed
with axes. Nor had they gone very far from the village. About ten
days earlier they had seen a tiger crossing a fire-line about a mile
away. The tiger had seen them too and had leapt into the jungle
immediately. A month earlier they had encountered another,
about nine o’clock in the morning, beside a water hole. That had
also bounded away when they came into view. The occasion
before that—it must have been about four months earlier—they
had come upon a tiger hardly a quarter of a mile from the village;
he had given them an anxious few moments, for he had not run
away as other tigers had done. Rather, he had swung around, half-
crouched, and growled loudly. They had been on the point of
turning tail and running for their lives. But Krishnappa, the
Chenchu guard, had whispered to Ali Baig that they should both
shout in unison. They had done that. The tiger growled in return
but did not charge. He had hesitated and then walked away,
looking back at them over his shoulder now and again, still
growling. When he was out of sight they had hurried back to the
village.

Something clicked in my mind: four months! The interval

corresponded with my calculations on the map, and the unusual
behaviour of the animal confirmed the idea. They had seen the
man-eater on his last visit to Gazulapalli, without a doubt.

They both thought so too.

More exciting was the fact that the four-month cycle had again
appeared: the tiger had killed the trolley-coolie between Chelama
and Basavapuram, and he had been the last victim. If my
calculations were correct and fate was kind, the tiger should now
be anywhere between Basavapuram and Gazulapalli at that
moment. I became more excited. Luck seemed to be favouring me.
But would it hold out?

I questioned them more closely about the tiger that had growled
at them. Had they noticed anything peculiar about him? Ali Baig
said that he was a huge tiger. Krishnappa was sure that it was a
male. He thought that it had a lighter, yellower coat than the
average tiger. ‘Remember, sahib,’ he explained, ‘we were very
frightened at that time and had expected the tiger to charge us.
Who would notice such things?’

I then asked them if they knew the boy I was looking for, the son
of the Chenchu trapper I had read about as having been killed by
the tiger much earlier. Of course they knew him. He lived in a hut
in the jungle with his mother, wife and one child, over two miles
away to the north. He was carrying on his father’s profession as a
bird-trapper, although how he was doing it with this ‘shaitan’
prowling about they could not imagine. It was against the forestry
department’s laws to trap birds in the Reserved Forest, and on
several occasions during his lifetime they had prosecuted the
father. But always he had carried on his profession after each case,
and his son was doing the same thing now. Periodically, in the
past, they had received a peafowl, or a brace of jungle fowl for
their own stomachs, and this had often caused them to wink at
the illegal practices of both father and son. Even these offerings
had now ceased. But who could blame the poor boy? He must be
finding it hard these days to trap birds for his own family,
knowing this devil-tiger might be anywhere, behind or inside any
bush.

I grew cheerful at the thought that I had found my first need—

allies who would help me to locate my quarry. Scrambling to my
feet, and slinging my .405 over my shoulder, I asked the two forest
guards to lead me to this boy.

We crossed the railway lines and followed a footpath that

wound into the forest. Light scrub gave way to heavier jungle, and
soon we were walking in single file, Krishnappa leading with Ali
Baig on his heels, while I brought up the rear. I had taken the
precaution to load my rifle and carried it in the crook of my right
arm, prepared for all eventualities. Not that we expected the tiger
to attack just then, for we were three men together; but, should he
make up his mind to do so, it was either Krishnappa in the lead, or
myself at the end of the line, who were in any real danger. Ali
Baig was quite safe as the middle man of the party.

After what appeared to me to be a distance of more like three

miles than two, we crossed a stony channel through which a
stream of water trickled, climbed a small hill and came upon the
hut which was our objective. A pleasant-faced lad of about
twenty years of age was seated at the open doorway, whittling
bamboos with a sharp knife. Near at hand lay a half-completed
contraption which I recognised as a bird-trap in the making.

At our approach he rose to his feet and salaamed respectfully.

Krishnappa introduced me to him in the Telugu dialect, and the
boy replied to him in a pleasant voice. Ali Baig then played his
part as interpreter and told me that the boy’s name was Bala.
From the hut two female heads appeared, one of an old hag whom
I took to be the boy’s mother, and the other of a girl of about
sixteen or seventeen. Supported by her arm, and contentedly
sucking at her breast, was a naked infant about a year old.
Without doubt, these were the lad’s wife and son.

We squatted down on the grass a few feet from the hut and I
began to ask questions, each of which Ali Baig translated to the
boy in Telugu, translating also his reply. Krishnappa broke in
frequently, clarifying some point that was vague to one or the
other. Yes, he was certainly willing to help the white dorai to kill
the tiger, for had it not devoured his own father? No, he would not
accept money or reward in any form. His father’s spirit would be
very angry with him if he did so for, as his only son, the spirit
expected him to claim vengeance on his slayer by direct means if
possible, or at least to bring about the death of the tiger somehow.
Oh yes, he had often seen the man-eater with his own eyes. Once
he had gone down to the very rivulet we had just crossed to bring a
pot of water to the hut. It had been about noon, just before the
family had sat down to their midday meal. As he had dipped the
pot into the stream, he had happened to look up and saw a tiger
slinking down the opposite bank. Fortunately he had seen the
beast in time, perhaps a hundred yards away, creeping directly
towards him. He had left the pot of water and bolted for the
shelter of the hut, where the family had closed and barricaded the
door of thorns as best they could, expecting the man-eater to make
an onslaught on the flimsy structure at any moment. Nothing had
happened. He had very often heard the tiger calling at night, and
he frequently came to drink at the rivulet. He was a large male
tiger, with a rather pale yellow coat. Did the sahib want to know
if he had seen anything peculiar about this tiger? Then Bala closed
his eyes in thought; finally he looked up with a hopeful
expression. All he could say was that the black stripes across the
pale brownish-yellow skin were abnormally narrow. Would that
help the dorai? He had seen very many tigers in his short life, but
he could not remember ever having seen another with such
narrow stripes.

When had he last seen the tiger? Again there was a slight pause
for thought, and then Bala replied, ‘About four months ago.’ Had
he seen any tiger after that? Certainly he had; twice. But they
were ordinary tigers, not the slayer of his father. How did he know
this? Well, for one thing, they were smaller and darker, and they
had disappeared as soon as they had seen him.

Then Bala came out with the news I was hoping so much to
hear. He thought the tiger was in the vicinity once again, for
although he had not seen or heard him, he had discovered large
pug-marks a short distance down the banks of the stream. Those
large pug-marks had synchronised on previous occasions with the
man-eater’s visits. They had been present around the half-
devoured remains of his father.

I got to my feet as I made known my wish to see these pug-marks

for myself. Bala took the precaution of telling the womenfolk to
keep inside the hut and barricade the door during his absence, and
then led us back to the stream almost at the same point at which
we had crossed it when coming. He turned, and began to lead us
downstream. Some three furlongs away the stream broadened,
though the water kept to the centre of the channel. Due to its
broadening, however, there was a narrow stretch of sandbank on
either side. This had been crossed by a tiger two nights previously,
from east to west. The tiger’s pug-marks were so large that they
were clearly visible to me long before we reached them.
 The spoor was that of a very large animal, undoubtedly male.
As I stood looking down upon it, I decided that, even allowing for
the exaggeration caused by the imprints spreading in the soft
sand, the animal that had made them was exceptionally big.

We returned to the hut, where I suggested to Bala that he should

take his family away to Gazulapalli village for the duration of my
visit at least. This would leave him free to assist me with an easy
mind. The thought of that old woman, the girl wife and her infant
son, not to mention Bala himself, in that pitiful hut deep in the
jungle, just awaiting the day when one of them would be taken by
the man-eater, was something dreadful even to think of. In these
modern days of strife and warfare, it is commonplace to read
accounts of valour on the battlefield for which men have been
awarded medals, for which their praises are loudly sung. We have
read, too, of the lonely death of spies and agents who have gone
voluntarily into the jaws of death and have sacrificed their lives
for their country before a firing-squad, to fill an unmarked grave,
their praises unsung. Thrilling tales of bravery, no doubt, that
liven the blood in our veins. But my blood that day tingled in
humble and respectful admiration for this little aboriginal family
that had so bravely but simply faced the long months in their
lonely home with the killer literally at their very door—the killer
that had already taken the life of the breadwinner and head of
their home.

The Chenchus hesitated for quite a while, but when I pressed

them further, with the strong backing of both Krishnappa and Ali
Baig, they eventually consented. The two forest guards and I sat
under a nearby tree and waited while they packed up their few
miserable goods into three ragged bundles. Then Bala closed the
thorn door of the hut behind him, and with each of them carrying
a bundle as a head-load, the mother still suckling her child, we set
off in single file for the village.
 That night the stationmaster invited me to his quarters for
dinner. He was a vegetarian, but his wife had put up a noble effort
and prepared one of the most tasty vegetarian curries that has ever
been my good fortune to taste. A large bowl of delicious curd was
an outstanding item, the whole being followed by big mugs of
coffee. We had decided to hold a ‘conference’ after dinner to
determine my next line of action, and Mr Balasubramaniam, the
stationmaster, suggested that we hold it on the station premises,
as his presence was required there during the night when the mail
train to Guntakal would pass through, and two or three goods
trains as well. So we repaired to the station, where we seated
ourselves upon a bench on the open platform, with the two forest
guards and Bala squatting on the ground before us.

To my way of thinking, the best plan appeared to be to tie out a

couple of live baits the next day, one at the spot where the tiger
had threatened the guards, and the other beside the stream
midway between Bala’s hut and the sandbank where we had seen
the pug-marks. Bala and Krishnappa would remain behind to
watch them and report if they were killed, while I would take Ali
Baig as interpreter and proceed up the line to make further
enquiries at Basavapuram and Chelama. If either of the baits was
killed, Mr Balasubramaniam was to receive the report and
telegraph the news up the line to me at either Basavapuram or
Chelama, wherever I might be camped.

Taking me to his office, the stationmaster called up his

colleagues at both those stations and asked for khubbar or
information. They reported no fresh news of the man-eater’s
presence, but added that everybody was on the alert and not a
soul would venture out during the night. The stationmaster at
Chelama also added that the trolley had been brought back to his
station and was at present lying on the platform there. He
suggested that Balasubramaniam should send a telegram down the
line to the P.W.I., whose headquarters were at Nandyal, asking
that I should be permitted to use the trolley if I should require
urgent transport between the stations. No sooner said than done,
my friend Balasubramaniam put his suggestion into practice at
once, by transmitting a service telegram to the P.W.I. at Nandyal
for urgent delivery, asking for the required permission. I was
gratified by the enthusiastic co-operation shown by these railway
officers. Throughout this adventure they did everything they
could. Leaving the stationmaster to his work for a short time, I
took my three henchmen down to the village. Although it was
late at night, we did not want any delays the next day, so went to
the house of a cattle-owner, awoke him from his sleep, and
explained that our mission was to buy two half-grown bulls to use
as baits.

The purchase of animals for this purpose in the jungles around

Bangalore and particularly in Mysore state is always most difficult
and has to be conducted with the utmost tact, as cattle-owners
there consider it an evil practice to tie out live baits to be killed by
a tiger or a panther, even with the object of eliminating an animal
that has taken toll of human life. The people are not interested in
selling for this purpose, and to obtain their co-operation
sometimes takes hours of persuasion. To approach an owner for
such a sale at dead of night would usually have been a hopeless
undertaking. But the people in this particular area appeared to
take a very realistic view. No sooner did the herdsman know of my
purpose than he readily acquiesced. He even became enthusiastic
and invited me to make my own selection.

The cattle-kraal stood behind his house, and with the aid of my
torch I chose two half-grown brown bulls. The owner sold them to
me for thirty-five rupees each—less than three pounds in English
currency. I paid him the money, thanked him for his assistance
and asked him to allow the animals to be kept with his herd till
morning, when my followers would call for them. To this he
agreed at once.
 We returned to the station to find a goods train had since drawn
in and stood on the line. The Anglo-Indian driver was chatting to
Balasubramaniam in the latter’s office, a thermos flask of coffee in
one hand, while he sipped from a mug in the other. Evidently the
stationmaster had been talking to him about me, for at my
approach he introduced himself as William Rodgers, offered me his
mug of coffee and volunteered the information that only four
nights ago he had seen a tiger jump across the track about a mile
down the line in the direction of Nandyal. I asked him if he had
noticed anything remarkable about the tiger or its colouration. He
reminded me that the headlight of his engine would not reveal
such details at that distance, but that the tiger appeared to have
been quite a large animal. He also told me that if I cared to shoot a
good chital or sambar stag, or even wild pig, they were more
plentiful in the vicinity of Diguvametta than around this station.

I thanked Mr. Rodgers for his information and told him I would
consider shooting deer after disposing of the tiger. He shook hands
with me, took the ‘line-clear’ token from the stationmaster,
waved us goodbye and sauntered back to his engine. A minute
later its shrill whistle broke the stillness, and with a loud puffing
and clanking the goods train rumbled on, the red light at the rear
being lost to sight as it passed around a curve. Once again the
station was shrouded in stillness.

Just then the telegraphic reply from Nandyal arrived, conveying

the P.W.I.‘s agreement to the use of the trolley lying at Chelama
station.

The stationmaster opened the waiting-room. I struck a match

and lit the solitary oil-light that hung from the ceiling. Bala
brought in my rifle, bedroll, water-bottles and tiffin-basket. There
was no water in the bathroom, and it was far too late to ask
Balasubramaniam to arrange for any to be brought to me. Nor was
there any bed in the room, but only a table, two armless chairs,
and an armchair with a large hole in its centre. Grateful that at
least I had a roof over my head, I blew out the light and found my
way to the armchair. Half my rear end sank through the hole in
the cane bottom, but the other half managed to keep above. I
removed my boots, lay back in the chair, cautiously raised my feet
to place them upon the extended leg supports, and was asleep
before I even knew it.

Another goods train rumbled through at about 4.30 a.m. After

that I fell asleep again, but it seemed only a few minutes later that
Bala came into the room and called to me softly. I awoke to see
that it was daylight. I found out that Balasubramaniam had gone
to his quarters to snatch a few hours of well-earned rest; so, while
Bala got busy on my instructions to gather three stones at the end
of the platform, find some sticks and light a fire to brew tea in my
travelling-kettle, I got out my small folding Primus stove, lit it and
fried some bacon. The tea-water had not yet come to the boil
when I finished the bacon, so I sauntered down to the ‘water-
column’ at the opposite end of the platform, which supplied water
to such thirsty locomotives as required it. I carried my towel,
toothbrush, toothpaste and soap and a change of clothes with me.
Stacking these articles some distance from the water-column, I
removed all my clothes and knotted the towel around my waist.
Then I got beneath the leather hose and with one hand turned the
wheel that opened the valve and let the water into the column
from the ten thousand gallon storage tank standing high on its
four stone pillars nearby. The quantity of water that suddenly
descended upon me was tremendous and almost knocked me off
my feet. However, I enjoyed my bath, combining it with my
morning toothbrushing routine. Although I generally do not
bother to shave in the jungles, to keep clean and feel fresh is very
necessary. I had no second towel to dry myself with, as the one
around my waist was wet, but it was of no account, for the
morning was far from cold. In a few minutes I was able to don dry
clothes and go back to Bala, to find the kettle boiling merrily. The
tea, bacon and remains of the chappaties I had brought from
Bangalore, which had become bone dry by then, served as
‘chotahazri’, which is the white man’s exalted name for breakfast
in India. The Hindustani adjective ‘chota’ signifies ‘small’, while
‘hazri’ indicates ‘a meal’.

By the time I had finished all this, the two forest guards had
come back from the village where they had gone to spend the
latter part of the night. The four of us then set out, after collecting
the two young bulls I had purchased the night before, to tie them
at the places we had already selected. If you remember, the first of
these was to be where the two guards had seen the tiger that had
adopted such a threatening attitude. This was a spot on a narrow
fire-line within a mile of the village. Krishnappa lopped off a
branch with his axe, cut off about three feet and sharpened one
end of this. We selected a tree on which a machan could be
conveniently tied, provided the tiger obliged us by killing this
bait, drove the stake that Krishnappa had just made into the
ground at a suitable spot some fifteen yards away, and tethered
one of the brown bulls to it by its hind leg, using a coil of the stout
cotton rope I had brought with me in my bedroll. Then we walked
back to the station, crossed the lines and traversed the three miles
to the stream near Bala’s hut. No fresh tracks were evident, so we
tied the second calf beneath another tree on the slope of the
stream about fifty yards short of the sandbank on which the tiger
had left his pug-marks.

We got back to the station shortly before noon, when the

stationmaster started insisting I should have lunch with him
again. So as not to wound his feelings I very politely declined, as I
knew my presence in his house was irksome to him as a high-caste
individual, although he tried very gallantly not to show it.
Instead, I went to the village with the guards and managed to
obtain a meal of sorts from the village ‘hotel’—a one-roomed
zincsheet-cum-grass-roofed affair. That done, we all returned to
the station, where I gave instructions to the two Chenchus who
were to feed and water the baits: they were to tell the
stationmaster if either was killed. Mr Balasubramaniam needed
no reminding of the part he was to play in the affair by sending a
message to me should such a kill occur.

Let me here record my appreciation of this gentleman’s co-

operation. I knew it was violently against his religious principles
to aid and abet me, or to assist me in any way by bringing about
the death of a bull or cow, which to his caste are sacred animals.
But in the larger interests that were at stake, he suborned his
principles and went all-out in his efforts to help me.

The train that was to carry me to the next station,

Basavapuram, six miles away, steamed in at 2.30 p.m. I asked the
driver for permission to travel with him on the engine, which he
very readily gave. I wanted to do this so as to view the jungle on
both sides of the track. Ali Baig got into the first third-class
compartment behind, and away we went.

The train took twenty-five minutes to cover those six miles. As I

viewed the thick jungle through which we passed, my hopes of
success sank very very low indeed. It was an immense area,
heavily forested, and the tiger might be anywhere.

The railway station at Basavapuram closely resembled

Gazulapalli. As I got off and thanked the driver, I began to think I
had indeed been a super-optimist in tying those two baits at
Gazulapalli while the tiger might be here at Basavapuram, or even
at the next station, Chelama, five miles further on.

The stationmaster here turned out to be as obliging as had been

his counterpart. He was a non-caste Tamil named Masilamony,
and after his first words of greeting, in which he made me feel
quite at home, he urged me to make my headquarters in his
waiting room, stating that the tiger would surely be found there in
Basavapuram, being the centre of the affected district.

Once again I went through my routine of closely questioning the

station staff, and the one forest guard who came from the village.
He was a Telugu and told me, through Masilamony, that the other
forest guard who shared with him the responsibility of looking
after the area was suffering severely from malaria and had gone on
sick leave to Nandyal. They had all seen tigers at various times,
and each claimed that he had seen the man-eater. But nobody
appeared to have noticed anything special about it, either in size
or markings. This forest guard, whose name was Kittu, told me
there was a water hole north of the railway line and a little over a
mile away, where he had often seen tiger pug-marks when these
animals came to drink water.

We walked to the water hole that evening, where I noticed some

old pug-marks of a tiger, together with a recent spoor made by a
large panther. I was annoyed to see the latter, as I was almost
certain he would devour any bait I tied there long before the tiger
showed up. It is a nuisance to bait for a tiger at a spot frequented
by a panther, as one is almost sure to sacrifice the bait to the
latter.

I spent the night in the waiting-room and bought a half-grown

buffalo calf in the village next morning. This we tied in a clearing
in the jungle half a mile short of the water hole, and I instructed
Kittu to visit it each morning in company with his friends, to feed
and water it, and to tell the stationmaster if it was killed.
Masilamony readily agreed to follow Balasubramaniam’s example
and send me a message as soon as word was brought to him.

Once again I caught the afternoon train, which came a little

late at 3.15 p.m., and travelled on the engine up the line for five
miles to Chelama. The engine-driver, who was an Indian, as we
passed through it, pointed out the cutting where the trolley-man
had been taken. He said it was almost midway between the two
stations.

We alighted at Chelama to follow much the same procedure.

The stationmaster came up and greeted me, saying he had been
told to expect my arrival by his colleagues in the stations I had
recently left. He had also arranged with the two local forest
guards to await me; they were, in fact, on the platform.

As a result of the conference that followed, I was told that word

had been brought by the guard of a goods train which had passed
through Basavapuram while I had been sleeping in the waiting
room there that morning, that a woman had been killed at
Diguvametta, sixteen miles further up, at the extreme eastern
limit of the jungle belt. The guard had been unable to mention the
matter to any of us at Basavapuram, as his train passed the station
without stopping.

This latest news upset all my calculations, just as it dashed my

hopes to zero. Not only did it increase enormously the area of
search for the man-eater, but all my carefully cherished tiger-beat
timetable was entirely upset. I had been almost sure that the man-
eater would be somewhere in the vicinity of Gazulapalli. Instead,
he had killed at Diguvametta, which was twenty-seven miles
away.

Then I remembered that twenty-seven miles was, after all, no

long walk for a tiger.

I asked the stationmaster to verify the news if possible on the

morse-line to Diguvametta. After about fifteen minutes of tapping
on the telegraph key, he said that the stationmaster at
Diguvametta had confirmed it with the local policeman at his
village, to whom a report had been made that a Chenchu woman,
gathering mhowa flowers at the edge of the jungle, had
disappeared the morning of the day before. People from her village
had found her half-filled basket, but no traces of her. The
Diguvametta stationmaster also sent his advice that, as he had
heard I was tying up live baits at the different stations, I should on
no account fail to do so at Diguvametta, and also at the small
station of Bogada which lay between Chelama and Diguvametta.
 Here indeed was a pretty kettle of fish. It seemed as if I would
have to tie up baits at each station along this whole line to catch
up with the elusive tiger.

It would not be very interesting to give you the details of how I

tied up a bait at Chelama next morning. Perhaps you may wonder
why I did not leave for Diguvametta by the next train, but you
must not forget that two days had passed since the woman had
been killed, and the tiger would have picked her bones clean by
the time I arrived—assuming, of course, that I was able to find
them. So I thought it better to finish tying the bait intended for
Chelama before moving on.

But that same afternoon I caught the train to Bogada, where I

tied another bait in the evening, catching a goods train for
Diguvametta in the early hours of the morning. There I tied two
animals, one near the place where the woman had been taken,
and the other at a point where a forest-line, a large stream and a
cattle-track leading into the jungle intersected. Diguvametta
boasted of a forester, an intelligent and very helpful Indian
Christian. This man assured me that many tigers had been shot in
years gone by from machans in the branches of the ‘hongee’ tree
which grew at the spot where the latter bait was tied.

I had now spent some five days in this area, had seven baits tied
out, had used up far more money than I wanted or expected to
use, and was quite tired of only hearing stories about this elusive
tiger without even hearing him roar—or any tiger, for that matter.
The jungles had been exceptionally silent since my arrival.

During the evening of the day on which I tied the two baits at
Diguvametta, I went for an extensive ramble into the forest,
accompanied by Joseph, the Indian Christian forester. As he was a
non-vegetarian like myself, and a bachelor withal, at his
invitation and assurance that my presence would cause him no
discomfort or inconvenience, I decided to remain at least a few
days at Diguvametta and sleep on the verandah of his quarters.
The stationmaster had previously offered the use of the station
waiting room, but the passing trains at night disturbed me.
Joseph’s Malayalee servant whom he had brought along with him
from Calicut, who cooked his food and attended to his few
requirements, would relieve me of the burden and waste of time
each day that I had hitherto been compelled to spend in preparing
some of my own meals, snatched and scanty as they had had to be.

Another reason for choosing Diguvametta as my camping-place,

at least for the present, was of course the fact that it was here that
the tiger had last killed, just over three days previously. You may
wonder again why we had made no very serious attempt to locate
the remains of the poor woman who had been taken. Firstly, it
would have served no purpose. As I have already indicated, the
tiger had had more than sufficient time to devour her completely,
and at most we might have found but a few gnawed bones.
Secondly, the jungle was intensely dry, and although I had cast
about at the time of tying up my live-bait (a bull-calf), there had
been no clue as to the direction in which the tiger had carried her.
We had combed the area in a radius of well over two hundred
yards and found nothing, not even a remnant of torn cloth from
her garment. Lastly, there being no purpose as I have just said in
finding her remains at such a late state, I did not want to disturb
the area further, for it had already been disturbed by the party of
men who had come searching for the girl and found her basket.

The jungle in the locality was beautiful and indeed a

sportsman’s paradise as regards feathered game and deer. We came
upon several herds of graceful chital in the forest glades. The long
spear-grass was bone-dry, and the ends of the stems bent down to
earth with the weight of the barb-like dry seeds with which they
were tufted. This factor greatly increased the range of visibility
and enabled us to see between the stems of the trees and into the
glades. We even came upon a lordly sambar stag with a beautiful
pair of antlers, which crashed away at our approach. It had been a
bit early in the evening for a sambar to be about. Nevertheless the
presence of the stag advertised the fact that the jungle was
undisturbed, but that natural game was so abundant suggested
little hope or reason for the tiger to take either of my baits. By the
very same token, with such abundance of food available just for
the taking, there seemed no cause for the tiger ever to have turned
man-eater at all.

I purchased Ali Baig’s ticket, instructing him to return by the

night mail to Gazulapalli, as his presence was no longer necessary,
and made an early night of it myself. At least in Joseph’s verandah
I was not disturbed by the clanking of trains, so that I slept
soundly for ten hours and awoke the next morning in a
considerably more hopeful frame of mind. The Malayalee servant
had performed wonders while we had been sleeping. There was a
jug of strong tea and plateful of ‘hoppers’ and ‘puttoo-rice’. The
former is made from finely-ground rice-flour, and the latter from
the whole grains of a special variety of rice. They are specialities
of Madras, and their presence before me that morning indicated
that my newfound friend and host Joseph, undoubtedly came from
that city. It proved a delicious and most welcome repast.

Then I had a cold bath inside the enclosure constructed for the
purpose, built up against the wall of the house, its three sides
consisting of bamboo mats, each about five feet wide. There was
no roof.

Joseph was ready and waiting while I dressed. We then visited

the two baits we had tied out the day before, in company with
both the forest guards who worked under Joseph, and to whom he
had delegated the responsibility of feeding and watering these
animals. Both the baits were alive and untouched.

There was nothing more I could do but await developments. The

area was far too extensive to warrant long walks in the jungle in
the hope of stumbling upon the tiger by accident. It might be
anywhere between Diguvametta and Gazulapalli, twenty-seven
miles away, and searching for it would have been a waste of time
and energy. Up to this stage, as I have already said I had not
contacted any tiger whatever, but I had done some yeoman
spadework, and I might expect to reap the rewards in a little
while.

And once started, things really did begin to happen. The

telegraph wires hummed at about nine the next morning when
Masilamony, the stationmaster at Basavapuram, relayed the news
that my bait had been killed the night before. I was not over-
exuberant at receiving this information, for you may remember
that this was the place where I had come across fresh panther-
tracks near the water hole, and had deliberately tied my bait some
distance away to keep it from that panther, if possible.

I asked the stationmaster at Diguvametta to speak to

Masilamony and ask him to question the forest guard, Kittu,
closely to find out whether it was a tiger that had taken my bait or
the panther. There was only a short delay before the reply came
back; Masilamony explained that Kittu was beside him at the
telegraph instrument while he was signalling. Kittu stated the
bait had been killed by a panther and advised that I should come
and shoot it, as otherwise any other baits I might tie up would
undoubtedly suffer the same fate at the hands of this animal.

This was sound logic. At the same time, I did not possess a
regular game licence for the area, but had come on a special
request to shoot the man-eater only, and nothing else, made
directly by the Chief Conservator of Forests at Madras, who had
issued a permit to cover my visit. I decided I would write to the
Chief Conservator later and explain the reason why I had to
eliminate the panther, while offering to pay the game licence fee
should any objection arise. I therefore made up my mind to
answer Masilamony’s summons.
 There was no passenger train in the direction of Basavapuram
during the day, but fortunately a goods train was scheduled to
pass through at about eleven that very morning. The
stationmaster stopped the train for me, and I travelled in the
guard’s van to Basavapuram. Joseph insisted on going with me.

Kittu took me to the kill, which bore every trace of a panther’s

handiwork, from the fang-marks in its throat to the large hole that
had been eaten in the animal’s stomach, where entrails and flesh
had all become mixed up together to form a repast. The panther
had eaten heavily the night before, and because of that I feared it
might make a late return. Kittu offered me the loan of his own
charpoy or rope-cot, so, rather than build a machan, we went
back for it. To return and tie it up took scarcely two hours, and
everything was set by four o’clock.

It was far too early to sit up, so we returned to the station,

hardly more than a mile away, and had a quick meal, consisting
of biscuits, chappaties, bananas and several mugs of tea. Joseph
expressed a keen desire to sit up with me, so we both returned and
were in position in the machan by 5.30 p.m.

I have said that I expected the panther to come late. I was

wrong. We had been in the machan for scarcely twenty minutes,
and I was leaning back and taking it easy, when I heard a faint
sound below me. I looked down. There was the panther sitting on
his haunches beside his kill and contemplating it. A truly nice
specimen, I was tempted to spare his life. This temptation I
overcame only because his presence there would be a constant
source of interference with my baits. I shot him behind the left
shoulder.

Our early return to the station surprised both Kittu and

Masilamony. Hearing the news, the latter asked me to give him
the skin if I was not in need of it, to which I agreed, and we went
back with a petromax light and four coolies to retrieve the dead
panther. I supervised while Masilamony excitedly watched the
skinning operation. I showed him how to preserve the pelt
temporarily with a solution of copper-sulphate and salt till such
time as he could send it to a taxidermist at Bangalore.

Next morning I bought another bait to replace the one that had
been killed. We took this to the water hole where I had seen the
old tiger pug-marks and there we tied it up.

It had been my intention after shooting the panther to return

with Joseph to Diguvametta by the afternoon train, but when we
got back to Basavapuram station after tying out the new bait,
Masilamony informed me that I had just received a morse message
from the stationmaster at Chelama, stating my bait there had
been taken the previous night by a tiger.

This information came before ten o’clock. The train to Chelama

would not arrive for at least another four hours. So I decided to
walk the five miles to Chelama, to which Joseph at once agreed.
We were there shortly after 11.30 p.m.

The stationmaster who had relayed the message, and the two
forest guards who had brought it, were awaiting our arrival. They
were all in a state of excitement, and the guards reported that
when they had gone to inspect and water the bait that morning
they had come upon its partially-devoured remains and the pug-
marks of a large tiger in the surrounding earth. Delaying only long
enough to cut some branches and place them across the carcass of
the dead animal to hide it from vultures, they had hurried back to
the station to send their message.

Now in all seven cases, when tying up these baits, I had chosen
each spot very carefully and had taken care to place each animal
close to a tree on which it would be convenient to tie a machan.
This precaution had already made my task easy when shooting the
panther.
 The forest guards volunteered to get a charpoy for me, while
Joseph and I, together with the stationmaster, went down to the
only eating-house in the village for our midday meal. During this
meal Joseph said he would like to sit up with me again, and it was
with the greatest difficulty that I could dissuade him without
wounding his feelings. His company was one thing where the
panther was concerned, but quite another when it came to a tiger,
especially so if the animal happened to be the man-eater for which
we were all searching. The slightest sound or incautious
movement by a person in a machan would betray our presence
and drive the animal away. I had previously had experience of
companions who had sat in machans with me and made
involuntary sounds which had rendered our vigil abortive. This is
especially likely to happen if the sitting-up becomes a nightlong
affair and the person gets fidgety and restless. I did not want to run
this risk after all the trouble I had taken in tying up my baits over
such a wide area.

The kill was about an hour’s walk from the station and perhaps
three miles inside the jungle, and was reached by traversing a
tortuous footpath and then making a short cut downhill. I had the
charpoy in position long before 3.30 p.m., but as the leaves to
screen it had to be brought from some distance away, so as not to
disturb the neighbourhood, and moreover had to be of the same
species as the tree in which the charpoy had been fixed (in this
instance a tamarind), it was nearly an hour more before I was in
position.

While the two guards had been busy fixing the machan, assisted
by Joseph, who passed the branches up to them from the ground, I
studied the kill and the half-dozen or so pugmarks that the tiger
had left. The earth was fairly hard, so that the marks were only
partially visible, and in every instance the ball of the pad was not
clearly outlined. I could see the tiger was a large one and a male,
but it was quite impossible to say with any degree of certainty
that he was the same animal whose footprints I had seen beside
the stream near Bala’s hut in Gazulapalli. There the marks had
been made in the soft, damp sand which had served to spread and
to some extent exaggerate their size. But here the ground was dry
and fairly hard.

Just before 4.30 p.m. I was comfortably settled on the charpoy. I

spent a few minutes arranging my tea-filled water-bottle beside
the smaller one that contained water. The village ‘hotel’ had
supplied three large chappaties, folded inside a portion of banana-
leaf, for dinner. These I placed next to the bottles holding the
liquid refreshments; then came my spare torch and cartridges. The
nights at this time of the year were warm, so I had brought no
blanket or overcoat; only my balaclava cap, which I donned.
Finally I fixed my torch into its clamps along the rifle, and then
all was ready.

I told Joseph and the guards that I could find my way back to the
station on my own. They walked away, leaving me to start my
vigil.

It was just getting dark when I became aware of a muffled tread

on the grass directly beneath me. The leaves of the tamarind tree
are tiny and soft, so that when they become dry and fall to earth
they form a malleable carpet and emit no sound when trodden
upon, beyond the vaguest rustling noises, hard to recognize or
define. In this respect the dried leaves of teak trees provide the
ideal medium to warn the watcher of the approach of any living
thing, even a rat, for they rustle and crackle long before the
intruder appears in sight. But I knew that those muffled sounds
heralded the coming of the tiger, and so it was that I was not
surprised when, leaning forward and looking down, I saw him
almost immediately beneath me. The weight of his body on the
grass and tiny fallen tamarind leaves had caused the slight sound
that had betrayed his approach.
 He then passed out of view for a few seconds, but reappeared
soon and strode boldly towards the bull he had killed. This was in
a direction away from me, so that I could not make out much of
his head, but saw his left flank, hindquarters and tail instead. As I
have said, it was just about getting dark. In the forests, at such a
time, colours tend to lose their clarity and objects look much
bigger than they really are. Anyone who has been in a jungle or
even in the English woods at dusk, will tell you the same thing.
The animal below me appeared abnormally large, but I could not
make out whether his colour was pale or otherwise. The stripes
were blurred and hardly visible.

It was too dark to take the shot without the aid of the torch,
especially as I would not be able to see the foresight of my rifle
clearly. So I pressed the switch with my left thumb. The beam
shone forth, lighting up the left side of the tiger, and fell ahead of
him on to the kill. As I aimed quickly, I remember noticing that
the tiger was not aware of the fact that the light was coming from
behind him. Rather, he seemed to think it was coming from the
kill itself. He just stood still and looked.

I fired behind the left shoulder. He fell forward against the dead
bull and then squirmed around on his right side. The white of his
belly and chest came into view. I fired again. The tiger died as I
continued to shine my torch on him.

I waited for perhaps twenty minutes, during which time I

flashed my light now and again to make sure I had indeed killed
him. Then I climbed down and made a close examination of my
prize.

He was a large male in his prime, but he was certainly not the
same animal that Bala had described to me. This one had a rich
dark coat, and his stripes were very far from being abnormally
narrow. Had I shot the wrong tiger, or was this the real man-eater?
Was the animal that Bala had seen some other ordinary, oldish,
tiger? These questions sprang to mind, but I knew that the answer
would only be known if another human was killed—or if there
were no more human victims.

By the aid of my flashlight I was able to find the winding track

that eventually brought me to the railway station a little before 9
p.m. Joseph was asleep in the waiting room, while the two guards
lay on a mat on the platform. I awoke them and announced what
had taken place. Their surprise at my early return gave place to
great jubilation at news of my success, and Joseph shook hands
with me in warm congratulation.

I thanked him, but said I was far from certain that I had killed
the man-eater. He asked why, and I told him. But he and the
guards were optimistic and said they were sure I had slain the
right tiger.

The stationmaster then arrived to supervise the passing of the

night trains, and he too was very pleased to hear the news. The
two guards hurried off to summon a carrying party, returning in
another hour or so with some ten men, a couple of stout bamboos,
ropes and two lanterns.

We returned to the kill and were back with the tiger by 1 a.m. I
had the carcass placed at the end of the platform, just outside the
iron railings that marked the precincts of the station yard, and
started to skin the animal with the aid of the two lanterns and my
spare torch, held by Joseph. I did the job myself as the guards
appeared not to know much about the art, and I was closely
engrossed and halfway through the operation when the night mail
train, going down the line to Guntakal, came to a halt at the
station.

Everybody in that train got down, from driver to guard and

including all the passengers, and stood around me in an enormous
circle to get a clear view. I got much publicity that night and the
train left more than fifteen minutes behind schedule. The running
staff regarded the delay as of little consequence. Besides, the skin
being taken off a large tiger at dead of night on a railway station
platform is not exactly a common sight, even in India.

The standard application of a solution of copper sulphate and

salt would temporarily preserve it for the duration of my trip.

The next day I rested, while the stationmaster relayed the news
to the stations on both sides of Chelama, and everybody was
happy. I was not so pleased myself, and decided to remain for a
further week if possible. As I had tied out my baits and come
prepared to stay up to a month if needed, I felt it would be better
to remain where I was rather than return to Bangalore and then
have to come out again and tie out my baits once more. For a
strange premonition kept insisting to me that the man-eater was
not dead and would kill someone very soon.

Four days passed. Then came the news from Gazulapalli that
the tiger had killed Bala’s young wife. Unknown to me he had
taken his family back to his hut in the forest, thinking that the
coast was clear.

The man-eater had kept to his expected schedule after all.

Joseph had meanwhile returned to Diguvametta, so I waited

only long enough to send a message to Balasubramaniam to keep
Bala in attendance and, borrowing the trolley at Chelama, as no
goods train was due to pass for the next four hours, set out for
Gazulapalli, propelled by two trolleymen.

We took a little over an hour and a half to get there and found
Bala awaiting me, seated on the ground at a corner of the
platform, weeping. Balasubramaniam was there, too, and the two
forest guards, Ali Baig and Krishnappa.
 The young Chenchu’s tale was as brief as it was tragic. Hearing I
had shot the man-eater at Chelama, and as neither of my live
baits had been touched all this time, he had decided that the
danger to their lives had passed and had taken his family back to
their hut only two days earlier. At dawn that very morning his
wife had wakened, laid their baby next to him, and had gone
outside to relieve herself. A moment later he heard her cry out
faintly. Realising that something terrible had happened, he had
seized his axe and rushed outside. There was nothing to be seen.

It was not yet daylight, and Bala said that he could find no trace
of anything having happened, except that his young wife was not
there. He had called to her but received no answer. Frantically
searching, he went to the other side of the hut where he knew she
would have gone for the purpose she had had in mind. Still he
found nothing.

The grass was wet after a heavy night’s dew-fall, and as the light
grew stronger he was able to pick out the course made by
something that had walked away through it into the jungle.

He had found no blood trail, but he knew he was gazing at the

path made in the wet grass as the man-eater had walked through
it, carrying his wife. For the trail through the damp grass was
clear, where it had been trodden upon or brushed aside by the
passage of the two heavy bodies—the tiger and his victim.

Then Bala had done a very brave and a very foolish thing.
Alone, and armed only with his puny axe, he had followed the
trail.

With more daylight, after a couple of furlongs, he had come

upon the first trace of a blood trail from the point where the tiger
had laid his burden down among the dew-dripping bushes in order
to change his grip on his victim. Thereafter, following the grim
trail had been easy, and he had caught up with the tiger in the act
of settling down to its meal at the foot of an old dead tree.

The man-eater had seen him. He laid back his ears and growled.
In another second he would have charged. But the sight of his wife
being devoured before his very eyes had proved too much for the
young Chenchu. Some demon of recklessness and bravery had
possessed him, and, burning with hate and screaming, he rushed
upon the tiger brandishing his little axe.

I have often told you that all man-eaters appear to be possessed

by a strange streak of cowardice. They will attack a victim
unawares but will rarely face up to a direct counterattack. That
early morning the man-eater of Chelama proved himself no
exception to the rule. He hesitated till the little Chenchu was
almost upon him. Then he turned tail and fled.

Fortunately, wisdom at last came to Bala. Had he attempted to

follow the tiger, the latter might well have recovered his morale
and wiped him out. Instead, he snatched up the corpse of his wife
and ran back with it to the hut.

Hearing this simple tale, simply told by the little aborigine, my

heart was filled with admiration and pride that India possessed
such heroes, even among her most humble out-caste tribes.

At the hut Bala had wasted no time on tears. Leaving the body
inside, and bidding his old mother carry the child, he had secured
the door as best he could and set off for the railway station to get
word to me. It was lucky that he had acted so quickly, for he and
his mother were well on their way to the station before the tiger
had time to recover from his fright and return to the body or the
hut.

The little man was crying silently as he told me this story, and I
made no effort to console him. His tears would be good for him.
They were Mother Nature’s own salve to the great nervous strain
he had been through and an outlet for his pent-up emotions after
the shock of bereavement. My lip-sympathy, on the other hand,
would be quite useless. I could never even hope to look for an
excuse to bridge the tragic gap that had been created in his young
life, so early that very morning.

But the tears did not last for long. The aboriginal is inherently a
fatalist. I did not want to interrupt or hurry him, but ten minutes
later Bala stood up and announced himself ready for action.

I had been thinking quickly and deeply, and a plan was forming
in my mind. To put it into effect would require the utmost
sacrifice from Bala, and I hesitated to ask him to make it. Perhaps
some affinity of thought between us, born of years of life in the
jungle, he by birth and me by choice, bound us together. He
looked up into my face, and once again tears welled from his eyes
as he gently nodded his head. Then Ali Baig interpreted. ‘She was
my wife and I love her, dorai. But you shall have her dead body to
serve as bait to avenge the death of this dear one, and of my
father.’

Enough words had been spoken, and enough time wasted. I was
determined to play my part in the role with which this humble
but great little man had entrusted me. I waited only to eat a
hurried meal of vegetable curry and rice which the ever-solicitous
Balasubramaniam had got his wife to prepare for me, filled my
two water-bottles with tea and water respectively, and set off for
the hut with the two forest guards and Bala, carrying a charpoy.

The dead girl was a pitiful sight. The few rags she had been
wearing had been torn away by the tiger, but Bala had covered her
loins with the one saree she had possessed. The young face wore a
strange expression of calm. Blood had seeped into the mud floor of
the hut from her lacerated back, and its dark stream had trickled
from her torn throat and breasts and dried on her dusky skin. We
stood, all four of us, in respectful silence for a minute, regarding
those mangled remains on the floor before us that had, only that
morning, been a living and happy mother. Then I closed the door
of the hut behind us as I motioned Bala to lead us to the spot
where he had found the tiger about to begin his meal.

The sun had long since absorbed the dew, and the heads of spear
grass that had bent with the passage of the man-eater and his
victim were standing upright again, gently nodding in the light
breeze. Bala walked ahead to the spot where the tiger had laid the
girl down for the first time and changed his hold. From there the
blood-spoor began and it led us in a short time to an old dead tree,
at the foot of which the killer had set her down to begin his meal
in real earnest, when Bala had driven him off.

We walked silently and did not speak, although all four of us

were on the alert. But there was little actual danger, because of
our numbers. At the foot of the tree we halted and looked at the
ground. It was hard and covered with short dried grass. No pug-
marks were visible, nor was there any need to look for them

I remembered that this tiger was accredited with never

returning to his meal of a human victim after his earlier
experience in Hyderabad when he was wounded by the Nawab.
Would he return now? Would there be any use in my sitting up for
him? These thoughts passed dismally through my mind. The only
ray of hope in this case was the fact that he had not eaten even a
mouthful of the girl. But against that was the fact that Bala had
frightened him away. All said and done, the proposition appeared
to hold out but little chance of success. But I knew I would have to
try, for there was no alternative.

I looked around for a tree on which to put the charpoy.

The tiger had selected a densely-wooded spot for his repast,

covered with bushes and undergrowth. The nearest tree, other
than the bare dead one, was thirty yards away. When I squatted
on my haunches at the approximate height of a tiger, I could see I
would have to sit right at the top to see over the undergrowth and
have a fair chance to shoot. Most probably the tiger would only
return after dark, if he returned at all, and a flashlight could not
penetrate the brambles should I sit any lower down.

I walked the thirty yards to the tree and looked up. Its higher
branches were no thicker than my two fingers and could not
possibly support my weight in the charpoy.

The next sizeable tree was some ten yards further away. I got to
it and scrambled up. But I could only see the upper portion of the
trunk of the dead tree where the tiger had been. The brambles hid
its base and everything else below.

Here was a knotty problem. Where could I sit?

I walked back to the three men and sauntered around the dead
tree. It had been a big tree in its day and the bole at its base was
twelve to fifteen feet in circumference. There was no apparent
reason why it had died: perhaps from some disease or an insect
pest. Perhaps its roots had been eaten away underground.
Whatever the cause, it had perished some years earlier; only the
dead branches forked into the cloudless sky above my head.

White ants had already begun their work of demolition from

below, and in a short while the weakened base would no longer be
able to sustain the weight of the dead superstructure, and the
whole would crash to earth and disintegrate as food for the
termites and the myriad wood-beetles and insects of all kinds that
would then attack it from the ground.

I walked closer to the trunk. At a spot just level with the top of
my head three branches had spread out from the main stem. A
crust of dried earth covered the busy white ants below. Raising
Myself on tiptoe, I peered into the cavity that led down the stem.
The inside of the tree was hollow.
 This had not been noticeable from outside, particularly from the
spot where the victim’s body had been laid.

I motioned to the three men and whispered to Ali Baig to ask

Bala to get inside the hollow trunk to see whether a place could be
made for me there. Before sending him, however, I took the
precaution to shine my spare flashlight into the hole, to make sure
it did not shelter a snake or scorpion, or even a centipede. Having
made certain it was tenantless except for the white ants, Bala
nimbly let himself down. Being at least a foot shorter than me, he
disappeared from view, but popped out again and stated that it
was a close fit for him and could not possibly accommodate my
greater bulk. Some extension of the interior was absolutely
necessary.

I then noticed that the white ants had eaten much further into
the wood on the opposite side.

With Bala pushing from within, and we three pulling from

outside with our hands, aided now and again by a couple of gentle
blows from Krishnappa’s axe, we started tearing away the rotting
wood from the hole by which Bala had entered. The termites had
already done most of the work for us, and little by little we
enlarged the hole, working downwards towards ground level. We
increased the size of the entrance not only at the top, but by dint
of removing the wood from the other side of the bole we
completely exposed that side down to about knee-level. As the
wood came away, to lay open the interior, we were able to get our
hands inside and use Bala’s short-handled axe as well.

It was hard work and took nearly two hours, but at last I was
able to step into a hole that was sufficiently big to accommodate
my feet up to my knees. Thereafter, I was free enough to move my
hands and my rifle through the opening we had made in the off-
side of the trunk.
 There were several serious snags in my position. The main one
was that I had my back to the point where the tiger had set the
woman down, and to which he would most probably return—that
is, if he did return. I could not turn and look in that direction
because the tree trunk was behind me. Further, we had not been
able to remove the wood from this part of the trunk, as the white
ants had eaten more on the opposite side, as I have said. To do so
we would have had to hack through the wood, for which we did
not have the time, apart from the noise we would make.

All these drawbacks combined to suggest that, when we finally

put the corpse of the girl-wife into place, it could not be at the
spot where the tiger had left it. We would be compelled to change
its position a little. If I did not do that and the tiger did come, he
would either remove the carcass before I became aware of his
presence, or he would sit and eat it within a distance of five yards
from me without my being able to do anything about it. Of course,
I could step out of cover and creep around the bole of the tree. But
I was far too afraid to do that. Further, I would probably make
some noise in stepping out of the trunk in the dark. The tiger
would hear me and perhaps disappear; or, what was more
frightening, he might meet me halfway around the trunk. That
thought was difficult to relish.

A second major disadvantage lay in the fact that I would have

to stand upright throughout the night. I could not even squat,
because the hole below knee-level was just large enough for my
legs.

Thirdly, if the tiger reconnoitered the place before approaching

the body, as every sensible tiger would do, he would look straight
at me as soon as he came opposite the gap we had cut. Of course, I
would have the men put up some sort of camouflage to hide in, in
the way of leaves and trailing creepers, but would I be able to
deceive his jungle-bred eyes if he looked straight in my direction?
At least, would he not become suspicious of these leaves and other
things, suddenly appearing on the bole of a tree that had been
quite bare only that very morning?

Again, if a cobra, scorpion or some other nasty creeping or

crawling thing chose to select the hollow in the dead tree to keep
itself warm on a chilly night, I would indeed be in a sorry
predicament. There were so many possibilities of trouble that I
shrugged them away. I would have to take the chance, although
the odds seemed to be ten to one against success.

I laid my coat upon the ground, and on it we piled every bit of

the dried wood we had removed, even to the last scrap. We then
held the coat at the four corners and carried it away to throw the
debris at a distance.

Then we returned to the hut, where Bala bravely lifted his wife’s
body on his shoulder. In single file and silence we walked back to
the tree. I asked him to set the body down a little to the left of the
opening we had made, so that the tiger in looking at it would not
be in a direct line with the opening and myself. There was no
room for anything inside the hollow but myself and the rifle with
torch attached, so I swallowed a chappati and some tea from my
water-bottle before giving it to Ali Baig to take back.

I stepped into the hollow. Bala and Krishnappa then placed

some sticks across the opening, between which they draped leaves
and trails of creepers to screen me as much as possible. This job
Bala took very seriously, going back some paces to different angles
of vision every now and again, to check whether I could still be
seen inside. He wedged a larger bit of stick across the two sides of
the opening at the level of my chest, so that I might rest my rifle
upon it as I fired. I found I could slide my rifle before me, slowly up
my body and then over this stick without making any noise. The
two Chenchus draped the stick and the trunk on both sides of my
face with creepers, hanging them downwards against the wood
from the two higher branches of the tree. Finally, they wedged a
great mass of leaves and wood down on the base of the three
branches that bifurcated above me. I was truly bottled up inside
that hollow.

Before leaving, Bala bade farewell to his dead wife. He kissed

the cold forehead and he kissed her feet. Then he got down on his
knees beside the body and prostrated himself on the ground, with
his palms extended to earth, to seek her pardon for the indignities
to which he was exposing her poor body.

When he got up again, there were no tears in his eyes. His face
was resolute. He looked at me wordlessly. Once more the
telepathy of jungle-loving people passed between us. His look said,
far more clearly than any spoken word: ‘I have done all I could
and have even sacrificed the body of my dear one. The rest is up to
you.’ I resolved I would not fail him.

A moment later my three followers had gone on their way to the

hut and I was alone.

I glanced at my wristwatch. The time was 4.45 p.m. Patches of

bright sunlight filtered through the undergrowth and dappled the
red and black of the dead woman’s saree which Bala had wrapped
around her waist. Her hair had fallen loosely and lay outspread on
the ground, framing the head and face, now turned towards me,
with its peaceful expression. Rigor mortis had set in and one hand
lay folded stiffly across her breast, where perhaps her husband had
laid it in the morning when he had carried her body back to their
hut. The other had set by her side. The gentle evening breeze,
swaying the grass, idly flapped a corner of the saree or lifted a wisp
of her jet-black hair.

Except for the breeze stirring the leaves and grass, nothing else
moved. Except for the faint tick of my wristwatch, and a dull
thudding sound which took me quite some time to identify as the
pounding of my own heart, I could hear no other sound.
 I spread my feet gently, inch by inch, and eased them as far
forward as possible while leaning back. They would have to bear
my weight that whole night, and my least duty to them was to try
to distribute that load as evenly as possible.

The jungle came to life forty-five minutes later, with the usual
cries of roosting peafowl and jungle fowl. One grey cock strutted
out into the clearing before me, and crowed his challenge to the
dying day. ‘Kuck ky’a ky’a khuk’m’, he called, and in a few
seconds the cry was answered by another junglecock in the
distance. ‘Wheew, kuck khuke’m’, he replied. The first rooster
ruffled his feathers and looked in the direction from which the
reply had come. Then a gust of wind blew and the corner of the
saree stirred. With a heavy flapping of wings, the rooster was
gone.

‘Mi-iao mi-iao’ called a peacock, to be answered by similar cries

from his own kind, as the heavy birds flapped one by one to rest in
groups in some distant tree. Spurfowl cackled their fighting notes
in the undergrowth, while the last of the butterflies and beetles
sailed or buzzed their homeward way to the particular leaf or
other shelter they had chosen for that night.

The daylight faded fast in the manner of all tropical countries.

My feathered friends of the sunny hours were no doubt tucking
their heads beneath their wings, or at least would do so very soon.
With the fading light, something soft descended from the skies and
came to rest on the ground a yard away. It was a nightjar, the
harbinger of the Indian jungle night. ‘Chuck-chuck-chuckoooo’, it
trilled, while its brown outline on the dried grass resembled just a
stone. And then, with a graceful outstretching of its wings, it
floated away. ‘Cheep-cheep-cheep’ came a sound from directly
above me. Two bats circled their rapid flight around the tree, to
snap up the belated day-insects that were just going to rest, in
addition to some early arrivals from among the insects of the
night.
 I had seen and heard it all so very many times before; the
diminuendo of the creatures of the day giving place to the
crescendo of the creatures of the night. But never in quite the
same position and circumstances as I was now in, I had to admit.

Then came darkness for a short while—but not for long, as

singly and in groups the stars began to twinkle overhead, shedding
a very diffused light on the jungle around me. That would be my
only illumination till daylight came again, for this had happened
during the moonless nights.

The mosquitoes took some time to find me out, but when their
scouts finally made the discovery, they lost but few moments in
reporting to headquarters. Then whole squadrons of dive-bombers
made full capital out of it. With protruding under-lip, I blew them
off my face and I stuffed my hands into my trouser pockets to
outwit such of the more enterprising individuals as had flown
inside my tree-trunk, bent upon sucking my blood.

Eight o’clock came. I lifted one foot after the other and wriggled
my toes inside my canvas shoes in order to restore circulation to
the soles of my feet. This tiger had the reputation of never
returning to a human kill. And I had placed myself in this
awkward and uncomfortable position for the night. Then a picture
of Bala’s tear-stained face and of that dead countenance, now
lying out in the darkness so close to me but hidden from sight,
appeared before my mind, and my reason assured me that what I
was doing at that moment was the only thing possible for me to
do.

My thoughts had been wandering when all of a sudden I became

fully alert, every nerve at high tension. I had seen nothing; I had
heard not a sound. But just as certain as I was of my own name, I
knew the man-eater was near. The hair on my neck was on end
and a faint nervous quiver ran through my whole being. Some
undefined and indefinable sense had screamed the warning to me.
Yes, without doubt, the tiger was there.

I strained my ears to the utmost to hear any sound. There was

absolute silence. No warning cry from deer or other jungle
creatures had betrayed the feline’s movements.

Such complete silence and such delay in approaching the dead

body meant only one thing. The tiger was suspicious. Was that the
aftermath of the fright Bala had given him that morning, or had
he seen or sensed something in his surroundings. Above all, had he
seen or sensed me?

I would have given a great deal to know the answer to the last
question.

After what appeared to be an eternity, I heard a faint snuffling

noise; then that of something being dragged.

There was only one explanation. The tiger was dragging the
body of the dead woman away. In another moment he would be
gone.

I was on the point of casting caution to the winds and revealing

my presence by bringing my weapon out of cover and flashing the
torch to risk a shot, when the dragging ceased abruptly. Had the
tiger disappeared with the body?

And then the sounds of eating began, and the crunch of bones.
They came from the other side of the tree and from behind me.

The explanation was easy. For some unaccountable reason the

man-eater had dragged the body back to the very position where
he had left it early that morning. Instinct perhaps. At least it
indicated one thing: the tiger was not suspicious or alarmed, as I
had at first thought. If that had been the case, he would either
have slunk away or bounded off with the body. Had he become
aware of my presence, he might even have made an attack.

The fact that he had done none of these things clearly indicated
that he was not alarmed, but only that he wanted to have his
meal exactly where he had left it. Perhaps he had reasoned to
himself that some earlier visitor, in the form of a jackal or hyaena,
had shifted it.

I breathed a sigh of relief—until I recollected that I would now

have to step out of my shelter into the open and around the trunk
of the tree if I wanted to take a shot. Then all feeling of relief left
me.

You will remember that Bala and Krishnappa had more or less
‘fenced me in’ with the aid of sticks, leaves, creepers and so forth.
To step out, I would first have to remove these obstructions. In
doing so some slight noise would undoubtedly result. The tiger
would hear. He might run away, or, far worse than that, he might
come around the tree to investigate the cause and find me before I
was ready.

There was just one thing to do, and I did that thing. I let the
tiger tuck into his meal right heartily.

Each time he tore the flesh or crunched a bone and chewed

noisily, I gently untangled a leaf or piece of creeper or removed
one of the sticks and slid it down the inside of the hollow tree
towards my feet. Thus I cleared the way to step out while the tiger
was eating.

Then I raised my right foot into the air and poised it for a
minute to restore circulation, before lifting it ever so carefully
outside the tree-trunk. I waited; but the tiger was still crunching
bones. I steadied myself with my left hand against the hole and
very cautiously brought my left foot beside my right one.
 For a few moments I was unbalanced to take a shot, and it
would have indeed been very unfortunate for me had the man-
eater discovered me then. But mercifully he was far too engrossed
in his meal.

An inch at a time, I shuffled myself forward around the bole of

that tree. Then came the moment when another inch would
reveal me. If the tiger happened to be facing the tree he would
surely see me. If not, there was a chance that I would not be
detected immediately.

The moment for action had arrived and I had to risk it. I raised
the rifle, pointing skyward, and placed the stock to my shoulder. I
edged an inch forward with each foot. Then I slightly craned my
neck to look around the trunk.

My eyes had become accustomed to the diffused light and I saw

the tiger lying full-length on the ground over a dark mass that was
all that was left of the woman. He was half-inclined away from
me, facing the direction whence we had come that evening. The
foresight of the rifle would not be visible in that light, and I would
have to use my flashlight for the shot.

I raised my left arm gently to support my rifle as I brought it to

firing position at my right shoulder. My left thumb frantically
groped for the torch switch. Something warned the tiger that all
was not well. He looked back over his shoulder as the beam shone
forth to frame his head and glowing eyes, while flesh and blood
drooled from his lips.

My first bullet took him in the neck, and as he catapulted head

over heels I worked the under-lever of my Winchester as I had
never worked it before in my life. He was writhing furiously as I
pumped into him a second shot, followed by a third. I really could
not tell you what happened then. But he just disappeared.
 He had been roaring with pain and rage after my first shot. He
had roared during the fusillade. He was still roaring and tearing up
the undergrowth in rage and agony, but I could see him no longer.
He had leaped into the shelter of the jungle.

I dived back into the hollow of the dead tree as fast as I could
scramble and awaited events. I wanted to replace the three rounds
I had just fired, so as to have a full magazine ready. But a .405
Winchester does not lend itself to that kind of thing. A ‘jam’ is
likely to occur when putting more rounds into a half-empty
magazine. If that should happen, I would be helpless. I decided to
leave well alone. There was still one round with which I could
hold off the tiger. Although my rifle magazine held five rounds, I
usually load only four, keeping one in the breach and three in the
magazine when sitting up for carnivora. This is by way of an
added precaution against a ‘jam’.

I began to wonder if I had acted wisely in getting back inside the

tree. Perhaps it would have been better if I had remained outside. I
could at least see the tiger if he charged. Now I could not do so till
he came out of the bushes and in front of me.

However, it was too late for regrets. I stood still. Perspiration

saturated my body and my hands were slippery from holding the
rifle. I felt terribly sick and my head ached.

The tiger was still roaring and tearing at the bushes, but in time
the sounds subsided and then faded in the distance. The creature
was not dead, but at least it had gone away and I was safe. And I
was thankful. Then I retched—and felt all the better for it.

Unfortunately, the direction of the tiger’s departing roars had

not registered on my confused senses and I was uncertain which
way he had gone. Under such conditions it would be suicidal to
attempt at once to walk to Bala’s hut in the darkness. I would
have to use my flashlight to find my way there, and that would
betray me if the man-eater was lying up in the undergrowth.

So I spent the rest of the night in that damned hollow, drooping

on my tired feet. Dawn found me dejected, till I remembered I was
lucky to be alive. For that I was glad.

As soon as it was light enough to see, I stepped out of the hollow

tree and sat on the ground outside. Have you ever attempted to
remain on your feet all night for a stretch of something like
thirteen hours? Try it yourself sometime.

For fifteen minutes or so, while the light grew stronger, I rested.
Then I got up to see what could be seen. The time I had taken to
free myself from the sticks and leaves, and to step out from the
tree, while the tiger had been eating, could not have been much
more than ten minutes—perhaps fifteen minutes at the most—but
the tiger had eaten more than half of the dead woman. Her head
and arms had been parted from the body and lay scattered on the
grass. One thigh and leg were there too, and part of the other foot.
The rest of her was gone, except for the gnawed vertebrae with a
few of the rib bones still attached.

The earth was torn up where the man-eater had ravaged the
ground in his agony. Then he had made a jump into the
undergrowth a couple of yards away. Here the stems of the bushes
had been bitten through and the leaves were smeared with his
blood. This had been the place from which I had heard him
roaring and rampaging while I had been cowering in the hollow
tree. From there the blood trail moved away into the jungle. I
followed it for a few yards and found it was leading approximately
northwards. I could return to the hut in comparative safety.

I did so. Bala and the guards had heard the sound of shooting
from the hut, where they had been lying awake. With the coming
of daylight they had advanced for about a furlong and were
waiting for me. Indeed, the Chenchus would have come all the
way to the dead tree, but Ali Baig cautioned them that I might
have only wounded the tiger and there was no knowing where it
would be hiding.

I told them all that had happened during that terrible night.

My watch showed that time was 6.25 a.m. I must have fired at
the tiger about 8.30 the night before—ten hours previously. He
must be dead by now, I thought. Or, if not dead, he must have lost
so much blood and become so stiff from his wounds that he would
be lying up somewhere in a bad plight. I could no longer restrain
myself from following the blood trail.

As Ali Baig was unarmed, I asked him to go back to the hut and
await us there. He replied that he was afraid to stay there alone
and that he would rather accompany us and take his chance. So
we returned to the dead tree.

I had told Bala that, as much as I had not wanted to do so, I had
been compelled to let the tiger eat the body of his wife in order to
preoccupy and distract his attention while I was freeing myself
from the camouflaging sticks and creepers. He had accepted my
explanation then. But when we reached the tree and he saw the
torn remains of the poor woman, the shock had been too great for
him. The little man broke down completely and wept loudly and
bitterly.

He said he would not go on till he had cremated the remains. It

took all that the two forest guards and I could do to stop him from
setting about this business there and then. In fact, it is doubtful if
we would have succeeded had not Ali Baig bluntly told him that
all of us, and more particularly he, would be in trouble with the
local police, who would expect a report about the incident, after
which they would conduct some sort of inquiry and hold an
inspection of the remains. They would not look kindly upon him if
he should cremate the evidence before they had seen it. So we
broke branches and covered the scene of carnage to keep off the
vultures that would otherwise soon arrive.

We all hoped we would find the tiger, dead or dying, within a

very short distance, and that we would be able to return soon to
make the necessary report to the police.

That was where we were greatly mistaken.

The blood trail led through the bushes. As far as I could see, the
tiger had been wounded in two places, one of them high up—no
doubt by my first shot at his neck. The second wound had left a
constantly dripping blood trail, and as we followed it we found a
tiny piece of membrane mixed with the clotted blood. To me this
indicated a stomach wound.

The animal had first rested beneath a tree within two furlongs
of the dead tree. Here mounds of regurgitated, blood-soaked flesh
—the flesh of that poor woman—showed that the tiger had
suffered a severe fit of vomiting and confirmed that one of my
bullets had entered his stomach.

He had carried on from there for another half-mile or so, where

he had lain down upon the grass. Two small pools of blood
established the fact that he had been hit twice. The stomach
wound appeared to be the more severe one, as the bleeding there
had been much more copious.

Nevertheless, the animal had still kept going. The blood trail,
which had been very prolific at the start, was now less. Outer
skin, membrane or fat had perhaps covered the exterior hole made
by the bullet where it had entered his stomach, and so had stopped
the bleeding. Probably it was only the neck wound that had
continued to bleed thereafter and that no doubt accounted for the
scantier trail.
 We came to a stream between two hills where the tiger had lain
in the water, which still held a faint pinkish tinge. A little blood
streaked the mud on the further bank. Here the pug-marks were
clearly visible for the first time along the whole trail. They were
the large quarter-plate-sized pugs of a big male.

Still the trail carried on, but the bleeding had become markedly
less. Soon there was only a drop to be seen here and there. I was
amazed to say the least of it.

My first shot had been at the tiger’s neck. I knew I had not
missed, for he had made a complete somersault, which indicated
he had been hit. I had fired twice after that and one of those shots
had perforated his stomach. The quantities of vomited human
flesh had established that also. We had been following a copious
blood trail at the start, commencing from the place where the
man-eater had torn up the undergrowth in pain and fury. He had
rested more than twice after that. All these factors together, and
all my experience over the past many years, cried out that by all
the rules of the game the tiger should have died, or have almost
bled to death, by now. We should have come across him lying up
in a very enfeebled condition in some cover. In fact, we had
expected the trail to be a short and easy one.

Instead of any of these expected happenings, however, the man-

eater was still pressing on, heading ever northwards. Splashes of
blood on the earth and leaves, as it dripped from his wounds or
was smeared on the bushes as he passed, were few and far between
now and the trail was becoming increasingly difficult to follow.
We had travelled far from any footpaths and were many miles into
the interior of the jungle, with only a game-path here and there.
The terrain had become very hilly, crisscrossed by deep boulder-
strewn valleys, each of which was the bed of a tiny, trickling
stream. Water was far from scarce, and we could see the tiger had
stopped to drink from many of these rivulets. The larger trees of
the jungle had given way to dense undergrowth, mostly of lantana
and other thorny varieties.

At ten minutes to one o’clock we could find no more blood

drops, although the four of us fanned out and cast around in a
wide circle. We had reached the journey’s end and the trail was
dead. The sun beat down mercilessly.

We were a silent party as we made our way back to Gazulapalli,

and I was dog-tired when I threw myself into the old armchair that
had almost no bottom in the station waiting-room. Sleep came
before I could take off my boots.

Mr Balasubramaniam made a telegraphic report to the police

that night, and next day the officials arrived by the afternoon
train from Nandyal. We went with them to the old dead tree.

What had been left of the unfortunate woman was stinking by

now. We could smell it a furlong away. Hordes of blue bottles
nestled in swarms on the leaves we had thrown over the bits and
pieces. But at least they had been protected from the vultures. I
showed the sub-inspector of police the hollow in the tree-trunk
where I had hidden the night before, while I related my story.

The notes he made covered some thirteen pages of paper. My

statement alone took six.

Bala begged for permission to cremate the remains. The police

officer was of the opinion that they should be taken to Nandyal
for a post-mortem examination. I vouchsafed no advice, because I
could see that the sub-inspector did not regard my action in
having set the dead woman out for bait as quite the proper thing
to have done. I felt that whatever I advised now might cause him
to take exactly the opposite course of action. So I minded my own
business. The presence and testimony of the two forest guards,
however, eventually turned the tables in Bala’s favour, and
permission was given to him to cremate the remains. We were
silent witnesses as he and the two guards gathered a pile of dried
wood, set the decomposed remains thereon, topped up the pile
with more wood and then set fire to the lot. It was a simple and
sad ceremony, marred only by the awful stench of burning
decomposed flesh. Out of respect for Bala’s feelings, I remained
there. The police officer went some distance away, leaned against
a tree and was terribly sick.

I found it difficult to look Bala in the eye next day. I felt I had
let him down. But the little man’s intuition sensed this. He came
with Balasubramaniam to the waiting room while I sat there and
asked the stationmaster to interpret what he was about to say. It
was just this. Tell the “dorai” not to feel worried because he failed
to shoot the tiger. I know he did his very best. No other man—no,
not even I—could have done more.’

And no man could have said more than that to relieve my

feelings. I felt better and told Balasubramaniam to thank him for
what he had said, and for all the cooperation he had extended to
me. His simple tribute was one of the best I have ever received.

I remained in Gazulapalli for another week, but no more news

came to me of the man-eater. A panther killed one of my baits at
Diguvametta. I went there to verify this and proved it to be a fact.
Joseph was not very pleased when I left the remains for the
panther to have another feed that night.

At the end of that week I paid farewell to all my newly-found

friends who had helped me so unstintingly and made my visit such
a pleasure. The baits I gave away to the various forest guards at
the different stations, with something more for Bala.

Three months passed after my return to Bangalore. Then a tiger

killed a man near the Krishna river in Hyderabad state. Three
months later a Chenchu was killed several miles north of Bogada
railway station. News of human kills since then have been very
few and far between. But they still come in.

Did the man-eater I wounded recover after all? Has he started

operations again? Were there two separate man-eaters operating at
the time of my visit, the one that had taken the woman gathering
mhowa flowers at Diguvametta being quite different from the one
that had killed Bala’s wife?

Were the latest kills the work of one or other of these two tigers
—if indeed there ever had been two? Or had they been made by
quite another tiger, one that had newly appeared on the scene?

These questions worry me sometimes, for I cannot find an

answer. But I would give a lot to know.
 7

The Big Bull Bison of Gedesal

HIS is not the story of a regular hunt, concluding with the

T shooting or wounding of the Big Bull Bison I am going to tell
you about. If you think that, you are in for a disappointment, for I
never even fired a shot at this animal at any time, nor would I
ever have done so. For I admire him too much.

He was a brave old warrior, and if he is still alive today he well

deserves his title as lord and leader of the herd he cared for so
faithfully. If he could understand me, I would be proud to call him
my friend.

Gedesal is the name of a small Sholaga village standing at the

head of what I call the ‘bison range’ in the forests of North
Coimbatore district. A forest bungalow called by the same name
borders the road as it reaches the top of the ascent on its
southward journey from the town of Kollegal to the hamlet of
Dimbum. This road runs down the side of a hill for five of the
seven miles that separate Gedesal from Dimbum. For those last
two miles it rises again. Dimbum is at the edge of an escarpment.
The road falls steeply, in a series of sharp hairpin bends, from
Dimbum to the plains below it to the south, whence it pursues an
almost level course to the large town of Satyamangalam.

Gedesal itself is flanked on the west by the towering range of the

Biligirirangan Mountains, their slopes a scenic combination of
frowning crags jutting out of a green background of lawn-like
grass. In the folds of the hills, and along the beds of the myriad
watercourses that tumble downhill, clumps of trees and matted
jungle have sprung up. These are commonly called ‘sholas’, or
isolated islands of forest, surrounded by open, grassy areas or
outcrops of forbidding rock.

To the east lies another range of hills, much less in altitude, size
and grandeur than the mountain range of the Biligirirangan to the
west. These low hills are entirely covered by forest, consisting
mainly of tiger-grass that grows to a height of ten feet, interspersed
with thousands upon thousands of the stunted wild date palms.
Towards the middle of the year these palms bear long clusters of
the yellow wild dates at the ends of drooping stems—dry, tasteless
fruit, indeed, but much favoured by birds and animals alike.

Thus the topography, the vegetation and the dates combine to

make the area a favourite haunt for bison, sambar and bear.

A long valley runs from north to south between the flanking

ranges of mountains and hills, and along the side of this valley the
road from Kollegal to Dimbum wends its lonely, southward way,
passing between Gedesal hamlet itself and the forest bungalow of
the same name.

This building is exceptionally large for a forest bungalow, and

has a long line of outhouses at its rear for the occupation of the
menials working for the Forestry Department. Moreover it has a
big compound, where some nice specimens of the wild hill-rose
grow, the flowers of which bloom in large clusters, resembling
small bouquets.

Just south of the bungalow is a low-lying stretch of land,

holding a small pond and some marshy ground. Because of the
tender shoots of green grass that grow there—entirely different
from the coarse tiger-grass in the surrounding area—a small herd
of spotted deer is almost always in residence. When I saw them
last they were sired and led by quite a sizeable stag with a good
head of antlers, his dark brown shoulders being almost black,
against which the dappled white spots contrasted markedly.
 I hope that no hunter, human or animal, has brought him down,
and that he still roams at the head of his harem in that deeply
green and refreshingly moist, cool glen—lordly and free as the
jungle to which he belongs.

The low range of hills to the east of the road and the deep valley
running along the base of the mountains to the west offer wide
browsing opportunities to the many separate bison herds that
inhabit the area. A perennial stream of considerable size flows
down the length of this valley, the road being crossed every now
and again by the various tributaries that feed it. A never-failing
water supply, even during the hottest summer season, is thereby
assured, which is the main factor that contributes towards
keeping these animals permanently in residence.

These bison herds number from twenty to forty or even more,

the majority being cows and calves of different ages, with perhaps
about half-a-dozen sizeable bulls to each herd. The oldest and
most mature bull automatically gains supremacy over his younger
rivals and becomes the lord and master of that herd until such
time as he in turn is overthrown by some younger and more
vigorous male, or meets his end in some fashion that accords with
the laws of the jungle. Occasionally a big bull will break away
from the rest of the herd and pursue his own solitary existence.

Bison suffer severely from diseases such as ‘rinderpest’, which

frequently attack the herds of domestic cattle belonging to the
Sholagas, living in the forest or adjacent cattle patties. The cattle
are let out to graze in the jungle and spread the infection to the
bison. It is quite common to come across bison affected by the
‘foot-and-mouth’ disease which is so fatal to cattle, or to be led by
the sight of vultures to the carcass of one that has succumbed to
this most deadly of cattle scourges.

The big bull of which my story tells was the leader of a herd of
at least thirty animals. Very frequently have I seen him early in
the morning when droplets of dew glittered in the rising sun, and
sometimes round about 5.30 in the evening, grazing within sight
of the road between the 39th and 41st milestones. It was easy to
identify him by his crumpled left horn, which was clearly
deformed and turned inwards and forwards.

Perhaps the old bull owes his long life to this deformity, as it
renders his head worthless as a trophy, though the right horn is
beautifully shaped. True it is that some hunter and collector of
oddities might value his head as an unusual specimen, but he has
been lucky in that such a curiosity-monger does not so far appear
to have met up with him. In battle his deformed horn has proved
an invaluable weapon, as I am about to relate. He has the natural
advantages that would be those of a unicorn, if this legendary
animal actually existed, in that he could transfix an opponent in
a frontal attack or badly slash him with a toss of his head.

I have often motored along that road on a dark night, shining

the sealed-beam spotlight on my car from side to side, to see what
I could see and just for the fun of it. Twice or thrice on such
occasions the widely-separated blue eyes of a bison have reflected
the lamp’s rays and upon closer inspection I have found them to be
the eyes of the old bull.

My attention was first attracted to this veteran some years ago

when I was out for a walk on the lower slopes of the Biligirirangan
range. There is a road running through the forest from the western
side of the main road. It skirts Gedesal village, crosses the stream,
and then starts to climb over the foothills of the mountain range
to disappear eventually over a saddleback and descend a valley on
the other side. Finally it leads to a beautiful forest lodge, the
private property of Mr Randolph Morris who is one of southern
India’s biggest and most influential coffee planters. He is also an
authority on shikar and a hunter of renown, having contributed
many valuable articles on the habits of big game and on big game
hunting. He was the honorary game warden of the area, well
known to the Viceroys and former Governors of British India, and
the owner of some of the most beautiful and well-planned coffee
estates in the south.

Long before this road makes its way over the saddleback there is
a prefabricated shed, the property of the Forestry department,
which has been erected for the convenience of its officers on tour
and for the use of licensed sportsmen on shikar. Some thoughtful
soul has made, or caused to make, a ladder of stout twisted vines,
which is kept in this lodge and comes in very handy for climbing
up to and down from machans erected on trees, to those who are
not naturally gifted or adapted to this arboreal art.

That morning I had passed this lodge and was walking along a
ridge overlooking a bowl-like shallow valley when I heard a
clashing and thudding sound, interrupted with snorts of rage. The
evidence pointed to a bison fight, and I hurried along, taking what
cover was available, in the direction of the sounds. Very soon I
saw in the valley below me, but quite three hundred yards away,
two large bull bison locked in fierce combat. With horns entangled
and foreheads pressed together, they were pushing against each
other with might and main, the outstretched taut legs of each
animal indicating the tremendous effort he was making to push
his opponent back. At intervals one or other would momentarily
disengage his horns and head from his rival to deliver a short quick
jab before interlocking again, and before the opposing animal
could score a similar thrust.

Then I noticed that one of them had a peculiar horn that gave
him a distinct advantage over his antagonist which was bleeding
profusely from wounds in his neck, shoulders and side.

The fight raged for the next twenty minutes or so with unabated
fury, till the gasps that took the place of the snorts of rage that I
had first heard, and the glistening sides of the two bulls, soaked in
sweat and blood that was clearly visible even at that range,
showed that the gruelling pace and strain of the fight was
beginning to tell. Froth drooled from the mouths of the bulls and
splattered their bodies, falling in splashes to the ground.

I had never witnessed a bison fight before and was very curious
to know how it would end. Fortunately I had come alone.
Moreover, the breeze blew in my direction. Therefore the
combatants were quite unaware of my presence and fought their
fight under natural conditions.

The bull with the crumpled horn seemed to be getting the better
of things, and his opponent gave ground, becoming reddened by
the gore that flowed from the many wounds in his body. Of course,
he had also inflicted some telling jabs on his enemy, but the
crumpled horn was obviously giving its owner a decided
superiority. After another ten minutes the severely injured animal
began to falter. He fell to his knees several times, and at each
opportunity that unicorn-like horn embedded itself in some part of
the unfortunate animal. Eventually he broke, turned and ran at a
staggering trot, the victor following up his advantage by pursuing
him and butting his hindquarters. The two animals passed out of
sight at a point where the bowl of the valley merged with the
surrounding jungle.

Out of curiosity I walked down to the site of the recent combat.

The ground had been torn up by the straining hooves of the two
contestants and was flecked with blood and foam in a rough circle
some twenty yards in diameter.

It was a considerable time after that when I saw my bull again.

The second occasion was on another walk one evening on my way
to visit a water hole situated on the eastern side of the road about
a quarter of a mile from and almost level with the 41st milestone.
A tiger had killed a couple of head of cattle belonging to the
Sholagas of Gedesal village. They told me they had seen it on
several occasions in the evenings, walking along—or crossing—the
fire-line that leads past this pool and thereafter cuts across the
road.

I went to the water hole at about 4.30 p.m. that day, and
walked around its edge to discover what animals had been visiting
it. There were the usual tracks of elephant, bison, sambar, spotted
deer and of a few wild pigs. The tiger had also drunk there on
about three separate occasions so far as I could judge by the age of
his pug-marks, although the last time had been at least three days
earlier than my visit.

Among the bison tracks were the pointed hoof-marks of what

must have been a truly massive bull. The weight of his body had
been so great that he sank almost a foot into the mire that
bordered the pond. His tracks were also visible in many places in
the vicinity, indicating that he was a frequent visitor to this pool.
This was rather strange in view of the fact that he had the river,
which I have already mentioned, at which to quench his thirst.

I asked the Sholaga who had told me about the tiger, and who
had accompanied me, if he knew anything about this bull. He
replied in the affirmative and told me that he and all the villagers
had seen him many times, and that he had a deformed horn—the
left one—which thrust forwards. Immediately my mind flew back
to the scene I had witnessed in that memorable fight, in which a
bull with a crumpled horn had completely routed his opponent. I
wondered if this could be the same animal and thought it must be
so, as such a deformity is extremely rare.

The Sholaga told me the bull frequented the pond, as he kept

the herd under his care in that locality; probably because of the
exceptionally fine grazing to be had on the low land around the
water hole. Then he went on to say that if I cared to take a walk
with him, we might be lucky enough to see this animal for
ourselves, or even come across the tiger.
 At that time the tiger was my immediate quarry and I was not
very interested in the bull, so more with that objective in mind I
consented. In any case, stalking a bison in broad daylight is a
tricky business and depends upon the direction in which the wind
is blowing, the cover available, and of course the lie of the land.

We set off on an aimless walk, following cattle trails and game

paths and crisscrossing the fire-line several times. I remember we
were ambling along a narrow track when quite suddenly the long
grass parted before us, hardly thirty yards away, to reveal the head
and shoulders of a massive bull bison which regarded us
complacently and obviously without much concern. It was my
friend, the bison with the crumpled horn.

He showed no signs of fear, but just stood looking at us. We

advanced another ten yards; then, with a loud swish of the reedy
grass, he turned around and disappeared. After that day, as I have
said, I saw him on other occasions, and then came the memorable
event which drew him to me.

An unidentified hunter, who was also poacher, came along the

road one night and shot a cow bison. Before he knew where he
was, a bull attacked his jeep and with a toss of his head tumbled
the vehicle down a khud that bordered the road into one of the dry
tributaries of the river. Fortunately the bison did not follow up its
attack, so the poacher suffered only an injured leg and a smashed
rifle. The Sholaga who was with him, and was sitting at the side of
the jeep on which the assault was launched, had clearly seen the
bull and avowed it was the animal with the deformed left horn.

I heard about the incident some months later, on a subsequent

visit, and felt pleased that the old bull had acquitted himself so
creditably. No doubt the fact that he had tossed the jeep down the
khud had caused him to think, in his own bovine mind, that he
had disposed of his foe. Had the khud not been there he would
probably have followed up his initial attack with another, found
the men inside and eliminated them altogether.

It was some time later, in November, 1953, that I was visiting

Dimbum. I had not intended to halt at Gedesal and was motoring
along the road when I espied a lone figure walking. Drawing level,
I recognised the Sholaga, whose name was Rachen, whom I always
employ when I camp at that bungalow. Stopping the car and
returning his greeting, I asked him in Tamil: ‘Yenna Sungadhi’—
which means: ‘What news’?

Rachen replied that just two nights ago the villagers had heard
the sounds of a terrific fight in the jungle, not very far from the
village, between a tiger and some other animal. From the violence
and duration of the combat, which appeared to last for hours, they
decided that the tiger’s opponent could not be a wild boar, which
is the only wild creature of medium-size that fights back against a
tiger, and thought it might be an elephant. But then again, had it
been an elephant they felt sure they would have heard the
trumpeting and screaming which an elephant invariably makes
when in trouble or when fighting, or when otherwise excited.

Later in the night the sounds had gradually died away, but they
had noticed before that time, from the great noise the tiger had
been making, that it had been badly hurt.

Early next morning, impelled by curiosity, the Sholagas had

gone to see what had happened and had come upon the scene of
the marathon struggle they had heard the night before. The
undergrowth had been torn up and trodden down by the
combatants, and to one side of this arena lay the carcass of a tiger
that had been repeatedly gored and trampled by a bison.

The Sholagas had then promptly removed the skin from the tiger
and taken it to the village.
 It was about noon when I heard this tale and, having time to
spare, felt interested in visiting the spot myself. Seating Rachen
beside me, I drove down the narrow track leading to Gedesal
village and found the tiger’s skin already pegged out on the ground
to dry. The raw side was uppermost and had been liberally covered
with dry ashes, which is the only preservative known to the
Sholagas, salt not being available.

The tiger had been quite a large animal but, judging from the
underside of the skin, it had been badly mangled and gored by the
bison. There were no less than five distinct holes where the
powerful horns had penetrated, and one of them, on the left side,
showed where a fateful thrust had pierced the tiger’s heart.

I was now more interested than ever and expressed a keen desire
to visit the spot where the fight had taken place. Leaving my car,
and accompanied by a crowd of Sholagas, I set forth. Less than
half a mile away we reached the site of the incident.

‘Arena’ is the best word I can find to describe it, for indeed there
had been a titanic struggle. Great gouts of gore were sprayed on
the surrounding grass and bushes in all directions, which had been
flattened by the weight of the contestants and were red with dried
blood. The Sholagas pointed out the spot where the dead tiger had
been lying.

It was obvious from the quantity of blood that the bison had
also been severely injured. On a whim I decided I would like to
follow him up if possible, to see if he was dead or dying somewhere
in the jungle. In either case, I guessed he could not have moved
very far from the scene of the fight in his present condition.

Even an entire novice would have been able to follow that trail,
as the bison had left a wide path of blood through the jungle. He
had passed downhill, heading towards the stream, and I felt
certain I would find him there, very likely dead, beside the water.
 We forged ahead, not troubling to keep silent. An hour and a
half’s quick walking along that tremendous blood trail brought us
to the stream, and to the bison standing in shallow water and
resting himself against the bole of a large tree that was partly
submerged. Due to the noise made by the water as it rushed over
the rocks, he had not heard us at first, and we were well out of
cover before he turned around to face us.

It was the big bull bison of Gedesal, the bull with the crumpled
horn.

From where we stood, with the breadth of the stream separating

us, we could clearly see the awful wounds that had been inflicted
by the teeth and the talons of the tiger on his face, neck, sides and
rump. Even his belly was badly lacerated, and something red
protruded from it and hung into the water. Perhaps it was a
portion of his bowel, perhaps a piece of torn skin; I could not see
clearly into the shadows where he stood.

But his eyes were clear and fearless, although pain-wracked, as

he stood and faced us. Then he turned and staggered away into the
jungle.

I had thought of shooting him to put him out of his agony, but
somehow could not find it in my heart to do so after the gallant
victory he had won at such frightful cost. In any case, I never
expected to see him again.

But very recently I visited Gedesal, and great was my surprise

and pleasure when one evening I happened to see him, surrounded
by his beloved herd, browsing contentedly on the long grass that
borders the water hole on the eastern side of the road not far from
the 41st milestone—his favourite haunt.

Long may he live in the jungle to which he belongs.

 8

The Maned Tiger of Chordi

HIS is the story of a very big tiger that gave great trouble to the
T area in which he lived—or rather to the human inhabitants of
the area—and was very troublesome to pursue and finally bring to
bag.

In telling hunting stories, it is the purpose of the teller to keep

his hearers interested. To do that he has to relate the efforts that
ended successfully in the killing of his quarry. Perforce he has to
leave out many of the failures and disappointments he encounters,
for if he were to describe them all his listeners would soon be
bored. But to mention only the successes is to give the impression
that efforts to kill a man-eater, whether tiger or panther, are
nearly always crowned with success, nearly always easy, and can
nearly always be accomplished within a comparatively short
space of time—a few days, at most.

In reality, all three of these impressions are very far indeed from
the truth, and actual circumstances are invariably quite the
opposite. Failures are very many and conditions—physical,
mental and nervous—are most arduous; and frequently the
animal takes months and even years to catch up with. Sometimes
he is never shot.

So in this story I am going to tell of a pursuit that began in a

casual way and took almost five long and tedious years to bring to
a conclusion. Of course it was not a continuous hunt, but a series
of sporadic attempts. Between my own efforts there were other
hunters from Bangalore and Bombay, not to speak of the local
nimrods, who all attempted to bring about the downfall of this
wily creature. And we all failed—until those five years had
passed.

He was known as the ‘maned tiger’ because he had an

outstanding ruff of hair around his neck, behind his ears and
covering his throat and chin. Naturally this outcrop of hair
greatly increased the apparent size of his head, which was always
described as being ‘that big’, the witness stretching out his hands
sideways, with fingertips inwardly curved, though very few
persons had seen him and lived to tell the tale.

His original habitat was known to be around Chordi, because

that was the name of the village where he was first seen and near
to which he made his first human kill.

Chordi is a small roadside hamlet, surrounded by jungle, about

four miles from the little town of Kumsi, which itself is sixteen
miles from Shimoga, the capital town of the district bearing the
same name, in the state of Mysore. Shimoga is just 172 miles by a
good road from Bangalore. Nearly seventy miles of this road, at
the Bangalore end, is of concrete and the rest is tarred, so that a
motorist can generally and safely—with the exception of a few
nasty, unexpected bends—make quite good time to Shimoga.
 From there the road goes on to Kumsi and Chordi, then to the
village of Anandapuram about nine miles further on, then eleven
miles to the town of Sagar, and thence about sixteen miles, past
another village named Talaguppa, to the famous Gersoppa
waterfalls, sometimes known as the Jog falls, where the waters of
the Sharavati river descend 950 feet in four separate cascades.
That is a sight to be remembered and one that has inspired feelings
of awe and reverence in the hearts of the most callous and
materialistic of men.

There are two Travellers’ Bungalows at the head of the falls.

The one on the southern bank of the Sharavati river, which is by
far the more modern building, falls within the boundary of Mysore
state and is appropriately called the ‘Mysore Bungalow’. The
opposite bungalow, across the river and on its northern bank,
comes under the jurisdiction of Bombay state. It is an older
building, very isolated and seldom occupied—for which reason I
much prefer it. It is known, of course, as the ‘Bombay Bungalow’.

It is rather unusual—and amusing—to find the visitors’ books in

both bungalows crammed with efforts to write poetry by the
various people who have stayed in them from time to time.
Undoubtedly the grandeur of the falls has been the cause of
awakening this latent desire to wax poetical in minds that
perhaps have hitherto remained indifferent. Some of their efforts
are really laudable and inspiring; but for the rest I feel it would be
difficult anywhere else to assemble such a pile of drivel in one
place.

The depredations of the tiger accorded very closely with the

pattern of events usually associated with the careers of man-
eaters. From being a hunter of the natural game-animals that live
in the jungle, he gradually became a cattle-lifter, tempted no
doubt by the presence of the thousands of fat kine that are grazed
in the reserved forests all over the Shimoga district. Their
presence, and the ease with which he could stalk and kill them, in
contrast with the difficulties of creeping up on other wild animals,
was the first step that changed him from being an inoffensive
game-killer into an exceedingly destructive menace to the
herdsmen around Chordi.

Attack followed attack as cattle were killed by the maned tiger,

till the normal lethargy of the keepers was sufficiently ruffled to
decide to do something about it. Matters came to a head when a
more enterprising cattle-owner carried his loaded shotgun into the
forest with him when he took his animals there for grazing,
although it was against the Forestry department’s regulations for
him to enter the reserve with a weapon but without a game-
shooting licence.

However, he did just that, and as luck would have it, the maned
tiger chose that very day to attack and bring down one of his
animals. From a position behind the trunk of a tree he let fly with
his shotgun, and the L.G. pellets badly injured the tiger along his
right flank. He disappeared from the vicinity of Chordi for the
time being, and all the cattle-men were grateful to the owner of
the shotgun for ridding them of such a menace.

Then the maned one reappeared a few miles away, in the shrub
jungle that borders Anandapuram. But he still clung to his habit
of attacking cattle grazing in the reserve. He had not yet been
spoiled—had not yet become a man-eater—because the wound in
his side had not incapacitated him in any way.

Once again his unwelcome presence forced itself upon the

attention of the cattle-grazers, and once more he was wounded.
This time in his right foreleg, and from a machan as he was
approaching the carcass of a cow he had killed the previous day.
He vanished for the second time. Once more false hopes were
raised that his departure was permanent, and once again he
reappeared.
 However, there was a difference with his second return. No
longer was he the obnoxious but nevertheless inoffensive tiger
that had been so destructive to cattle, but harmless to their
attendants. This time it was the other way round; the cattle were
comparatively safe but the herdsmen were in danger—in very
great and real danger—because he had become that greatest
scourge and terror that any jungle can produce: a man-eating
tiger.

The ball that had entered his right foreleg had smashed a bone.
Nature had healed the bone, but the limb had become shortened
and twisted. No longer could he stalk his prey silently and
effectively, no longer could he leap upon them and bring them
crashing to earth with broken necks. His approach was noisy, his
attack clumsy. His ability to hold his prey was greatly hampered
by his deformed limb, and very often they escaped. Even the dull
cattle heard his approach and eluded him, or shook him from their
backs when he attacked.

Because of his disability he became thin and emaciated, and he

was faced with starvation. He—the big maned tiger—was forced
to try to catch the rats that ran in the bamboo trees, and even
they escaped him.

The only living things that were not too fast for him were the
slimy frogs in the pools of scum-covered water stagnating here and
there in the jungle, and the sharp-shelled crabs by the water’s edge
—and men. Sheer necessity, and nothing else, drove him to this
new diet of human flesh.

These are the facts about this tiger as I gathered them from time
to time. The nature of his wound I only discovered for myself
when years later I examined him after I had shot him.

Thus one day a man alighted at Anandapuram bus-stand and

began a jungle journey to a tiny hamlet three miles away. He had
left the previous morning to go to Shimoga town, and had told his
wife to keep his midday meal ready for him the next day, as he
would be back in time. The meal was prepared accordingly, but he
did not appear. This caused no untoward alarm in the little
household because the settlement of business affairs in India,
particularly in the lesser towns, is often protracted. Time is of
little or no consequence in the East.

Even that evening he did not turn up, nor during the whole of
the following day. On the third day his eldest son, a grown lad,
was sent to Shimoga to find out what had delayed his father.
There he was told that the transaction had been completed three
days earlier and that his father had left to return to his home.

Still no untoward anxiety was felt, as it was thought he might

have gone to Sagar, which is beyond Anandapuram, in connection
with the same affair.

Five days thus passed without a sign, when the family became
really anxious and alarmed. The consensus of opinion was that he
had been set upon and robbed by badmashes or dacoits on his way
home through the jungle and probably killed. The police were
informed and a search was made, which brought to light a slipper
lying among the bushes beside the track to the hamlet where he
lived.

The old slipper was identified by the household as belonging to

the missing man, and that gave further credence to the dacoit
theory. Several known depredators (K.D.S) living in
Anandapuram were taken to the police station and questioned.
They avowed their innocence.

A closer and wider search was then made. Shreds of clothing

and dried blood-marks were discovered on thorns and bushes, and
across the dry bed of a nullah the pug-marks of a tiger. Thereafter,
no traces were apparent.
 Tigers are—or rather were in those years—quite common in
those areas, and as there was no direct evidence to connect the
pug-marks with the missing man, there was only a very vague
suspicion that a tiger might have had anything to do with his
disappearance. The presence of the pug-marks might have been
purely coincidental.

The mystery was never solved.

A fortnight later a lone cyclist was pedalling the four miles from
Kumsi to Chordi. Half a mile from his destination the road crosses
the river by a bridge. A parapet of limestone—or chunam as it is
called—flanks the road. Looking over as he was riding along, the
cyclist saw a tiger drinking almost below him. He was at a safe
distance from the animal so, applying his brakes, he sat in his
saddle with one foot on the parapet and watched the tiger.

The tiger finished drinking, turned and began to reclimb the

bank. In a couple of seconds he would disappear in the
undergrowth, so for the fun of it the cyclist shouted ‘Shoo-shoo’.
The tiger stopped, looked backwards over his shoulder and up at
the cyclist, snarled and growled loudly.

Very hastily, the man removed his foot from the parapet,
applied it to the pedal, and rode as fast as he could to Chordi,
where he told his friends that along the road he had met a very
nasty tiger indeed which had tried to attack him. Only by God’s
grace had he escaped.

There was a lull for the next month or so, and then occurred the
first authenticated human killing. This happened at a place called
Tuppur, which is almost midway between Chordi and
Anandapuram. It is a little roadside hamlet, and one of the
women had taken her buffalo down to the stream behind the
village so that it might take its morning bath. It appears that the
buffalo was lying in the water with only its head above the
surface, as is the usual habit with buffaloes, when a tiger attacked
the woman who was sitting on the bank watching her protégé.
Another woman from the village had just drawn water from the
stream and had spoken a few words to the woman sitting beside
her buffalo and was passing on. She had scarcely gone a hundred
yards when she heard a piercing shriek and looked back in time to
see a tiger walking off with her erstwhile companion in his mouth.

Tiger and victim vanished into the jungle while the other
woman threw down her water-pot and raced for the huts.

What happened was usual with most incidents of this kind.

Considerable time elapsed in collecting a sufficient number of
men brave enough to go out to look for the woman. Eventually
this was done and they found her, or rather what was left of her.

That was the beginning, and thereafter followed a sequence of

human victims, whose deaths took place as far away as the road
leading to the Bombay Bungalow near the Jog Falls on the further
side of the Sharavati river.

Officialdom moves slowly, and it was a considerable time before

the reserved forests in these regions were thrown open to the
public for shooting this beast.

A number of enthusiasts turned up and the Bombay Presidency

was well represented amongst them. They tried hard and
diligently, but luck did not come their way. This particular tiger
did not seem to be tempted by the cattle and buffaloes tied up as
live bait. Meanwhile the human killings continued.

A friend of mine named Jack Haughton, who went by the

nickname of ‘Lofty’ for the very reason that he was about six foot
four inches tall and proportionately broad made up his mind to
have a try at shooting this animal and asked me to accompany
him. As far as I can remember, this trip was undertaken about one
year after the tiger had turned man-eater.
 It so transpired that for some reason or the other—most probably
because I had already used the leave due to me—I went with him
for only a week, telling him I would have to return after that time.
We travelled in his 1931 ‘A’ Model Ford car, and the arrangement
was that I should return to Bangalore by train after the week had
expired, while he would remain for a full month or so.

We motored from Bangalore to Shimoga and stopped there for

half a day in order to visit the district Forest Officer, Sagar Forest
Range, where these killings had been taking place, to find out the
names of the different places where people had been attacked and
the exact dates of those attacks, in order to establish, if possible,
by studying the sequence of the attacks, the precise ‘beat’ being
followed by this tiger.

I have already explained that man-eating tigers generally

pursue a definite course or itinerary when they become man-
eaters. By noting the names of the villages or localities where they
kill on a map, with the date of each incident, it is frequently
possible to work out the beat for oneself, and forecast roughly in
which direction or area the tiger may be at about the time one
undertakes to try and bag him.

Our study of events on a map indicated very clearly that this

tiger kept within a few miles of the roadside and operated up and
down between Kumsi and the further bank of the Sharavati river,
as far as the Bombay Bungalow.

This is a very densely forested region with many scattered

hamlets, whose occupants are almost entirely devoted to grazing
big herds of cattle. A large number of these animals are always
killed in these areas each month by both tigers and panthers, so
this fact made it difficult to find out whether our man-eater also
killed cattle or not. We felt that it was almost certain he did so, as
the human kills were too few and far between for him to have
subsisted only on a human diet. Our opinion was quite contrary to
the local one, which was that he would not touch any domestic
animals.

Lofty chose to make his camp at a small forest bungalow

situated half a mile from the Tuppur hamlet. It is a picturesque
little lodge, standing in the jungle about two hundred yards from
the roadside, and the forest in the vicinity is crammed with game,
particularly spotted deer. In that year some of the stags carried
magnificent heads and we came across quite a few outstanding
specimens.

Lofty started operations in the routine fashion by buying three

animals for bait. Two of them were young buffaloes, and the other
a very old and decrepit bull. One buffalo was tied near the stream
where the cyclist had seen the tiger. The aged bull was tied at
about the spot where the woman of Tuppur had been carried off.
The remaining buffalo we had taken and tied near Anandapuram
along the same path that the man who had disappeared had been
following on his way home.

Having completed these arrangements, we motored on to Jog

and arranged two baits there—both buffaloes—tying one of them
half a mile or so from the Bombay bungalow and the other on the
southern bank of the Sharavati, near the spot where the river is
crossed by a ferry plying between the bungalow on the Mysore
bank and the Bombay bungalow. This ferry crosses the river about
a mile above the waterfalls.

Lofty had therefore five baits in all, and I remember they cost
him quite a bit of money. The plan was that we should spend
alternate nights at the Tuppur forest lodge and the Bombay
bungalow, checking the baits closest to the place where we had
spent the previous night before setting out by car for the bungalow
where we would spend the next night.
 My calculations, made by the method of checking the dates of
the human kills, which were now nine in number, seemed to
indicate that this tiger might be somewhere in the middle of this
region between Sagar and Anandapuram.

So on the third day I bought a buffalo myself, which I then tied

up about halfway between these two places and within a furlong
of the main road. We tied this animal about two in the afternoon
on our way from the Tuppur bungalow to Jog.

Very early next morning we looked up the two baits tied in the
vicinity of the waterfalls. Both were alive. So we set out for
Tuppur, halting en route to visit the buffalo I had tied up the
previous afternoon. It had been killed by a tiger.

Lofty, being a good sportsman and considering the fact that I

had paid for this buffalo, insisted that I should take the shot. But I
knew how keen he was and so quite an argument arose. Finally we
tossed for it, and Lofty won.

Leaving him up a tree, sitting uncomfortably perched in a fork, I

drove to Tuppur lodge to fetch his machan, which we had both
most thoughtlessly forgotten to take with us on that important
day. Lofty’s contraption was nothing more than a square bamboo
frame about four feet each way, interlaced with broad navaree
tape. At each of the four corners was a loop of stout rope which
helped when tying the affair to a tree. I also brought three men
from Tuppur hamlet along with me to assist in putting up this
machan.

We ate a cold lunch by the roadside while the men made a good
job of fixing the machan and camouflaging it with branches. Lofty
then had a nap in the back seat of the car till four o’clock, while I
chatted with the three men. This was because, being close to the
road, we knew the tiger would not put in an appearance before
nightfall.
 At four I woke him up and he climbed into the machan with all
his equipment. His weapon was a 8 mm Mauser rifle—a really
neat and well-balanced job—which Lofty affectionately calls
‘Shorty Bill’. Wishing him good luck and saying I would be back
by dawn, I drove to Tuppur, where I left the three men and then
returned part of the way to spend the night at the small dak
bungalow at Anandapuram, which was closer to where I had left
Lofty over the dead buffalo.

By break of day next morning I had reached the spot on the road
opposite where he was sitting and tooted the horn of the car. He
coo-eed back to me, which was the signal we had agreed upon
before parting to signify that all was well.

I set out for his tree and met him halfway, walking towards the
car. He told me the good news that he had shot the tiger, which
had turned up much earlier the previous evening than we had
expected, arriving just after dark.

I was very happy at his success, while Lofty himself was in

raptures and simply bubbling over with joy and excitement. I
went with him to see the tiger, which was a beautiful large male
in the prime of life and handsomely marked with bold, dark
stripes.

But I noticed that the he was a very normal tiger. He certainly

did not possess the distinctive mane which the official government
notification had said was the outstanding characteristic of the
man-eater. I was surprised to find that in his enthusiasm over his
own success Lofty had apparently quite overlooked this fact and I
just did not have the heart to tell him.

I congratulated him very heartily on his success and tried my

best to appear sincere. Then leaving him to guard his precious
trophy, I motored back to Tuppur to bring four men and a bamboo
pole for lifting the carcass.
 Returning with the men, we tied the feet of the tiger to the pole
and carried him upside down to the car. As Lofty had no proper
carrier at the back that was strong enough to support the weight,
we spread-eagled the carcass across the bonnet of the car, not only
bending the metal in the process, but making it very difficult to
drive as, in spite of his height, Lofty could not see the road ahead
for some yards because of the body on the bonnet.

In driving through Anandapuram, Lofty stopped to exhibit his

prize to the townsfolk who crowded around, and it was then that
disillusionment very cruelly came to him. For, no sooner did the
people look at the tiger than they exclaimed: ‘But, Sahib, this is
not the man-eater.’ ‘Of course it is,’ replied Lofty indignantly.
‘What other tiger can it be? And in any case, how are you so sure
it is not the man-eater?’ ‘Where is the mane?’ they asked in
justification.

‘The mane?’ Lofty looked blank at first. Then understanding

crept into his eyes. Finally he looked at me accusingly. ‘I forgot all
about the mane,’ he admitted. ‘I have shot the wrong tiger. You
knew all the time?’

‘Yes, Lofty, I knew,’ I admitted. ‘But you were so happy when I

met you this morning and you told me you had bagged the man-
eater, that I just did not have the heart to disillusion you. The
mane was the first thing I looked for. Of course, there was nothing
else you could have done but shoot.’ And then, to make it seem
more convincing, I hastily added: ‘After all, the tiger came when
it was dark, and you could not look for a mane even by torch-
light. In any case, it is a magnificent specimen and a trophy to be
proud of; so cheer up, old chap.’

But Lofty was not so easily consoled. We drove to Tuppur, where

I found him so disheartened as not to be in the least interested in
supervising the skinning of the tiger, which he left entirely to me. I
watched the men at work while Lofty lay moping in an armchair.
Several times I tried to buck him up by drawing his attention to
the large teeth and claws of the animal, its dark markings and
other aspects, but he was not at all interested and refused to be
drawn into conversation. He just said: ‘Had I known it was not the
man-eater I would not have shot the poor brute.’

Instead of throwing off his gloom, Lofty got more gloomy as the
day wore on. Then he announced that, if no kills had taken place
by next morning, he would like to return to Bangalore.

We were up early next day, but the three baits at our end of the
line were all unharmed. Accordingly, we resold them to their
previous owners, as already arranged, at about a quarter of the
price which Lofty had paid for them. Then we drove to the Jog end
of the beat, but both buffaloes were alive there also. We made the
same deal with their owners as we had done at Tuppur, and late
afternoon saw us in the ‘A’ Model on our way back to Bangalore.

For some time after this I did not come across any news of this
tiger. It was over a year later, I think, that I read in the papers that
a charcoal-burner had been killed and wholly eaten by a tiger
quite near to Kumsi town and almost by the roadside.

So I wrote to the district Forest Officer (D.F.O.) at Shimoga,

requesting him to keep me informed about future kills by telegram
if possible.

The forests of Shimoga district, unlike those to the southwest of

Mysore state, and in the Madras and Chittoor districts, are heavily
sprinkled with villages and hamlets, and widely interspersed with
cultivation, particularly great stretches of paddy-fields. The roads
are also far more used, both by vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
Because of all this, not only may a tiger be anywhere at all and
difficult to locate, but tracking is left to the individual hunter’s
own skill. It is a strange fact that no aboriginal forest tribes
inhabit this area, unlike the other jungles of India. The only
people who go into the forests are coolies, of Malayalee origin,
hired in large numbers from the West Coast of India. Next to them
in number are the Lambanis. These last are the ‘gypsy tribe’ of
India, who strangely resemble their Romany cousins in the
western world. But only the women are distinctive in appearance.
They are lighter in colour than the local people and dress
picturesquely, with many ornaments, big, white bone bangles,
necklaces of beads of all colours, shapes and sizes, noserings,
earrings and rings on their fingers and rings on their toes. They do
not wear the saree in the same fashion as the other women of
India, but a distinctive costume, made up of a very widely-skirted
sort of petticoat, covered by a very tightly-fitting backless jacket,
often displaying an ill-restrained bosom, over which a large shawl-
like cloth is draped that covers the head and shoulders. The two
halves of their jackets are held together by strings at the back.

The Lambani men, on the other hand, are darker than the
women and dress very ordinarily. In fact, almost exactly like the
rest of the local villagers, who are Kanarese. They wear rather
nondescript loose turbans, and very ordinary or dirty-white cotton
shirts, covering short pants or a loin-cloth tied high about their
waists. Their knees and calves are generally uncovered, but rough
leather sandals protect their feet against thorns.

A curious fact is that the men and women among the gypsies of
southern India do not resemble each other in either facial or other
physical appearances. Most of the women are as graceful and
handsome in features as the men are ungraceful and plain.

They are an outstanding tribe of people and have preserved their

individuality very strongly throughout the centuries. I am myself
surprised at this, as the laziness of the men is such that one would
have expected their tribal distinctiveness to have died away
generations ago. It is entirely to the women that must go the
praise for prizing their own traditions, and their picturesque dress
and appearance, keeping the tribe and its customs so well-defined
throughout the years.

These Lambanis, as a whole, are nomads and do not stay in one

place for long. They prefer their own encampments of small grass
huts in cleared spaces to life in the regular villages. As a rule they
are not of much worth and they certainly do not excel as trackers.
At the same time, the credit must be accorded to them of being far
more cooperative than the local Kanarese.

Among the Lambanis, both men and women are hard drinkers,
distilling their own very potent liquor from the bark of the babul
tree; or from rice, bananas and brown sugar combined; or from the
jamun fruit after it has been soaked in sugar; or, for that matter,
from almost any material they can find—and they are most
ingenious at discovering sources.

They will work more willingly in return for wages in kind—

mainly food and drink—than for money, which in any case will be
mostly spent in purchasing liquor, if they are unable to make it for
themselves. However, they are a nice people, and one of India’s
finest exhibits among the very many interesting races and tribes of
curious and distinctive appearance.

The coffee plantations and orange estates in western Mysore

owe much to the Lambanis, particularly the women, who form
the bulk of the labour employed by them. The remainder of the
labour comes from the West Coast—from people of Malayalam
and Moplah stock. These west-coast coolies have one trait in
common. They are bound by unbreakable bonds to their homes
among the coconut trees, lagoons, rivers and breakers that tumble
on the western shores. It is indeed a beautiful country, and I can
well understand their fondness for it. Lack of industry and lack of
work of any definite sort drives them into the interior in search of
employment. But no sooner have they earned and saved some
more—for, unlike the Lambanis, they are very thrifty—then back
they go to their homeland to enjoy some months of lazy comfort.
This universal characteristic makes them rather unreliable as
plantation coolies, because one cannot be sure of their regular
attendance unless a portion of their pay is held back as a sort of
bond. The law forbids this practice to estate-owners, while on the
other hand the usual system is to grant advances to the coolies to
enable them to buy stocks of gram and other foodstuffs, blankets
and odds and ends. As can well be imagined, this is welcomed by
the Malayalee coolies, who draw their pay and whatever
advances they can collect and then disappear on French leave to
their coast-land areas.

And so the planters encourage, and have come to rely upon, the
humble and picturesque Lambani gypsy as a mainstay on the
estates. For them he has become almost a ‘must’.

My personal interest in this state of affairs lay only in the fact

that I would have to rely almost solely on my own initiative if and
when I went after this tiger. As good as they are as estate-workers,
Lambanis are not on a par with the other aboriginal jungle tribes
—like the Poojarees, Sholagas, Karumbas and Chenchus—in
tracking and general jungle lore. I only wished this tiger was
operating in one of the other forest districts where I had willing
and experienced helpers to rely upon.

A month or so after writing to the D.F.O. at Shimoga I received

from him a letter of thanks and the news that the tiger had
attacked and killed a woman who had been gathering leaves from
the teak trees that grew by the roadside about midway between
Kumsi and Chordi.

For the benefit of those who have not seen the teak tree or its
leaves, I should tell you that the latter are large in size and tough
in fibre. They do not tear easily. Hence they are much favoured for
the manufacture of leaf-plates, on which meals, particularly rice,
are served in Indian hotels. Some four or five teak leaves go to
make one such plate, which is an enormous affair by all Western
standards. They are joined together at the edges, either by being
stitched with a needle and thread, or more frequently by being
pinned together with two-inch-long bits of ‘broom-grass’. These
plates are required in hundreds of thousands to supply the
demands of the many eating-houses in Mysore state. Hence their
manufacture forms quite an industry in some of the localities
where teak trees grow in abundance. The Forest department sells
the right of plucking these leaves to contractors, who bid at an
auction for that right. The contractors in turn employ female
labour and pay the women a certain sum of money per thousand
good leaves plucked. Women are hired for this work rather than
men as they ask only about half the rate.

The D.F.O. concluded his long missive with a statement

expressing his hope that I would come to Kumsi to try and kill the
man-eater.

The extent of the area in which the tiger operated, and even
more the other conditions I have already explained at some
length, made me feel that the quest was pretty hopeless at this
stage. Also the question of leave was a great problem. Searching
for a tiger under such circumstances might take several weeks, if
not some months.

So I set myself the task of writing a very diplomatic reply. While

profusely thanking the Forest Officer for his letter, I endeavoured
to convince him of the time factor involved in trying to locate or
pin down the man-eater in any particular locality. I explained
that I did not have the time to spare just then to undertake a
prolonged trip. I also suggested that he inform all forest stations
and police stations in the area to warn the inhabitants to beware
of the man-eater, and to move in daylight only and in groups,
keeping to the main roads; also that grazers and contractors’
coolies should temporarily cease operation. Should another
human kill occur, I suggested he ask the police, as well as his own
subordinates, to urge the relatives of the unfortunate victim to
leave his or her remains untouched and send me a telegram. I also
suggested that the Forestry Department might materially help by
sanctioning the purchase of half-a-dozen buffaloes, and to tie
them out at intervals along the area where the tiger operated. I
promised to come, upon receiving telegraphic news of a fresh
victim, be it animal or human, on the condition that the body of
the victim had been allowed to remain where the tiger last left it.

Back came the response to this letter on the third day. It deeply
regretted that I had been unable to come, and added that it would
be impossible to ensure that all the villagers living in such a wide
area followed the precautions I had suggested. Further, relatives
would not consent to the body of the loved one being left out in
the jungle as a bait to entice the man-eater to return. They would
demand that they should remove and cremate it at once. Lastly,
he said that there was no provision under the rules whereby the
Forestry Department could undertake the expense of buying six
live buffaloes for tiger-bait.

Of course, I had anticipated the replies I would receive to these

two suggestions. As a matter of fact, I had merely made them to
bring home indirectly the problem I was up against in looking for
the tiger, which was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
That first letter, asking me to come to Kumsi at once, gave the
impression that the writer had perhaps overlooked some of the
snags involved, and I wanted him to appreciate my side of the
picture.

Nothing more happened for the next few weeks and then the
man-eater struck again, this time making a double-kill between
Chordi and Tuppur. News of this tragedy came to me in a telegram
from the D.F.O.—quite a long one—which stated that the tiger
had attacked a woodcutter and his son on the high road opposite
the Karadibetta Tiger Preserve near Chordi. He had killed the man
and carried off the son. Would I please come at once?
 The Karadibetta Tiger Preserve borders the northern side of the
road here. It is a large block of teak and mixed jungle, set aside by
the order of His Highness the Maharaja of Mysore and the state
Forestry department to provide a Sanctuary, where shooting is not
allowed.

The enlightened ruler of this state, with the advice and

cooperation of his far-sighted and equally enlightened chief
conservator, has allocated forest blocks in different districts of
Mysore state as game sanctuaries for the preservation of wild life.
In such places, shooting is strictly forbidden. This advanced policy
of Mysore state was a brilliant example to the rest of India of how
a far-sighted ruler and his able assistant have pioneered in game-
preservation. Such initiative may well be emulated throughout
the subcontinent, where wild life of every kind is being rapidly
shot out.

In this particular case perhaps, the man-eater had broken the

rules of the game by taking refuge in the Sanctuary, intended to be
the home of well-behaved normal tigers. I thought I would go and
see for myself, as it was significant that the majority of human
kills had occurred between Kumsi and Anandapuram. The
Karadibetta Sanctuary is almost at the hub of this area.

I left Bangalore very early in the morning next day, after getting
together the necessary kit for a ten-day stay in the jungle, which
was the longest I could afford to be absent from town. Owing to
large sections of the road being under construction for concreting,
it was two o’clock in the afternoon before I could reach the D.F.O.
at Shimoga, where I halted briefly to thank him for his
communications.

He was good enough to afford me still further assistance by

handing me two letters addressed to his subordinates, the Forest
Range Officers stationed at Kumsi and at Chordi. One directed
them to render me all possible help, particularly in purchasing
live baits, which is sometimes a bit difficult in Mysore state, while
the other ordered them to permit me to go armed into the game
sanctuary at Karadibetta in pursuit of the man-eater.

Once more I thanked him and then hastened on to drive the

sixteen miles to Kumsi. The range officer there, after reading his
superior’s letter, assured me of the utmost cooperation and said he
would come along in the car with me to Chordi to meet his
brother officer, the ranger stationed at that place.

We covered the next few miles in a short time. The range officer
at Chordi was a Mangalore Christian; that is to say, he came from
the town of Mangalore on the West Coast, one of the earliest seats
of Christianity in India. He was most enthusiastic about helping
me, and called his subordinates at once and asked them to
summon the other woodcutters who had witnessed the incident in
order that I might talk to them.

These men arrived after a few minutes and related the following
story.

A contractor at Shimoga had recently purchased the right to fell

trees in a certain sector of the forest, a mile from Tuppur for
charcoal-burning. He engaged the services of both of them, as well
as of the woodcutter who had been killed and his seventeen-year-
old son. They all had their homes in Shimoga, but had decided to
live temporarily at Chordi village while the felling operations in
the area lasted.

They had risen early in the morning of the day when the killing
had taken place—which was now two days earlier—and had set
forth to walk the three miles to where the felling was being done.
They were passing by the Karadibetta block, which was on their
right-hand side, when the son asked his father for a ‘pan’ leaf to
chew.
 I would like to interrupt my story here for a minute or two, for
the benefit of those who do not know what the ‘pan’ leaf is. It is
the longish heart-shaped leaf of the betelvine creeper and is a
great favourite among all classes of people in southern India, more
particularly among the labourers. It is made into what is known as
a ‘beeda’. On the outspread leaf some ‘chunam’ or white lime is
placed, together with three to four tiny pieces of the areca-nut,
which is called ‘supari’, perhaps a few shreds of coconut and some
sugar. The betel—or ‘pan-leaf, as it is called—is then wrapped
around the ingredients and well chewed. The white lime and the
‘supari’ causes saliva to flow copiously and colours it blood red.
As they walk along chewing, these people expectorate freely,
leaving blood-red marks from their saliva on walls, pavements,
and indeed everywhere. Europeans, who are newcomers to India
and see traces of these marks everywhere, are generally
thunderstruck at what they sometimes think to be the large
number of cases of advanced tuberculosis in the country.

Returning to our story. The father stopped to hand the leaf to his
son. To do so, he first had to remove it from the corner of his
loincloth where it had been kept tied up in a knot. Meanwhile,
the other two men had walked on. They heard a roar and looked
back to see the son lying on the road with a tiger on top of him,
while the amazed father stood by, his hand still extended in the
act of offering the pan to his son.

They then saw the father perform a magnificent art—which was

to be the last of his life and the supreme sacrifice. The old man
rushed forward, waving his arms about, shouting at the tiger to
frighten it off. What happened next was very quick.

The tiger left the boy for a moment and whisked around on the
father, leaping upon him and biting fearfully and audibly at the
man’s throat and chest. Blood gushed like a fountain from the
father’s gaping wounds. Then leaving him lying on the road, the
tiger leaped back upon the son, who was sitting up dazedly
watching his father being done to death.

At that juncture the spell was broken and the two men turned
tail and ran as fast as they could to Tuppur, nor did they once look
back to see what had happened to the boy or his father after the
last scene they had witnessed.

Tuppur, as I related, is quite a small hamlet. Besides, nobody

there possessed a firearm. So a dozen men set forth to
Anandapuram to tell the police and call someone with a gun.

It chanced that on the way they met a lorry going towards

Chordi to collect sand from the stream where it passed under the
bridge, at the spot where the cyclist had seen a tiger some time
previously.

The men stopped the lorry and asked the driver to turn around
and take them quickly to Anandapuram so that they could report
what had happened. But the driver was an exceptionally bold
individual, or at least appeared to be so. If they would all get into
his lorry, he would drive down the road to the spot where this
‘fairy-tale’—as he openly described it—had taken place. Then
they would all see what they would see. ‘What about the tiger?’
somebody had asked. ‘You have an open truck. Supposing it jumps
in amongst us and kills some of us?’ ‘Brother,’ the driver had
announced, stoutly, ‘I am here; so you have nothing and no one to
fear. Do you think I shall be idle, waiting for the tiger to jump? I
shall run my truck over the brute in a jiffy.’

Thus encouraged by the brave words of the driver, the twelve

men had climbed on to the lorry. Very soon they had reached the
spot. I was told the driver was really surprised when he saw the
father lying on the road in a great pool of his own blood—quite
dead by that time. He had thought the whole story had been
concocted from beginning to end.
 Of the son there was absolutely no trace.

The driver had lost a good deal of his self-confidence by this

time. The thirteen men stopped long enough to put the dead body
of the elder woodcutter into the lorry. Then they had driven to
Chordi at top speed. There they had picked up the range officer
and driven on to Kumsi where, after some slight delay, they were
reinforced by the Kumsi range officer and the sub-inspector of
police. The whole party had proceeded in the lorry to Shimoga
where detailed reports were made to the police and to the Forestry
Department. A perfunctory postmortem, for the sake of
formalities, was held on the woodcutter and his body was handed
over to his relatives late that night.

Next day a party of armed police returned in the same truck to

look for the son. It was said that a blood trail could be seen, and a
drag-mark where the man-eater had carried his victim through the
bushes and into the game sanctuary. After that, nobody appeared
to be competent enough in woodcraft to follow the trail, so that
the police party returned to Shimoga that evening to report that
they had failed to recover the body of the son.

And that, as far as I could see, was the complete story of the
Tiger’s latest exploit, as I was able to gather the details from the
two woodcutters who had been eye-witnesses to the whole episode
and the subsequent events.

The Chordi range officer served coffee, after which he and his
colleague who had accompanied me from Kumsi, together with
the two woodcutters and myself, set out for the scene of the attack
on the roadside opposite the Karadibetta Tiger Preserve.

I had often travelled along this road before, and this was the
second occasion on which a tiger I was after had taken refuge
within this game sanctuary. The first time had been when a
wounded animal from the village of Gowja had made for the
sanctuary, and I was able to bag it just before it had entered
within the boundary, which story I have related elsewhere.*

The range officers had visited the place already and were able to
point to the exact spot where the tiger had made his attack on the
father and son. Traffic had been considerable and all traces of
blood had been obliterated during the intervening three days
under the wheels of the many buses, trucks, private cars and
bullock-carts that had traversed the road.

The sanctuary itself starts a few yards from the road in the form
of a teak plantation. The trees at that time were of nearly uniform
height, about twenty feet tall, having been planted in straight
lines by the Mysore Forestry department some ten to fifteen years
previously. The plantation extended thickly into the sanctuary for
about two furlongs before it gave way abruptly to the natural
jungle.

Tracking beneath the teak trees, for traces of a wounded animal

leaving a distinct blood trail, is next to impossible. The ground is
carpeted with fallen and dried leaves which take or leave no
impression. In this case, the boy the man-eater had carried had
apparently bled but little. Although the woodcutters pointed out
the exact spot where the beast and its victim had disappeared, we
were able with diligent searching to find only three places where
blood had dripped on to the teak leaves. It was not worth wasting
time on a further search.

I knew the sanctuary extended northwards to a stream and cart-

track that connected the village of Gowja on the west with
another village named Amligola to the east. The cart-track and
stream formed the northern boundaries of the sanctuary proper,
although the jungle itself extended for many more miles. A wise
plan appeared to be to tie four live-baits on the four boundaries of
the sanctuary, and another at its centre, as I had obtained special
permission to shoot this tiger within this hallowed area if occasion
arose.

I told the two range officers (R.O.) that I would need their
cooperation in procuring these five baits, as past experience in
this area made me rather sceptical of being able to get as many as
five animals because the people opposed the sacrifice of cattle as
baits and would not cooperate. They told me not to worry and
that they would have the baits sent to me by nine o’clock the
following morning.

At Kumsi is a forest lodge—the one at which the emergency

operation had been performed to amputate the arm of the
Reverend Jervis after being mauled by a tiger. I decided to camp at
this bungalow, and asked the Kumsi R.O. to let me see the baits he
could get before having them driven to Chordi to join the others
which his counterpart at Chordi had undertaken to procure. I did
this because I am quite particular about the live-baits I use. Very
sick or aged cattle, already close to death’s door, are often palmed
off to a sahib as bait. He then wonders why the tiger does not
readily kill them. But the tiger is a shikari and a gentleman, like
the sahib himself, and not a jackal to be satisfied with a diseased
bag of bones.

My companions had been very fidgety while I had been talking

about the baits, for it was six o’clock and the shades of night were
fast approaching. I had not been unduly nervous, however, as I
knew we were safe as long as the five of us kept close together. We
threaded our way through that dense teak plantation in a very
closely-knit bunch, I can assure you, till we regained the car
standing on the road. It did not take long to drop the Chordi
officer and the two woodcutters at the former’s residence, and we
were back at Kumsi in less than fifteen minutes.

I slept soundly at the forest lodge that night and went across
early next morning to the R.O.‘s quarters to see how he was
getting along with the job of buying the baits. Despite his
confidence of the evening before, I felt that with all his influence
as a local forest officer, he had underestimated the difficulties he
faced. It was as well I went there, for he had not yet started on the
job.

To cut a long story short, it was past 10 a.m. before he had got
three animals together. One was a buffalo-calf. The two others
were scraggy old bulls. I did not at all approve of the latter, but the
R.O. said it was the best he could do. Moreover, they cost me quite
a lot of money.

We assigned three men to do the task of driving them along the

four-mile stretch of road to Chordi and set off for that place in my
car at eleven, reaching our destination just ahead of the three
animals.

The Chordi R.O. had procured a half-grown bull—quite a nice

animal, brown in colour—and said the second bait in the quota
that he was to fill had been sent for that morning and was coming
soon. It took an hour to arrive, and it was twelve-thirty before we
had all five animals together. Half the day had already been
wasted.

As a result, we were able to tie out only three of them that day.
The best, the half-grown brown bull, I tied in approximately the
centre of the sanctuary. The buffalo-calf was tied a few yards
inside from the road to the south, where the attack had been
made. The bait on the eastern flank of the sanctuary, which was
incidentally about five miles north of Chordi, was one of the old
white bulls.

Again it was sunset by the time we had finished, and I left the
remaining two animals at Chordi, saying I would return very early
the next morning to select the places to tie them out, which you
remember were to be the remaining two sides of the rough
rectangle formed by the sanctuary, on its northern and western
flanks.

Before dawn next day I was motoring back to Chordi along with
my friend the Kumsi R.O., who had been up and ready, waiting for
me. A large sambar stag ran across the road about halfway to our
destination and he remarked that it was a lucky sign.

At Chordi, the R.O. there said he would accompany me to tie

out the remaining two baits, and he instructed his subordinate, a
forester, to take two forest guards and one of the men who had
been with us the previous day, and so knew where they were
located, to see if the baits to the east and the south of the
sanctuary were alive. We ourselves would look up the third one,
tied out in the centre of the sanctuary, as we would make a short
cut through it before turning off to the western and northern
boundaries. We all set out together, and it was over an hour and a
half later that we came to the bull-calf I had tied near the middle
of the sanctuary. It was alive and well.

You must not overlook the fact that in tying each live-bait, the
question of feeding and watering it each day had to be considered
also. To feed it is not much trouble as a bundle of hay or grass is
sent along for its consumption each twenty-four hours, but
watering often provides quite a problem. Of course a pot or a
kerosene tin might be provided and refilled with water each day,
but this method has its own snags. Invariably the animal knocks
over the receptacle, or breaks it if it happens to be a pot, while the
proximity of a kerosene tin often makes a tiger too suspicious to
attack. So the best method is for the men who visit the bait each
day to untie it and lead it to some pool or stream, water it there
and then bring it back. Rarely, however, does such a pool or
stream happen to be handy for the purpose, and frequently the
beast has to be led for a mile or more to a suitable place. Villagers
are mostly lazy and apathetic by nature, and they generally feel
such a long walk is unnecessary. In their logic, the animal has
been tied out to be killed, anyhow. So why worry about watering
it? This is a point that all hunters who tie out live-baits in India
should bear in mind. If they do not supervise these daily visits, or
at least employ reliable men to do the work for them, and should a
tiger or panther not make a kill, it is almost a certainty that the
poor bait has spent a very parched and thirsty week, unless the
place where they have tied him has water close by, or it has been
provided in a container.

In the present case there was a stream half-a-mile away. We led

the animal there, allowed it to drink its fill and then brought it
back.

You may wonder if it is not easier to tie the bait beside a stream
or pond to overcome this problem of watering it. Very often this is
done, as the tigers themselves visit such spots to drink. But there
are other factors, too, to be considered. Nullahs, game-trails, fire-
lines and certain footpaths, cart-tracks and even sections of roads,
along which tigers are known to walk frequently, are equally good
places to tie up, and may have an added advantage of tiger pug-
marks being noticed there regularly. The places at which these
tracks intersect are even better. Tigers do not always stroll along
the banks of streams, especially where streams are many. We had
tied this particular bait on a game trail along which tigers often
walk, so the Chordi range officer had assured me the previous
evening, when we had been searching for a likely place.

We secured the two animals we brought with us to the feet of

convenient trees at suitable places on the western and northern
boundaries of the sanctuary. But it was past noon before we had
finished.

Of course you should not for a moment imagine that, by doing

all this, we had completely ringed the tiger within the sanctuary.
For the sanctuary extended for miles and it by no means followed
that, wherever he came out, he would be confronted by one of my
baits. I had only done what was possible under the prevailing
conditions, and the rest was left to fate or luck, whichever name
you prefer. And fate played a fickle game that day.

It was close on three p.m. and we were on our way back and
close to Chordi, when a group of men tilling their fields on the
outskirts of the clearing that lay around that hamlet informed us
that the forest guards we had sent out that morning had found
that the buffalo-calf, tied near the spot where the man-eater had
killed the two men, had been killed by a tiger the night before.
They said the guards had been unable to get word to us as they did
not know exactly which way we had gone or how we would
return. So they had told all passers-by to inform us if they
happened to meet us on the way.

After hearing this news we hurried back to Chordi, where the

two range officers roundly abused the guards for not coming to
inform us of what had happened. They were hardly to blame, poor
fellows, for we ourselves had been on the move the whole
afternoon, and had they come to try and catch up with us they
were very likely to have failed and caused still greater delay. In
the circumstances, I felt they had done the wisest thing by
remaining ‘put’ at Chordi and sending word by all who passed
through the village. In any case, it was not too late to put up a
machan if we hurried, and the news that they had taken the
precaution to cover the kill with branches—against a visit by
vultures—caused me to intercede on their behalf.

By 3.30 p.m. my Studebaker was standing on the road to the

south, opposite the place at which we were to enter the teak
plantation and walk the little distance to where we had tied up
the buffalo-calf. In three minutes we had unroped my folding
charpoy from the luggage-carrier at the back of the car. I had made
this charpoy quite recently and it was an improvement on the old
one, in that the frame was only a little more than half the normal
length. It was therefore easy to transport on my luggage-carrier
without overlapping the width of the car at either end. Wide
khaki navaree tape, for comfort and for unobtrusive colouration,
was what I sat upon, the bands of tape being interwoven in the
manner of a mat. The ends of the tape were permanently looped
around the bamboos that formed the rectangular frame. The four
legs at the four corners were but a foot long, extending beyond the
rectangular frame for about six inches above and below. This was
to allow sufficient purchase by which to tie the machan to a tree.
The whole structure was simple, light, very portable and most
comfortable; above all it did not creak at the slightest movement,
as did any normal machan put together with branches lopped
from trees.

Although the average height of the teak trees here was about
twenty feet, being comparatively young, there were a few of much
greater age and therefore taller; I had tied the buffalo at the foot of
one of these, in case the occasion should later arise for putting up
a machan. There was no other choice in this instance, for there
were no other trees than teak growing in that plantation, and as
teak trees have their branches fairly high up, it meant that I had
to sit at a greater height from the ground than usual.

That confounded tree gave me a devil of a lot of trouble to

climb, as there were no branches for the first twelve feet, and I
never excelled as a climber of perpendicular poles. However, I
stood on the shoulders of one of the forest guards, when all
willingly helped to push and shove my legs a little higher till I
could get a grip on the first branch and haul myself up. Due to the
large size of the teak leaves, it was a simple matter to hide the
machan completely from view. Moreover, as they were the only
leaves growing there, the camouflage arrangements we made were
most efficient, in that the machan became inconspicuous and
blended naturally with the surroundings. The fork of the tree
where we had placed the charpoy was over twenty feet from the
ground.
 The calf’s neck had been broken and half the beast had been
eaten, but there was just about enough left to justify another visit
by its killer.

Neither of the range officers could drive a motorcar, nor could

the two forest guards, but as the two woodcutters had also come
along with us, I told the six of them to push my car at least half-a-
mile or more away in order not to alarm the tiger should he cross
the road anywhere nearabouts. Actually I had not thought of this
until we were unroping the charpoy from the car. In any case, the
road was more or less level, and the six men should not have too
much trouble in trundling my ‘Stude’ along.

It was just 5 p.m. when they left me on the teak tree, and I
figured that in another twenty minutes or so they would have
moved the car and the way would be clear for the tiger to cross the
road, provided he came from that direction. Perhaps I was being
unduly optimistic, and he would not come at all.

Well, he came all right; but it was only at about a quarter past
eight, when it was quite dark. He gave me quite a lot of time to
know beforehand, or rather the herd of spotted deer with their
shrill calls, and a barking deer, with his hoarse, guttural ‘Khar-r-r
Khar-r-r’ bark, did this for him. They had announced his passing to
all the denizens of the jungle for the last mile or so of his journey.
No wonder tigers are reticent animals. The popularity—or is it
unpopularity?—that is often forced upon them by the humbler
inhabitants of the forest must indeed be embarrassing. On this
occasion, I am sure that the tiger had felt more than embarrassed.

Anyway, he came without undue caution, and I could hear his

heavy tread crunch the dry fallen teak leaves long before he stood
over his kill.

I shone my flashlight and he looked up at me, full in the face. It

took about three seconds for me to notice, even in torch-light, that
he did not appear to have any distinctive ‘mane’. But I could not
take the chance and he dropped to a bullet through his heart.

I waited fifteen minutes, just to make sure he was dead. He did

not stir and I was sure. So I descended, having to jump the last
seven or eight feet down from that infernal tree. I am perhaps
heavier than I should be, and the jolt with which I came to earth
did not cause me to think kindly of the practice of leaping from
trees. I approached the dead tiger and looked carefully. I muttered
invectives then. As I had known, even as I fired, this was not the
man-eater; for the dead beast had no ruffle of hair at his neck.
Once more the culprit had escaped, and once again an inoffensive
tiger had paid the penalty. Besides, I would have some explaining
to do to the D.F.O. at Shimoga. He had given me special
permission to shoot the man-eater in the tiger sanctuary—but
definitely not a harmless beast.

Well, it was just too bad.

I regained the road and walked towards Chordi, expecting to

come up with my car where the men had pushed and left it. But
there was no car on the road.

Poor fellows, I thought. They had misunderstood me and pushed

it all the way to Chordi, which was about two miles.

I came to Chordi and to the Ranger’s quarters. Both officers were

there. I announced that I had shot a tiger, but that I was almost
sure it was the wrong tiger, as it had no mane.

It might be the man-eater after all, they argued. Perhaps he had

dropped his mane in the last two years. Or perhaps he never had a
mane from the very beginning and that the description was only a
myth. That was a point, I conceded; but my hopes did not rise.

Then I asked them where they had left my car. Car? Why, sir,
they explained, you left it pointing up the road, away from
Chordi. We did not know how to turn it towards Chordi, while
you had very definitely instructed us to push it away from that
spot for at least half-a-mile. We did that, sir, but in the opposite
direction.

Well, life is like that, I said under my breath. It has its ups and
downs. Tonight was one of those in which the ‘ups’ predominated
—or was it the ‘downs’? I could not find the answer.

Some more coffee followed. Then a carrying party assembled

with bamboos, lanterns and ropes, and we made our way back.
While the men were securing the tiger to fetch it to the road, I
walked in the opposite direction and found my car exactly four
furlongs away.

We were back at Kumsi in a little over an hour.

Next morning I skinned the tiger, while the two range officers
wrote out their official report to the D.F.O. at Shimoga. I had shot
a tiger without a ruff, they wrote. It might not be the man-eater.
The special permit I had in my possession enjoined that I should
shoot the man-eater and nothing else within the boundaries of the
Karadibetta Sanctuary. They closed their joint statement by
leaving it to their superior officer to ‘take such further and
necessary actions you best deem fit’.

Then they apologised to me for. having had to write such a

report.

I waited till my leave was over, but none of the other baits was
killed. The D.F.O. at Shimoga wrote to me officially that his
rangers had reported I had shot a tiger within the sanctuary which
was said not to be the man-eater, whereas the permit handed to
me had been for the man-eater and no other animal. Would I
please explain?
 Now, I have lived all my life in India. As such, the ‘redtapism’
that goes with all government transactions was well known to me.
But I did not get annoyed at receiving the D.F.O.‘s
communication. I wrote back an official letter stating that I
regretted he had been misinformed that the tiger I had shot was
not the man-eater. I affirmed that it was the man-eater itself, and
no other tiger, that I had shot within the sanctuary in accordance
with the provisions of the special permit that had been so kindly
granted to me for that purpose.

So what? Everybody was happy. Official decorum had been

amply satisfied on all sides. All concerned had strictly and very
properly performed their duties.

The time came for me to return to Bangalore. I thanked the two

range officers for their help, sold the remaining four baits back to
their owners for less than a quarter of the price I had paid for
them, and set out on the homeward journey. On the way I stopped
at Shimoga to pay my respects to the D.F.O. He informed me that I
had replied wisely to his letter asking for an explanation and
apologised for having written it, saying he had to do so in face of
the report that his two range officers had made to him. I told him
not to worry and that I was accustomed to such things, adding
that it was I who had told the ranger officers that I had shot the
wrong tiger when I discovered it had no mane. We parted good
friends.

A whole year went by. There had been no more kills since the
old man and his son had fallen victims. That had been somewhere
about the beginning of the previous year. Or it may have been a
few months later—I really forget now. Everyone thought the story
of the maned man-eater had been a fable and that I had shot the
actual miscreant. I thought so, too, till disillusionment came.

A tiger killed a man on the outskirts of the town of Sagar,

which, as I have said, was on the road beyond Kumsi and
Anandapuram, before it reached the Jog Falls. A fortnight later he
killed a second man near Anandapuram, and then within the next
month another man and woman at the villages of Tagarthy and
Gowja respectively. Both these places are within a ten-mile radius
of Anandapuram. Early in August he carried off a Lambani boy in
broad daylight. He had been grazing his cattle close to the main
road on the outskirts of Kumsi town.

The man-eater had returned from wherever he had gone after

killing the old woodcutter and his son beside the sanctuary, and
now was killing in real earnest. Or if it was not him, he had been
replaced by another of his kin who was taking human victims at a
far faster rate.

I manipulated matters to get a week’s leave, which was the most

I could manage, and motored to Kumsi. The D.F.O. at Shimoga
had been transferred and another officer, whom I did not know,
had taken his place. But he wished me success. I enquired of him
as to whether the two range officers at Kumsi and Chordi were the
same that I had met there early the previous year, and was glad
when he answered in the affirmative.

It was a meeting of old friends, therefore, that took place at

Kumsi when I met the ranger again at his quarters, and the same a
little later at Chordi, when I met his colleague. Both the officers
were of the opinion that the present man-eater was quite a
different animal, and that I had indeed killed the right tiger over a
year previously within the sanctuary. Their reason for saying so
was the fact that no human kills had taken place since that time,
till within the last couple of months. If I had not shot the man-
eater, then where had he been for all those months? Once a man-
eater, always a man-eater. A tiger has never been known to give
up the habit altogether. So wherever this tiger had strayed, he
must have killed at least some human beings during that period
and we would have heard of it.
 I must say their argument appeared very sound, and I was
convinced in spite of myself.

We held a conference over what to do next. This tiger had killed

at Sagar, Anandapuram, Tagarthy, Gowja, and now at Kumsi. It
was the same area as that over which the other man-eater—the
so-called maned tiger, if there had ever been such an animal—had
operated two years earlier and more. Where was I to tie my baits?
Where should I begin? We could not quite make up our minds.

The matter was decided for us the next day. As luck would have
it, the tiger took a herd-boy in broad daylight at Amligola, which
you may remember was the terminal point of the northern
boundary of the Karadibetta sanctuary at its eastern end. In other
words, Amligola formed the northeastern corner of the rough
rectangle that was the sanctuary. The forest guards there hastened
to report the matter to their R.O. at Chordi headquarters, who
came to Kumsi at once to tell me about it. It was 3 p.m. when he
arrived.

To reach this place, Amligola, the two range officers and I had
to make a detour and follow a very, very rough cart-track beyond
Chordi. Amligola boasts a delightful little forest lodge, with the
stream that forms the northern boundary of Karadibetta flowing
close behind it. This stream empties itself into a large tank about
two miles away. The boy had been grazing cattle by the side of
that tank. The tiger had walked up the bed of the stream and had
attacked the boy at about nine in the morning. He had not
touched the cattle, although they were feeding all around the spot
where the boy had been standing. After the killing, the tiger had
walked back with his victim along this stream and into the jungle.

I was shown the pug-marks of the tiger as it had come towards

the boy, and its tracks on the return journey, where a drag-mark,
made probably by the boy’s feet as they trailed along, could be
clearly seen. There was hardly any blood along the trail.
 It was late evening by the time we had seen all this, and it had
become too dark to try to find the body of the poor youngster. This
was a great pity. I chafed at the unfortunate circumstance that
had brought the news to us at Kumsi so late. Although we had
made every possible effort to arrive earlier, the bad cart-track
leading to Amligola had wasted time, as I had not wanted to break
a spring or an axle. Had I been able to find the remains that
evening. I would have sat up over them for the tiger to return. I
cursed my bad luck.

The range officers slept in one room of the forest lodge. I slept in
the other. The two guards had gone to a godown which adjoined
the kitchen, a separate building to the main bungalow, where
they barricaded and bolted the door.

A tiger started calling shortly after midnight. He appeared to be

within a mile of us. He called again and the range officers heard
it. They tapped on the door that separated our rooms to attract my
attention, in case I should be asleep. I opened the door and let
them in, telling them that I had been listening to the calls myself.

I then opened the main door leading on to the narrow front

verandah of the lodge. Moonlight poured down on the jungle
around us, and shone in at one end of the verandah. Only in a
tropical land can one ever hope and appreciate to the full the eerie
thrill of a moonlit night in a forest. As I gazed outside, drinking in
the wonder of it all, the tiger called again, this time much closer.
Suddenly I realized that the beast was walking along the bank of
the stream that flowed a few yards behind the bungalow and
would probably pass within the next ten minutes. Was this the
man-eater?

I decided to chance my luck.

It took only a couple of minutes to fix my flashlight on to its

two clamps along my rifle barrel. I ran out of the bathroom door at
the back of the lodge, brushed through the thin hedge of young
casurina trees that bordered the compound and ran down the
slope at the rear that led to the bed of the small stream.

I could see the surface of the water glistening and twinkling in

the moonlight, although it was very dark under the trees which
grew by the bank on which I stood. I have told you that this
stream formed the northern boundary of Karadibetta. The
opposite bank was within the sanctuary. The forest lodge and the
bank on which I was now standing were just outside its limits.

The tiger called again. It was fast approaching and hardly a

quarter of a mile away. I would have to act quickly if I wanted to
ambush him.

The all-important question was this: along which bank was he

walking? If he was on the opposite or Karadibetta bank, I would
have to get much closer to the water’s edge if I wanted to see him
in the moonlight and get in the shot. On the other hand, if he was
coming along the same bank as the one on which I was standing,
and if I went down to the edge of the stream, the tiger, when he
passed, would have the advantage not only of seeing me
silhouetted against the moonlight on the water, but of himself
being on more elevated ground. That could be most dangerous and
disadvantageous for me if he made a charge.

He called again—about a furlong away. There was no time

whatever to lose. I decided to take a chance. Most probably he was
on the opposite bank of the stream and within the sanctuary.

Meanwhile my eyes had been searching desperately for a place

to hide. A clump of reedgrass grew about two feet from my bank,
completely surrounded by water. I knew the stream was shallow,
so I ran down to the edge and silently waded the two feet, taking
care not to make any splashing noises. Then I squatted low in the
grass. Two or three minutes passed in dead silence. I could not see
into the deep shadows cast by the trees on either bank.

Then the tiger moaned again directly opposite me—and on the

very bank on which I had just been standing. He was passing at
that very instant.

I counted, one-two-three-four-five, so as not to have him

completely level and above me. Then I pressed the switch on the
flashlight. There, hardly fifteen yards away, was his striped form.

He halted in his tracks and turned around. He was facing right

side on, so that I had to take the shot behind his right shoulder. He
sprang into the air and fell backwards. I fired a second and third
time.

Then he realized where I was and came for me, sliding and
stumbling down the sloping bank. At a distance of barely five
yards, my fourth bullet crashed through his skull.

Later, as I examined him, I marvelled at the unusual ruff of hair

growing around his neck. It formed a regular mane.

Some jungle mysteries can never be solved, and one of them is

why this tiger had a ‘mane’ at all.

_____________

* See Nine Man-eaters and One Rogue.

 9

Man-eater of Pegepalyam

HIS is not a complete story of the exploits and downfall of a

T man-eating tiger because the tiger of which I write is very
much alive at the moment of writing. There is an official record of
it having killed and eaten fourteen persons, although unofficially
its tally of victims is said to amount to thirty-seven men, women
and children. Of this unofficial estimate about half had actually
been wholly or partially eaten, the remainder being just mauled
by the animal’s claws. The official record considers only
individuals killed and eaten, and not those mauled. This accounts
for the discrepancy between the official and unofficial death-rolls.

The interesting feature of the story I am about to tell is that I

believe this tiger to be the same animal of which I wrote in an
earlier book in a story entitled the ‘Mauler of Rajnagara’.* When
writing that account, a tiger had taken up his abode at the foot of
the Dimbum escarpment, in the district of North Coimbatore, in
the scrub jungle bordering the foot of the hilly plateau and about
midway between Dimbum to the north, at the top of the steep
ghat road up the hill, and the town of Satyamangalam on the arid
plains at the foot, to the south.

The nearest village to the scrub jungles at the foot of the hills
bears the name of Rajnagara, and since the tiger began his exploits
against the human race by persecuting the herdsmen from this
village who led their cattle to pasture in these scrub jungles, he
became well known as the tiger of Rajnagara. Moreover, he earned
a particular reputation because of a peculiarity in his mode of
attack—or at least it was so at the time I wrote that story. The
peculiarity lay in the fact that he would rush out of cover and
severely maul a herdsman by scratching him with his claws and
then invariably carry off his own selection from the herd of cattle
which would be milling around during the attack on the
herdsman. At that time there was no authentic case of his having
bitten any of the human beings he had attacked. One or two
persons were listed as missing and it was presumed the tiger had
devoured them, but there had been no definite evidence to
corroborate that presumption. All that was known was that this
tiger always mauled his victims by clawing them—not by biting.

This peculiar habit gave rise to a universal belief that he was an

animal that had been wounded in the face or jaw in such a way as
to prevent him from biting. At the same time it was found that he
generally made a very hearty meal of the cattle he killed after
mauling their herdsman, which proved that he could bite and eat
perfectly well when he was so disposed. Altogether, it was a most
unusual and peculiar case, which has never been satisfactorily
explained or proved, although many were the ingenious
explanations put forward to account for this habit.

I have related how I tried to shoot this tiger and how I failed. He
was a most elusive animal. Finally I returned to my home in
Bangalore, leaving the ‘Mauler of Rajnagara’ the undisputed
winner of the first round of our encounter. I sincerely trusted the
time would come when there would be an opportunity for staging
a second round, when I hoped for better success.

A few friends and well-wishers have since written to me,

inquiring if there is any sequel to that story. An old acquaintance
of mine, Joe Kearney, went as far as to send me a cablegram from
Los Angeles, California, stating he was looking forward to further
developments regarding this particular tiger.

Alas, I could not satisfy the curiosity of any of them, for the
‘Mauler of Rajnagara’ stopped his mauling, and simply faded out
shortly after my visit. We all hoped that he had become a reformed
character and had perhaps turned over a new leaf with the new
year. Or maybe he had just gone away to some distant jungle or
even died a natural death. Time passed and the herdsmen of
Rajnagara resumed their accustomed cattle grazing in the scrub
jungle that surrounded their farmsteads and came home in the
evenings, tired but unmauled.

And then, one evening about nine months later, the sun began
to set behind the Biligirirangan range of mountains some fifty
miles north of Rajnagara, as the crow flies. Its oblique rays cast
elongated shadows to the eastern side of the few huts that
comprised the little hamlet of Pegepalyam, set in a clearing of the
jungle, with the mountain range to its west, and the road from
Dimbum to Kollegal flanking it to the east, barely two miles way.
It was the time that the cows come home, and within a few
furlongs of the village the local herd was wending its way along
the forest tracks that led to Pegepalyam; two herdsmen, a man
and a boy, were bringing up their rear.

Ravines, densely wooded, intersected the country. In the rainy

season they were rushing torrents of water draining away
eastwards, after cascading down the mountain range to the west.
But on that balmy evening they were bone-dry, and the twitter of
bulbuls and the rustle of several groups of ‘seven-sister’ birds lent
an air of peace and tranquility to the scene.

The cattle crossed one of these dips in the terrain, the adult
herdsman was halfway across and the boy was on the further bank
as it sloped down to the bed of the ravine. A clump of young
bamboos surrounded by nodding grass-stems barred his way, and
the tracks made by the cattle herd just ahead passed around it, the
dust raised by the many hooves as yet unsettled. The boy
followed, engrossed in his own thoughts.

The adult herdsman ahead thought he heard a hollow sound,

followed by a sort of gasp and turned around to find the cause.
There was nothing to be seen. The track behind him led the way
to the bamboo clump. Nothing and no one was on it. The
herdsman resumed his course in the wake of the herd. No doubt,
the boy would come along.

Finally they neared Pegepalyam. The herdsman looked back

once more. Again there was no sign of the boy. He called him by
name: ‘Venkat, Venkat,’ he called, but there was no answer. The
herdsman hesitated a while and called again, but still there was
no response. Meanwhile the cattle were forging ahead towards the
village, and as he did not want to leave them alone he followed
them into the village. Then only did it become evident that the
herdsboy had not turned up.

No serious notice was taken, as there might have been a

hundred reasons for the boy’s delay. But after an hour or so had
passed and the boy had not appeared, the herdsman recollected
that he had missed him after the track had circumvented the
clump of bamboos. He also remembered the hollow gasping sound
he had heard and came to the conclusion that something had
happened to the boy. Perhaps he had been bitten by a snake. The
thought of a man-eating tiger or panther never entered the
herdsman’s mind, as such a menace had never yet been heard of in
the tranquil vicinity of Pegepalyam.

So he turned back and hastened to the bamboo clump. He

circumvented the bend in the track, and there, clearly and boldly
superimposed over the hoof-marks of the herd of cattle and his
own footprints, were the pug-marks of a tiger, the signs of a brief
struggle, and a drag-mark where the killer had hauled away his
victim.

And thus the man-eater of Pegepalyam came to public

knowledge.

Time passed and desultory human kills were reported from

scattered places, southwestwards as far as Talavadi and
Talaimalai, perhaps thirty miles away; eastwards at the base of
Ponnachimalai hill, and another on the banks of the Cauvery river
at Alambadi, over forty miles distant; and one more in a northerly
direction, barely six miles from the big town of Kollegal. That one
was the latest, being that of a fifteen-year-old boy who was boldly
attacked and dragged off the field where he was working at about
10.30 a.m. in blazing sunlight.

A significant fact about this man-eater is the information that

was brought in on the occasion of a kill that occurred some three
miles from the spot where he had taken his first victim, the
herdboy of Pegepalyam. Three men were traversing a cart track
that led into the jungle and had formerly been used by carts for
extracting felled bamboos from the forest. Because of the activities
of the man-eater, such felling operations had been almost
suspended, and when people entered the jungle they only did so if
it was imperative; never alone and always in broad daylight.
These three men had urgent business, which accounted for their
presence, their number, and the time of day which was just before
two in the afternoon. They had eaten their midday meal at
Pegepalyam and had almost reached their destination. They
expected to be back by 3.30 p.m. at the latest.

Suddenly and without warning, a tiger sprang on to the track

just ahead of the leading man. The party came to a halt,
transfixed with terror. Then the tiger attacked the leading man,
standing up on his hind legs and clawing his face. His companions
made for the nearest tree, which was fortunately close by, and
scrambled up it. Meanwhile, with commendable presence of mind
and great courage, the man who had been attacked swung blindly
at the tiger’s head with the knife that all Sholagas carry for
lopping wood or clearing a path through the undergrowth. The
blow caught the animal on the side of its head and glanced off.
The tiger roared with pain at this unexpected retaliation, and the
natural cowardice with which all man-eaters appear to be imbued
caused it to leave its victim and spring back into cover.
 Meanwhile the other two men had succeeded in scrambling to
the topmost branches of the nearby tree, whence they looked
down in terror on the scene below them. Blood poured from the
face and chest of their companion, welling from the deep wounds
that had been inflicted by the tiger’s claws. He was sitting dazedly
on the ground, numbed with shock. The men in the tree called to
him: ‘Brother, come and climb this tree quickly. It is unsafe to
remain on the ground. The man-eater may return.’

The wounded man heard them, clambered to his feet and taking
the turban from his head, began to mop up the blood that poured
from the many scratches he had received. Again the men on the
tree called to him, and he turned to walk towards its base with the
intention of climbing. But fate had decreed that his days on this
earth had run out. The man-eater’s momentary cowardice had
been supplanted by rage, probably caused by pain from the wound
where the brave man’s knife had cut through the skin on the side
of his head. With a rush it was upon him, and this time a mighty
blow of his foreleg across the back of the man’s head broke the
neck. Hardly had his body fallen to the ground than the tiger
picked him up in his jaws and walked into the jungle in full view
of the two men in the tree.

I visited Kollegal and Pegepalyam soon after this incident and

spoke to both these men. Their accounts were unusually
consistent with each other’s and clear in detail. They both agreed
that on both occasions when the tiger had attacked, he had done
so primarily with his claws and not with his teeth.

Memory rushed back to me. Could this be that elusive tiger, the
‘Mauler of Rajnagara’, that had beaten me at the first encounter,
grown bolder with the passage of time and become a confirmed
man-eater, to appear now as the ‘Man-Eater of Pegepalyam’? The
evidence of the two men appeared to indicate the likelihood that
this tiger was the same animal.
 I took a lot of trouble in pursuing my inquiries on these lines,
not only at Pegepalyam itself but at one or two of the nearer
hamlets where this animal had claimed his victims, and also with
the Forest Department at Kollegal. A number of the human
victims had been recovered before the tiger had completely eaten
them. All had been clawed, but they had also been bitten. There
was no conclusive evidence that the tiger killed only by clawing,
as had been the method of attack by the ‘Mauler’; and in any case,
the actions of clawing and biting would both take place on any
carcass in the normal process of a tiger eating it.

My first visit to Pegepalyam lasted only a week, but the man-

eater did not touch any of the three live-baits I offered. Nor was
there any news of him whatever during that period. Duty called
and there was no excuse for extending my leave. I returned to
Bangalore.

Since then, as I have indicated, the man-eater has killed again—

a fifteen-year-old boy in broad daylight and in an open field, with
the big town of Kollegal only six miles away. This time my son,
Donald, is going after him and hopes to have more luck than I did.

We would both like to know very much if the man-eater is the

mauler of which I have told you, although there seems no possible
way of proving this point unless Donald succeeds in finding some
reason for the quite unusual habit the mauler had of attacking
with his claws rather than his teeth. If he succeeds, Donald will
have certainly unravelled a most intriguing jungle mystery.

And as I think these thoughts, these pages and this handwriting

once again fade from sight. In imagination I see the roaring flames
of a camp-fire before me, from which cascades of sparks shower
fitfully into the darkness, while a thick spiral of smoke curls
upwards to the sky.
 It is a clear night, but few of the myriad stars that spangle the
sky are visible owing to the glow from the camp-fire.

With all its vigour, the flickering light is only able to dispel the
shadows for about fifteen yards around me. Beyond is blackness—
intense, silent and all-pervading, like some solid substance,
covering and enveloping everything—the blackness of a jungle
night, a blanket of velvety gloom.

Yet more smoke curls from the bowl of my pipe as I puff at it

contentedly. The smoke rises to merge with the smoke from the
flames and finally disappears in the flickering, fitful radiance from
the fire, with its comforting though slightly oppressive heat.

Silence broods around me, broken only by the crackle and hiss of
the flames.

Then I hear it. Over the hills and far away, but drawing nearer
and nearer. ‘O-o-o-n-o-o-n! A-oongh! A-oongh!’ It is the call of a
tiger!

I have heard it so often before, and the more I hear it the more I
thrill to that awful yet wonderfully melodious sound.

‘Ugha-ugh! Ugh! Aungh-ha! A-oongh! O-o-n-o-o-n!’ There it is

again! The tiger is drawing nearer, ever nearer.

And in my imagination I like to think this will be the ‘Man-

eater of Pegepalyam’.

_____________

* See Man-eaters and Jungle Killers

The Call of the Man-Eater

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. The Call of the Man-Eater
2. The Evil One of Umbalmeru
3. A Night by the Camp Fire
4. The Black Rogue of the Moyar Valley
5. Jungle Days and Nights
6. The Creatures of the Jungle
7. The Sulekunta Panther
8. From Mauler to Man-Eater
 Introduction

N THIS new book of adventure stories I have striven to do

I something more than provide an account of the pursuit of some
of the larger wild animals of the beautiful land in which I live. I
have endeavoured to recapture and portray to the reader’s mind
not only the events as they happened but also the background in
which they took place.

The chapter entitled A Night by the Camp Fire’ is a description

of what has occurred many times when I have spent such a night
in the forest, and I have tried to take the reader with me on such
an excursion, and to introduce him to the sights, sounds and
incidents that are likely to be experienced. In two later chapters I
have let myself go, so to speak, in thinking aloud about the many
wonderful days and nights in which strange or amusing incidents,
and even some foolish ones too, have taken place. These memories
are very precious indeed to me, and I trust I shall never live to
outgrow or forget them. If in recording these musings of mine I
have been able to bring to the reader even a fraction of the
pleasure I have derived from recounting them, I will be more than
satisfied.

I have also related some of the habits of a few of the lesser-

known creatures of this wonderful land, and of some of the better-
known creatures too, in order to bring them to the reader more
intimately—my humble friends of the jungle in whose company I
am very happy and contented.

A big movement has just started in India, although

unfortunately very late, to instil into the public mind a love of the
wild creatures around them, priceless living gems in the diadem of
India that have all but vanished for ever. Many places that once
teemed with game and resounded to their joyful and melodious
voices are now realms of silence. Before this unique heritage
becomes altogether a thing of the past, it is the duty of the
government, and more particularly of every Indian, to put an end
to the wanton slaughter that still goes on, night after night and
every day of the year. For the sportsman of the future, I would
strongly advocate the camera instead of the rifle and gun. It can
give you every bit as much fun—clean fun, unstained by the smell
of blood, the sight of death, and the pricking conscience of regret.

So I invite you on a wonderful journey to places that may be

new to you and are vastly beautiful to behold—the jungle that
throbs with life, although hidden from your view. At night you
can feel it around you, just outside the range of your flickering
camp fire, where the wall of blackness begins and stretches far
into the moonlit forest aisles and glades, or into the deep shadows
of the jungle on a moonless night, where, to quote Lawrence
Hope:

There was no sound; he gave no cry,

The careless stars looked on serene.
The jungle’s sudden tragedy
Remained unheard, unknown, unseen.

The soughing of the night wind through the boughs of the lofty
trees, the quiver of a million leaves that whisper like a distant
ocean; the flash and flicker of fireflies that dart among the
branches; the blackness all around, and the deeper blackness that
moves stealthily within it unseen; and the weird, unearthly cry of
the distant jackal pack: ‘Ooooo-ooh! Ooh-where? Ooh-where?
Where? Where?’ And the answer of the leader, punctuated by the
chorus of vixens: ‘Yes, Here! Hee-re! Hee-ee-yah! Yah! Yah! Yah!’
Then at last that awesome but thrilling call that sweeps across the
hills and echoes through the mist-laden valleys: ‘A-oongh! O-o-n-
oon! Augh-ha! Ugh! Ugh! U-u-u-gh!’ The call of the man-eater!
 So put your man-made cares aside and visit these wondrous
regions with me, where the jungle presides and the laws of nature
hold sway. In the words of still another poet, let the wild places
speak to you in the silence of your heart and mind:

So ye learn within my arbours

Where the sleeping wild things lie,
A reverence for nature
Which the city’s streets deny,
Ye learn the real value
Of the man made from the loam;
And ye kneel and thank your Maker
As ye wend your footsteps home.

—Kenneth Anderson
 1

The Call of the Man-Eater

T WAS just after midnight, and the darkness outside was

I intense. I lay comfortably stretched in the long armchair on the
verandah of the forest bungalow at Joldahl, with both feet upon
its wooden rests, smoking my pipe and listening to the sound that
is music to the ears of every jungle lover in India and a challenge
to every shikari and hunter.

It moaned across the forest range; and then, as the creature

padded its silent way through the jungle, clearly to my ears came
the softer sigh of contentment in the knowledge that it was the
supreme lord of all it surveyed. ‘Ugh! Ugh! Ughaugh!’

In my imagination I could picture the caller. In that intense

darkness its tawny coat, with the bold black stripes and the white
spots behind the ears and at the base of its throat and belly, would
hold no colour to an observer were he able to see them. Indeed, it
would be unrecognizable as a tiger at all. The watcher would only
see, if he could see at all, a black shadow, blacker if possible than
the surrounding jungle.

If the watcher happened to be a man, unaided by a torch or

moonlight, he would see nothing, for human sight is not made to
see more blackness where the blackness is already complete. He
would know, however, and unmistakably, that a tiger was near.
The roars that seemed to make the very jungle tremble would tell
him; and the watcher would tremble himself. If he was a trained
and experienced hunter with exceptionally acute hearing, he
might catch the faint rustle of grass, or the sound of a leaf
brushing against some heavy body as it passed. He would not hear
the crackle of a twig, because the tiger would not be so careless as
to step on such a thing, for he is himself a hunter, and hunters do
not betray their presence nor make mistakes.

Should the observer be seated on a low branch of a tree and the

tiger pass directly beneath, and should he have a really keen sense
of smell, he might possibly wonder at the sudden, very strong
‘greenish’ odour that might be carried briefly to his nostrils. Then,
if he is a religious man, he might be wise to raise a hurried prayer
and hold his breath, and not move a muscle nor flicker an eyelid.
For although a tiger has practically no sense of smell, he has
abnormally acute hearing and marvellous sight, to catch the
minutest of movements in his vicinity. Should he hear or see the
watcher at that instant, the watcher might watch no more.

For the tiger to whose roars I was listening was no ordinary

tiger. He was a man-eater!

You may well ask what was the use of all this stealth, this
wonderful hearing and sight, this uncanny sixth sense that all
tigers possess, when the stupid brute was advertising his presence
by moaning and sighing and roaring? Which is a fair question, and
one which is difficult for me to answer convincingly, not being a
tiger myself. I can only make a suggestion. Most strong people,
well developed muscularly, good boxers or wrestlers, cannot
remain silent and modest about their prowess. All of us are
tempted at times to boast of our accomplishments. Even men who
‘have a way with the ladies’ talk of their conquests and say they
are irresistible. Perhaps the tiger is just such an egoist, announcing
far and wide that he is the unvanquished, the fearless, the all-
conquering lord of the jungle, and finds joy in hearing his own
challenge echoing across the hills and valleys, the glades and
thickets of the forest, knowing full well that every living thing
that hears him will fear and tremble and hide. Perhaps he is
morose and lonely, tired of his own company, just as you and I feel
at times, seeking company, especially if that company should be a
sleek, graceful, beautiful tigress. May be he has just eaten
heartily, and he is merely going for a late after-dinner walk to help
his digestion; you and I do that sometimes, too, and while we
walk we whistle or sing.
 But I have started this tale badly and have been rambling, when
I should have begun at the beginning. I certainly cannot tell you
why the tiger was there, beyond the fact that tigers do live in
jungles. But I should have explained how I came to be lying in the
armchair on the verandah of the Joldahl forest bungalow at dead
of night, smoking my pipe and listening to those awe-inspiring but
marvellous and melodious sounds.

It all came about in this way. Just over a dozen miles from the
town of Shimoga, which is the headquarters of the district of the
same name, in the state of Mysore, is the almost equally large
town of Bhadravati, which has become an industrial centre of
considerable importance, boasting a large iron and steel foundry.
The iron ore, mined at a place named Kemangundi, some miles
away on the Baba Budan mountain range, is conveyed downhill
by a succession of cable-buckets to the works at Bhadravati. Fuel
is provided by charcoal from wood constantly felled in the
extensive surrounding forests. The glow from the blast furnaces of
Bhadravati is visible for many miles reddening the horizon and
reflecting against the clouds in the sky.

Joldahl is about fifteen miles from Bhadravati, on a road that

leads more or less eastwards to Chitaldroog. It is completely
surrounded by dense jungle and boasts a delightful Forest
department bungalow. About ten miles southwest of Joldahl, and
also in dense forest, is another forest bungalow, slightly less
picturesque. This is situated at a place called Gunjur.

I had often camped at Gunjur in the old days. It is a pretty spot.

But the only word to describe-the road that leads directly to
Gunjur is ‘vile’. It branches off to the east from the main road
from Bangalore to Tarikere and Bhadravati, about five miles
before reaching Bhadravati. From that point it is no longer a road
but a cart-track, and a very bad cart-track at that. I have
negotiated it in my Model T Ford in early years, and in my
Studebaker since then. In all its twenty miles my sympathies and
unstinted praise have gone to Henry Ford and the Studebaker
brothers. My nerves were at breaking point all the time, yet I
never broke a spring or an axle on any of the trips I made there.

At the Gunjur bungalow there lived a very hard-working and

obliging caretaker who did all he could on every occasion to make
my stay comfortable. This caretaker had a lovely little daughter.
She was about twelve years old when I first met her, and she was
very interested in watching the cars and in scanning my firearms
at a respectful distance. Also, like her father she was very helpful.
She would fill her waterpot at a spring nearly a furlong away and
carry the load to pour into the old zinc tub in the bathroom of the
bungalow, for my use.

This child grew up into a lovely girl of about seventeen years.

Her father had, customarily and painstakingly, made all the
arrangements for her to marry a respectable villager at Joldahl,
and the marriage was soon to take place.

One day she took her waterpot to the spring to fill it for the use
of her father and herself. They lived in the humble outhouse
(known as a ‘godown’), sandwiched between the kitchen and the
garage at the rear of the forest bungalow. But she never returned.
For, as she stooped to dip the pot in the spring, the man-eater got
her.

He carried her away, screaming, into the jungle that grows to

the edge of the spring. Her father heard her. He had no gun.
Grabbing a woodchopper as his only weapon, he gave chase,
running as fast as he could, till he actually overtook the tiger.

He shouted at it in Kanarese—his native tongue: ‘Let go my

child, you brute. I will slay you for this.’

The tiger heard and turned. He saw the man running behind.
The cowardly streak that is latent in the heart of every man-eater
filled him with fear. But the feebly struggling victim in his mouth
offered too tempting a meal to be so easily relinquished. So the
tiger increased his pace and bounded away into the jungle, while
the poor girl’s cries grew fainter and feebler and soon died away. I
was later told by the bereaved man that he never found his
daughter’s remains.

There is no road connecting Gunjur and Joldahl, only a winding

footpath that creeps down densely forested valleys and across hills
for about ten miles. Joldahl itself, as I have said, is fifteen miles
from Bhadravati, on the road to Chitaldroog, and roughly
northeast of Gunjur. That road at least is quite a good one.

I am told that it was about two months later that a little

Muslim boy went fishing in the small lake that lies about six
furlongs from the cluster of huts that form Joldahl hamlet. He
must have had quite a bit of luck, for a dozen fish, including
murral, cat-fish and small carp, were found afterwards in the
basket he had brought, together with the two rods he was using.

Fishing in India, by the way, is not done with reels, or by using

bait such as ‘spoons’ and ‘fly’. The rod is a thin length of bamboo;
the reel a length of string; the float a quill, made from the wing-
feathers of a peafowl, horned-owl or hawk; and the bait is an
earthworm dug up in the ditch by the wayside.

Perhaps the luck he had met with had caused the boy to dally
further into the evening than he would have done had he caught
fewer fish. He stayed till it was getting dark. But dusk is the time
when tigers come out. And the man-eater was no exception.

The boy never returned home. Eight o’clock came and it was
time for food. His father and eldest brother, who knew he had gone
to the tank to fish, took lanterns and sticks and went to fetch him.
Probably they intended to beat him with the sticks. They found
the two rods and the basket of fish. But not the little boy. Instead,
the light from their flickering lamps revealed the pug-marks of a
large tiger in the ooze. The tiger had come out of the jungle, had
slipped in the mud, and had gone back to the jungle. But not
alone. The tiger had taken the boy with him.

On the grass was something that looked black and shiny. When
they stooped and touched the shiny blackness and looked at their
fingers, they found them red. It was blood. Father and son ran
back to the village.

Then there was a third killing, but nobody worried about it. A
madman had turned up at Joldahl; no one knew who he was or
whence he came, and being quite mad he could not tell them. In
India, lunatics are treated with a certain toleration. Little boys
and girls may sometimes tease them. The elders check the children
and give the madman a handful of food. Beyond that they take
little notice of him.

So the madman ate such food as was given him in charity and
slept by the wayside at night, outside the locked doors of the huts.
But one morning he was found to be missing; nobody showed any
concern. Two days later, a couple of forest guards patrolling the
jungle that surrounds the village, saw vultures circling in the sky
and swooping to earth. So they thought at once that some animal
had been killed, perhaps a deer, and that there might be some flesh
left on the carcase — enough to sell, or anyway to eat. They
hurried to the place where the vultures were gathered and found
there, not the remains of a deer, but the whitening bones of the
madman. Only his head, that lay at a little distance and grinned
at them as stupidly in death as in life, provided the clue that
identified the bones as those of the missing lunatic. Imprinted in
the soft sand around the head were the pug-marks of a tiger, a
fairly large one.

I had not even heard of these killings till a friend of a friend of

mine, who had been motoring from Chitaldroog to Bhadravati,
stopped for a couple of days at the Joldahl bungalow to do a little
hunting. There he heard about the tiger and its three victims. The
bungalow caretaker at Joldahl, being distantly related to his
counterpart at Gunjur, had told him that the first victim had been
the promising daughter of the man who looked after the Gunjur
bungalow. When he returned to Bangalore, the gentleman told a
friend of mine all about it. Knowing I am in the habit of following
up such information, Joe Thompson, the friend in question, passed
the story on.

The death of the girl whom I remembered so well prompted me

to write a letter to the Forest Range Officer at Joldahl, asking for
details and particularly whether the rumour I had heard, that the
daughter of the caretaker at Gunjur had been the first victim, was
really true. His reply, five days later, confirmed the sad tale.

So I went in the Studebaker direct to Joldahl, where I learnt the

story I have just related. That had been forty-eight hours earlier.
Since then I had walked to Gunjur by the ten-mile footpath and
met my old friend, the caretaker, there. He wept bitterly as he
recounted his daughter’s tragic end. I promised him that I would
try to avenge her and asked him to let me know at Joldahl should
he hear or see signs of the tiger within the next week.

He had suggested that I should camp at Gunjur, but I said I

preferred Joldahl for two reasons. Firstly, there had been two
killings there. Secondly, the Studebaker was available for quick
transport and the roads were usable. Then I returned by the same
path to Joldahl.

I had been sleeping inside the bungalow that night when I

awakened shortly after midnight to hear the tiger calling in the
jungle, and I had come out to the armchair on the verandah, to
smoke and think and listen to that awesome sound. As I heard it I
could not refrain from thinking back a few years to the happy face
of the pert little girl who had been so interested in my cars and my
guns each time I visited Gunjur; who had fetched water for me of
her own accord; who had grown into a handsome lass on the eve
of marriage; who had now fallen prey to the magnificent but cruel
beast to whose call I was at that very moment listening.

It came again! A-oongh! Aungh-ha! O-o-o-n-o-on!’

Involuntarily, I shuddered. The sound faded into the distance,

and as far as I could judge the tiger was going towards Gunjur,
probably walking along the very footpath that led there. I
determined to check this first thing in the morning and fell asleep
as I thought about it.

The mosquitoes were active until dawn and prevented my sleep

from being particularly sound. But I was up before daylight, and
after swallowing some coffee and chappaties, waited for the sun to
rise a little before setting out to try to pick up the trail of the
animal that had been calling the night before. It would not have
been safe to have set out earlier with the possibility of the tiger
lurking anywhere in the bushes beside the path. The half-light of
early dawn can be as deceptive as the evening twilight, whereas I
knew that with the rising of the sun the man-eater, in all
probability, would retire till evening to some sheltered and remote
spot to avoid the heat of the day.

I found what I was seeking a little over a mile from the

bungalow. The tiger had walked along a narrow ravine, then leapt
on to its bank and had started to follow the very path I was
traversing, which led to Gunjur. His fresh saucer-like pug-marks,
that had been made a little after midnight, were clearly imprinted
in the powdery earth as he walked along the centre of the track.
He had been disdainful of any interference, for he had been calling
as he had walked, knowing well enough that every living creature
would keep out of his way.

There was no conclusive evidence that this tiger was the man-
eater; but something about his haughty manner told me that it
was so, and I was reasonably certain that I was correct. I decided
to follow the pug-marks to discover whether the tiger had indeed
gone all the way to Gunjur or had turned back after covering part
of the distance.

I found that for two miles or more the beast, whose pug-marks
showed that he was a large male, had walked along the centre of
the footpath. Then the tracks dipped to the dry bed of a stream,
which the tiger then began to follow. As far as I could judge by the
position of the sun, which was climbing higher and growing hotter
every moment, the stream led roughly southeastwards, so that
tiger track were now moving away from both Gunjur and Joldahl.
But this was not for long. After about half a mile he had climbed
the right-hand bank of the stream and had entered the forest,
where I soon lost sight of his tracks on the hard, dry gound.

It occurred to me that he might have doubled back on his trail

and had returned through the jungle to rejoin the footpath to
Gunjur which he had been following before he had met the
stream. With this idea, rather than flounder about in the
undergrowth, I retraced my footsteps till I met once again the
pathway leading to Gunjur. I began to follow it and was delighted,
after I had walked nearly a mile from the stream, to find the tiger’s
pug-marks again in the sand before me. I had guessed correctly. He
had taken a short cut through the forest to resume his former
course towards Gunjur.

This action clearly revealed that he had made up his mind to go

there, and I knew from my experience that he would not change it
unless something extraordinary occurred to make him do so. My
surmise proved to be right for, excepting a deviation here and
there, the tiger had followed the footpath all the way to Gunjur.
Keeping sight of his tracks had prevented me from walking as fast
as I might have done, so that it took me four hours to cover those
ten miles, and I presented myself to the caretaker of the bungalow
just after eleven o’clock.
 This man’s name, I must tell you, was Ananthaswamy, and I
told him how I had heard the tiger calling at Joldahl shortly after
midnight and had followed the pug-marks that morning direct to
Gunjur. Ananthaswamy told me he had been awake since four in
the morning but had heard no sound from the tiger. However, two
or three sambar had belled shortly after 4.30 a.m., while the
spotted deer had been restless at dawn, sounding their calls of
alarm from the base of a small hill to the south of the bungalow.
We agreed that the tiger’s silence, together with the alarm cries of
the two species of deer, showed that he had come to Gunjur on
serious business.

Now it is a mistake to think that every man-eating tiger or

panther subsists on human flesh alone. Both species, particularly
the former, are voracious eaters, and if they should decide to live
on human flesh only, two things would happen. In the earlier
stages the number of people who would die would be enormous, as
on an average a tiger makes a kill at least twice a week. After
that, when people had become so cautious as not to afford the
tiger the opportunity of killing them, he would eventually starve
to death. What really happens is that the man-eater takes a liking
to the flavour of human flesh, encouraged all the more by the fact
that he soon finds human prey much easier to catch and kill than
wild animals. So a stage is reached when he will prefer killing and
devouring a man, woman or child to killing domestic cattle or
wild animals like deer and wild pig. But when he cannot easily
find a human being he has no hesitation in reverting to his natural
diet till the next opportunity offers. Added to this is the strange
fact that, no matter how many people he may kill and eat, a man-
eating tiger and panther remain basically afraid of the human
race. This has been proved over and over again when a man—or
sometimes a woman—has resisted or attempted to resist and even
retaliate. Often enough the fiercest of man-eaters has turned tail
and fled. But never at any time does a tiger fear domestic cattle or
the wild beasts he preys upon, with the exception of the adult bull
bison and the elephant.
 So, not having had the luck to catch another human being at
Joldahl, the tiger had evidently decided to come to Gunjur, where
the low hills and wide grassy valleys are heavily stocked with
deer. The chances were that he would stay there for some days,
slay and eat a few sambar and spotted deer, and when well-filled
would start thinking once more of indulging his newly-acquired
taste for human flesh.

Except for the caretaker, who was now living alone, there were
no other people at Gunjur, for there was no village. So after the
few days were over, the tiger would probably go back to Joldahl, or
try his luck around one of the other small villages bordering the
main Bhadravati-Chitaldroog road. There was thus every hope
that the man-eater would remain in the vicinity of Gunjur for the
next two or three days at least. This hope would be strengthened if
he succeeded in killing a deer and satisfying his immediate
hunger, when he would lie up and feed on the remains during the
following forty-eight hours. And there was no reason why he
should not succeed, for Gunjur, as I have already said, abounds in
deer: sambar, spotted deer, jungle sheep and four-horned antelope.

It is also a favourable place in which to bait for tiger, because

the clearing in which the forest bungalow stands, and also the
spring not far away, are encircled by small hillocks, which would
afford the tiger a grand-stand view of any bait that might be
placed conspicuously in the open valley below.

Unfortunately, apart from my rifle, I had brought no kit with

me. My torch, my warm dark clothes for sitting up at night, my
primus stove and stock of provisions were all at Joldahl bungalow.
But that was ten miles away and I had just covered the distance.
To go back for these things and then return again with them
meant a thirty-mile trip altogether. The prospect was not enticing.
Besides, I could not complete the trip before nightfall.
 Ananthaswamy offered to lend me his torch, although it was
only a two-cell affair. He also offered free board and lodging if I
was prepared to share the only food he had— ragi balls. Ragi balls
are prepared from ground ragi grain made into a dry porridge and
then pressed together with both hands into a ball about the size of
a cannon ball. It is very wholesome and sustaining, but quite
tasteless.

Having accepted his invitation, there was another and greater

snag to be overcome. Ananthaswamy had no animal of any sort to
tie up as bait. He did have a dog—a rank, mangy cur. But a dog is
useless as bait for tiger. Besides, as a dog lover myself, I refuse to
use one as bait under any circumstances.

There was one more question. Was I not being rather over-
optimistic? How did I know for certain that the tiger I had
followed was the man-eater? He might be just a normal, extremely
well-behaved and inoffensive game-killing and cattle-lifting beast.
I talked the whole thing over with Ananthaswamy. His dark eyes
glistened with pleasure when I accepted his hospitality and said I
would stay with him for a couple of days. He said he was sure the
quarry was the man-eater because there were no other tigers in
the vicinity at that time. As for bait, he said that could easily be
solved. He would himself sit or stand in the open as bait while I
hid under cover or on a tree -machan to shoot the tiger—if possible
before it leapt upon him. And in the same breath he said: ‘Don’t
think, dorai , that I am doing this for your sake. Don’t think I am
doing it because I am brave and have no fear—for I am terribly
afraid too. But I am doing it—and doing it cheerfully— in an
attempt to avenge my little daughter. She was everything to me—
all I had in the world after her mother died at childbirth and her
elder brother, just a little later, of smallpox. I will gladly sacrifice
my life to bring about the death of her cruel slayer.’

His simple and magnificent courage was touching and affected

me deeply. But this was no time to indulge in sentiment; nor did I
want a brave man’s blood on my hands. Remember: the nights
were dark and I would be using his two-cell torch. Nor had I
brought the clamps with which to fix the torch to the rifle. I
would have to hold it in my left hand and try to shine it along the
barrel of the rifle while shooting. That would entail delay—at
least a couple of seconds in which to get the beam correct. And
even one second would be long enough for the tiger to pounce on
Ananthaswamy and kill him.

Very emphatically, I answered: ‘No.’ Then, in order not to hurt

his feelings while concealing my real reason, I added: ‘I shall need
you beside me to shine the torch on the tiger when he comes,
while I fire at him.’

Ananthaswamy appeared dissatisfied with the explanation I

had given him. He said: ‘Dorai can hold the torch in his own left
hand up against the rifle, and still shoot.’

Sensing the beginning of an argument I replied: ‘No, absolutely

and finally, no!’

After that we sat in silence for some time. We were each

thinking deeply. Then an idea occurred to me. The man-eater had
carried off this man’s daughter at the spring where she had gone
for water. Perhaps the tiger would remember the kill he had
succeeded in making there. Also he had probably seen the girl, and
even Ananthaswamy for that matter, go to the spring for water on
several occasions. At least he would associate that spring with the
occasional visit of a human being. The spring was just a furlong
from the bungalow and in a slight depression clearly visible from
the surroundings hills. Yes, indeed; the spring would be the best
place at which to prepare the bait. As the nights were dark and I
had no torch-clamp, that bait could not be either Ananthaswamy
or myself. So the only alternative would be to make a dummy to
resemble a man in the act of drawing water from the spring, while
I would hide myself as near as possible. Near enough for the dim
light from the two-cell torch to be effective.

I detailed my thoughts to Ananthaswamy, who was elated. He

said: ‘Come, dorai; we will go at once to the spring and you can
select the place where you will hide and shoot the tiger when he
attacks the dummy this very night.’

I looked at him squarely, and he returned my look equally

squarely. There was frankness and eagerness in his eyes and not a
trace of fear, and I knew that this man would not again take ‘no’
for an answer.

We rose and walked to the spring. The water trickled out from a
crack in a flattish rock that lay on the ground. It flowed down a
slight slope to a small pool almost three feet deep and about ten
feet across. It was from this pool that both father and daughter
had been drawing their water throughout the years during which
he had been caretaker of the Gunjur bungalow. The overflow of
water spread into the jungle where, being insufficient to form a
stream, it was absorbed by the earth. The continuous dampness
had caused a growth of lush green grass for about twenty-five
yards. Then the jungle began again. Ananthaswamy told me that
when he first came to Gunjur the undergrowth grew right up to
the pool and had enveloped it. With his daughter’s help he had cut
this away for about twenty-five yards, so that now only the grass
grew there.

The problem that presented itself was: where were we going to

hide? The nearest tree in which a machan could be built was well
over 100 yards away. That distance was much too great to cover
with the beam of a torch that held only two cells that were far
from fresh. It appeared that the whole plan we had hatched of
sitting over the dummy was about to fizzle out, for there just did
not seem any place in which we could hide.
 I asked the caretaker if he had any ideas. He replied very
ruefully that he had not. One fact emerged as quite unavoidable.
We would have to sit on the ground somewhere and conceal
ourselves as best we could. Or we would have to abandon the
whole scheme. The nearest sizeable tree was too far from the pool
and the feeble light of Ananthaswamy’s torch could not possibly
cover that distance. I had tested it in the caretaker’s godown and
could see that its cells were already half-exhausted.

By common consent, we walked across the twenty-five yards or

so of grassy ground to where the undergrowth began. Neither of us
had spoken a word, but it was as if we both accepted the
inevitable. Here was where we would have to sit—if at all—to
await the tiger.

The undergrowth was of the usual sort; wait-a-bit thorn bushes,

lantana and other jungly shrubs, all matted together in close and
dense profusion. The wait-a-bit thorn is unpopular with everyone,
both human beings as well as animals, as it offers an impossible
barrier when it grows really thickly; while even a solitary tendril,
should it come in contact with your clothing will hold you up for
quite a while. If it comes in contact with your flesh, you must be
prepared to leave some of your skin behind, impaled on the
numerous needle-sharp, hook-like thorns.

At one spot, just where the undergrowth commenced, there was

just a wait-a-bit thorn bush; quite a large one, in fact. No man
without a knife could possibly pass through it. No animal could do
so either, for that matter, except an elephant. So at that moment I
looked upon the bush with great favour. It seemed to have saved
the situation.

Ananthaswamy,’ I asked, ‘are the two iron spring-cots still in

the bungalow?’
 ‘Yes, dorai ,’ he replied. Then, as the strangeness of the sudden
question registered itself in his mind, he added: ‘If the master is
tired, I will open the door of the bungalow and he can lie down
and sleep undisturbed.’

Apparently quite irrelevantly, I continued: ‘Is there a third such

cot on the premises?’

I could see his eyes widen with surprise, and I almost laughed
aloud. His thoughts at that moment were written large upon his
frank countenance. What on earth can this man want a third cot
for? There are two as it) is, and being alone he can only sleep on
one of them. He did not answer my question.

I repeated it: ‘Is there a third such cot available.

Ananthaswamy?’

His eyes opened still wider; but he held himself in check

admirably, ‘No,’ he answered. ‘Just the two that have always
been here.’

‘Come, Ananthaswamy,’ I said, turning towards the bungalow.

‘Open the door. I want to go inside and look over the furniture.’

Sunstroke, undoubtedly; or some other form of madness. The

poor dorai! How unfortunate that this should happen at such a
critical moment! The caretaker could not disguise his thoughts.
This time I did laugh openly.

‘Don’t be alarmed, Ananthaswamy,’ I explained as we retraced

our steps to the little lodge. ‘I am not going mad. It is in my mind
to form a sort of cage for you and me to sit in, right where that
wait-a-bit thorn-bush now grows. The two cots turned up on their
sides—the longer sides by the way—will form a sort of barrier for
us. In between the springs we will weave the wait-a-bit thorn
branches and tendrils that you will have to cut. The front will be
open, for in that direction we will face the dummy.
 ‘But there is one snag, Ananthaswamy. A mighty big one. We
will have to find something, some third article of furniture, to
form the third barrier on the third side. For we can only watch in
one direction, and not in two, my friend. Don’t forget the nights
at this time are dark; very, very dark. And your torch is in poor
shape.’

It took quite a time for the plan I had outlined to sink into his
mind. We were walking while we talked, and when finally he did
catch on, he reacted rather unexpectedly. Coming to an abrupt
halt, the caretaker bent double, slapped his thighs with the palms
of his hands, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

‘By Krishna!’ he chortled, ‘I never heard of such a plan before.

We are to make a cage of the two beds and some other furniture
and sit inside it to wait for the tiger? And the beds will be covered
with the wait-a-bit thorn? Dorai, I will tell this plan to my
children, and my children’s children, after them. I swear it.’

Poor Ananthaswamy. He quite forgot he had no children. The

tiger had devoured his only remaining one. Besides, there was
little prospect of being able to make good his intentions. For he did
not even have a wife!

He opened the door of the bungalow and we went inside. The

two iron spring cots were there, one in each of the bedrooms. The
other furniture consisted of a large dining table, two smaller
tables, two dressing tables (one with a cracked mirror and the
other with no mirror at all), one fairly large almirah, the usual
armchair common to all bungalows, and about half-a-dozen old,
wooden-bottomed chairs. In the bathroom was an ancient zinc
tub, a brass wash-basin on an iron stand, and a towel-rack. There
were no commodes; for purposes of that sort one had to go outside
to a mud-walled latrine, where there was a hole in the ground
topped by two flag-stones.
 I looked at this array of furniture with sinking feelings. For one
thing, the almirah was too massive and the two of us could not
carry it for a furlong to the spring. The small tables were too
small. So we had to choose between the dining table and the
armchair for our third barrier. The dining table was certainly the
safer and more sturdy alternative. But the trouble lay in the fact
that its flat top, when laid sideways, could not easily be hidden by
the thorns or even with leaves. It would prove a very conspicuous
object that would not only arouse the suspicions of the tiger, but
might frighten if off altogether. But at least the shape of the
armchair lent itself to a little disguising.

‘We will take the armchair,’ I decided, explaining my reason to

the caretaker.

I looked at my wristwatch. The time was 12.25. ‘If your ragi

balls are ready, Ananthaswamy, we will eat them. Then we must
set to work. We have a terrible lot to do.’

I ate half a ragi ball. It was as much as I could manage.

Swallowing the tasteless stuff was aided by frequent gulps of
water. But Ananthaswamy ate two. Then he put water in a
degchie and left it over the remains of his fire. This was to make
tea when we returned. We would need it then; we certainly would
be tired.

Ananthaswamy brought his hatchet and handed me a spare

chopper of sorts, rather a blunt one. We traced our steps to the
spring and set to work in earnest. First we cut down the wait-a-bit
thorn bush, a task that left us bleeding from many scratches and
perspiring from our exertions. Then we went about 200 yards away
and cut undergrowth of the same nature as that which was
growing at the place where we intended to sit up. This consisted of
lantana and other bushes, but certainly no more wait-a-bit thorn.
We carried—but not dragged—this stuff to where we had cut down
the thorn bush. Dragging would leave a trail that might make the
tiger suspicious. It was two o’clock by the time we had assembled
all the necessary camouflage.

Next we returned to the bungalow, from which we carried the

beds one at a time, one of us at either end, to our selected spot.
The rear would naturally be the weakest link in our defence.
There we laid one of the cots on its longer side, legs facing
outwards. The second cot we placed on its side at right-angles to
the first, its legs also facing outwards. Then we returned to the
bungalow for the armchair, which we took back and laid on its
side, again with legs facing outwards, on the third side of our
rough cage—the side facing the bungalow. This we did because we
knew it was the flimsiest of our three flimsy barricades, while it
was least likely that the tiger would approach from the direction
of the bungalow itself. The fourth side of our ‘square’ was of
course open. It faced the grassy patch before the pool where we
were going to place our dummy.

Now began the painful task of threading the branches and

tendrils of the wait-a-bit thorns into the springs of the two cots,
and between the legs and through the canework bottom of the
armchair. To conceal the outside of the three articles of furniture
completely, we added the undergrowth we had cut and brought
from two hundred yards away.

It soon became evident that we did not have nearly enough

camouflage to do this task effectively. We had to make another
half-dozen trips for more, and even then we had barely enough.
Anyway, the task was finished by 4 p.m. Looked at from a distance
and from various angles, our zareba appeared to be more or less
the same wait-a-bit thorn bush that had been growing there a few
hours ago. But I was not happy about it. It seemed too much like
wishful thinking to accept to deceive such a cautious animal as a
tiger with such poor and very obvious camouflage.
 Our only hope lay in making the dummy so realistic as to
attract the tiger’s attention and keep him from looking too keenly
in our direction. Success I knew would also, to a large extent,
depend on the angle from which he approached. If this was from
either flank, there might be a chance that he would not notice our
place of concealment. If he came directly from the opposite
direction, our hide would be plainly in view and the chances
would be ninety per cent against us. But if he came from behind
and discovered us, what then? Well, we would not be long in
doubt, anyway. Either he would become afraid and just slink
away, or he would attack. The chances were about fifty-fifty.

We had to hurry and make the dummy. It was very late already.
Getting back to Ananthaswamy’s little room, we ransacked his
boxes, his bedding, and everything he had. There was no time,
and sufficient material, to make anything like a realistic dummy.
His filthy old pillow, black with oil from his hair, formed the torso
of the dummy. I punctured this at either side, greatly to his
consternation, and stuck a bamboo through the holes; protruding
at both sides this bamboo would form the two arms. Another short
one at the end of the pillow, into which the rim of a small
earthenware cooking-pot was inserted, would be the head. There
were no bamboos for the legs, so the dummy would have to appear
to be squatting beside the pool; a natural enough position,
anyway, for a man to be in when drawing water.

On to the pillow went one of the caretaker’s old torn shirts, the
bamboo arms protruding through its sleeves. Over that a white
coat, to make it conspicuous. Around the earthenware pot, a
turban of sorts. That was easy enough, anyhow.

But how on earth were we to keep the dummy sitting up? I

looked around desperately. Then an idea struck me and I dived
into the bathroom coming back with the wooden cross-member
from the towel-rack. A final hole at the bottom of the pillow,
which was almost ruined anyway, and the cross-member from the
towel-rack was forced through the cotton, past the bamboo that
formed the arms, and through the opening at the base of the
earthenware head, to reinforce the bamboo that was already
there. That made quite a good neck. At least it was strong.

It only remained to plant the other end of the cross-member

firmly in the ground. But it was five o’clock already. There was no
time for food. Who wanted another dose of ragi ball, anyhow? And
no time for tea. That was tragedy. In our hurry we forgot about the
tea and the water became cold again.

‘Bring the hatchet and the other chopper, Ananthaswamy. Put

on a warm coat, too. Don’t forget the torch. And bring two water-
pots to make it appear the dummy is drawing water. Hurry, man,
hurry!’

We hastened back to the pool, at the edge of which the

caretaker scooped a hole in the ground with the chopper. I stuck
the ‘backbone’ of the dummy into this hole and pressed the earth
back firmly once more. We placed the two water-pots on the
ground, one on each side. Mafiz feluce; lo and behold! The dummy
sat beside the pool. Very sincerely we hoped that to the eyes of a
hungry man-eater it might appear like a human being squatting
there and drawing water. To my eyes it looked only a ludicrous
mess. One more look around, to see that everything was in order,
then from in front we carefully stepped into our ‘stronghold’.

We sat down, the caretaker to my right, while I was next to the

armchair. I needed him to my right, as he was to shine the torch
when the tiger came. For purposes of aligning the sights of the
rifle, the light would be too far away if he had sat on my left, for I
fire from the right shoulder.

It was just three minutes short of 5.30 p.m. and I knew we

should have been in position at least an hour earlier. We were
facing east and the sun had already dipped below the rim of hills
behind us. In a few hurried and whispered sentences I gave
Ananthaswamy his final instructions.

‘On no account should you move your head, arms or legs. If the
mosquitoes bite, blow them off. Don’t slap at them. If you hear or
see anything, nudge me gently with your left knee. On no account
should you even whisper. If the tiger comes. I will tell you by
prodding you twice. That will be the signal. It will probably growl
when it leaps upon the dummy and finds no flesh and blood
beneath its talons. Then shine the torch and keep it on the
animal, whatever happens thereafter. Remember, you should not
waver or let the torch go out. If you do that, we are dead men;
because I cannot see in the dark and the tiger can.’

His reply was reassuring, ‘Do not fear, dorai. I shall not let you
down. Certainly not, for Rajamma’s sake.’

Rajamma had been his daughter’s name. After that we did not
speak again.

‘Tok-tok-tok-tok.’ A green and red woodpecker tapped away

with his powerful beak at the bole of a tree in the forest behind us.
Then the belligerent little spurfowl began to quarrel in the bushes
around. ‘Kaaw-wick-a-wack,’ said the challenging cockbird, and
his challenge was taken up in all directions. ‘Kukurruka-wack!
Kukurruka-wack!’ The quarrelsome little cocks were just spoiling
for a fight. Far away a koel, a member of the cuckoo family, issued
his plaintive cry, calling for rain, as the jungle-folk say. ‘Koel!
Koel! Ko-yel! Ko-yel!’, he screeched in rising crescendo. His cousin,
the brain-fever bird, also of the cuckoo family, decided that the
call of the koel was nothing to the crescendo he could raise, if he
really tried. And he did, ‘Brain-fever! Brain-fever; Brain-fever!’
The crescendo was almost hysterical, nerve-wracking, far
eclipsing the effort the koel had made. There was silence for a
while, and before the brain-fever bird could start again came a
fresh and pleasant sound; the clarion call of the silver-backed
junglecock. ‘Whee-e-e-ew! Kuck-kaya-kya-kuck’m,’ he crowed
lustily. That silenced the spurfowl for a second or two. Then they
began their wrangling again, while other junglecocks crowed their
farewell to the dying day.

Dusk fell rapidly, as it always does in the jungle. At one

moment it was daylight. Then the forest before me assumed a
hazy, smoky-purplish hue. A few moments later it was growing
dark and it was becoming difficult to see.

The final call from the birds of the day came from a peacock
roosting on some high tree far away. Mia-a-oo! Mia-a-oo! Aaow!
Aaow!’ he cried, and his cry was hauntingly sad. As if to assert
that the time for the peacock to be active was now over, a bird of
the night gave answer while it flitted like a bunch of brown soft
feathers into the long grass before me. ‘Chuck. Chuck. Chuck.
Chuck-o-o-o-o.’ My little friends, the nightjars, were active and
on the wing once more. A moment later it was night.

I have often noticed that the final calls of day-birds are

answered by the early cries of the birds of the night. Then for a
while comes total silence. The day-birds have gone to sleep, while
those of the night are undoubtedly too busy feeding, except for the
small insect-eating bats that flit swiftly overhead as they utter
their sharp squeaks. ‘Chee-e-ck. Chee-e-ck.’ I was grateful to the
little wood-cricket that started chirping almost at my feet:
‘Sizz.Sizz. Sizz-z-z!.Sizz-z-z!’

The stars shone brightly now, the evening star being prominent
among them. The sky was cloudless and of a gun-metal hue, a
perfect setting for the myriad twinkling gems that shone so
serenely, the incomparable lamps of heaven. There were other
scintillating gems too, that moved and flitted in the jungle about
us; now here, now there; now gone, but only to reappear. They
were the fireflies that hung momentarily in the heavy all-
pervading blackness of night, only to be gone the next instant.
Then they would momentarily reappear to synchronize their
flashes into one sudden, fleeting, instantaneous glare, bright
enough to outline the trees far away. Once again they were gone;
leaving the darkness behind.

We sat motionless. By and by the mosquitoes came, humming

and buzzing around us till the air seemed filled with clouds of
them. I could feel the faint but sharp pain as one after the other
stung me—my face, my neck, my hands; in fact, wherever they
could reach my skin. I blew gently against my own face and tried
hard not to move my head or arms. Fortunately my pants, socks
and shoes protected my feet. I could hear my companion blowing
also, just as I had instructed him.

It was very uncomfortable and trying, to say the least of it. But
it was not dangerous. For these were not malaria-carrying
mosquitoes. When such an insect stings you, it almost stands on
its head with its tail in the air, and you do not feel the pain of the
sting. By that very same token, how was I to know how many
malarial mosquitoes had already stung me that evening, and how
many more would sting me before the night was over?

I glanced at my watch. It was nearly 8.30 p.m. There were many

hours yet ahead of us. Ten o’clock came very, disconcertingly
quiet—almost peaceful. It was as if there were no other living
creatures out there in the darkness. But still we knew that the
most dangerous of them all lurked in the darkness, a man-eating
tiger which had already accounted for several people. But did the
silence mean that he had wandered away elsewhere? Was that the
reason why we had heard no alarm calls from the frightened deer?
It was a cheerless and depressing thought.

As if to dispel such ideas I heard a queer cry. Rather, I should

say, a distinctive call, of a kind that I had not heard for quite a
while now, and is not always heard in the jungle: ‘Ba-oooh-ah! Ba-
oooh-ah!’
 Unmistakably, it was the cry of the ‘lone jackal’, the mysterious
and unexplainable jackal which the jungle tribes say has entered
into partnership with a tiger or panther, guiding the carnivore
unerringly to a victim. The jackal’s share of the partnership is
permission, unmolested and freely, to pick the bones of the kill
after the senior partner has eaten his fill.

The jackal was drawing closer with each minute, and rapidly
too, for his cry every time was louder and more distinct! ‘Ba-ooh-
ah! Ba-ooh-ah!’

I thought of the rest of the strange rumour: that no victim could

ever escape this terrible and diabolical alliance, once the lone
jackal had located him or her and the hunt had begun. I shivered
involuntarily, and at that instant felt Ananthaswamy’s left knee
pressing hard against my right thigh. The knee was trembling very
violently.

I stared out into the pitch-darkness, attuning my ears to catch

the slightest sound. But I could see or hear nothing beyond that
ghastly cry that came nearer and louder with repetition: ‘Ba-ooh-
ah!’

Had my companion seen or heard something? Or was he trying

to tell me about the lone jackal? Undoubtedly, he knew the
strange tale himself. Perhaps he was not aware that I also knew it.
Maybe he was trying to keep me alert, as I had cautioned him not
to speak or even whisper at any cost. I forced my mind to put aside
all thought of the rumour—true or false, mere superstition or not.
To me, now, just one hard fact remained. A jackal was calling
strangely, not at all in his usual manner. It was coming closer
each second and would be near us very soon. It was up to me to try
to find out if it was alone or was accompanied by another animal
— perhaps only a pack of jackals like itself.
 Once again, and extremely close this time, came that weird cry:
‘Ba-oooh-ah! Ba-oooh-ah!’

Did I imagine a note of malevolent gloating in it? Almost a

chuckle of derision? A laugh of triumph? Angrily I checked these
absurd thoughts and forced myself to be more alert than ever.
After that the weird cry was repeated no more. There was just
silence, One could almost feel it. Heavy, oppressive silence, very
heavy and very real.

Ananthaswamy was trembling violently. His knee beat a tattoo

against my thigh. His whole body, which he had pressed against
my right arm and side, shook as if with ague. I could hear him
breathing hard; in short, sobbing gasps. I slipped my left arm
across my lap, closed my hand over his kneecap softly and firmly,
and then patted it reassuringly. I did not want a repetition of my
experience many years before at a place called Closepet, just
thirty miles from Bangalore. That episode had been rather funny,
with little danger attached to it. An experience of the same kind
now, but under the present circumstances, would certainly not be
funny. On the other hand, it might well be the last experience of
this or of any other kind that either the caretaker or myself would
ever have.

A certain friend, who incidentally was a lady of some repute,

had come to me wanting to shoot a panther. We had motored to
Closepet, where we had arranged to tie up a couple of donkeys as
bait. Two days later, information was brought that one of them
had been killed. We drove to the spot to find the donkey had not
been tethered properly, with the result that after killing it the
panther had succeeded in dragging the donkey away from the foot
of the tree where we had tied it to a place where there were only
bushes and no trees. So we were faced with the alternatives of
sitting on the ground to await his return or going back to
Bangalore without further ado. My acquaintance enthusiastically
agreed to sit anywhere I decided.
 It was a certificate of high merit that the Shikari Thangavelu
and his brother, whom we had brought with us, earned that day.
For they built such a beautiful hide that the panther, when he
turned up, never dreamed we were inside. Nor did we ever dream
he was outside—or at least not for quite a while.

That night, too, had been dark and moonless. We could not see
each other in that dense but marvellously efficient hide-out. After
some time I began to hear a faint sound that came from the other
side of the bush and to the left of my friend, who was sitting to the
left of me.

Rub-rub-rasp-rasp. Something rather rough gliding over

something rather soft. What could it be? A snake? Bush-mice? No;
the first would rustle for a prolonged time; the second would cause
intermittent, jerky noises as they scampered in the lantana. Could
it be termites, eating the fallen leaves and dried wood? No; for
they would make a sound like rain-drops pattering against the
leaves of trees, diminished a hundred times in volume. Could it be
caterpillars or night-beetles feeding? No; for caterpillars, when
they eat, make no sound. At least, no sound capable of registering
itself on the human ear. Some beetles make a very faint sound,
like the clicking of fairy castanets: the mandibles of the beetles
clicking together as they sever a leaf, and cause a sharp and brittle
sound.

But this was something different. Rasp-rasp. Pause. Rub-rub.

Pause again. Silence for some seconds. Then once more. Rasp-rasp-
rasp. What the devil could it be?

Suddenly enlightenment came. It was the panther, licking

himself with his rough tongue. And he was seated just outside the
hide. What was more, he had no idea we were within less than
two feet of him.
 I remember that I nudged my friend, squeezed her arm, brought
my forefinger close to her eyes and pointed towards the apparent
source of the noise. Of course, she did not catch on.

Then I had another idea. I dared not whisper, for the panther
would have heard me. So, with my left hand I seized one of hers. I
unclenched the fingers and turned the palm upwards. All by the
sense of feel. I have often wondered what she must have thought
had gone wrong with me, what she must have wondered was
coming next.

But I did not leave her long in doubt. With my right index finger
I started tracing capital letters of the alphabet on the palm of her
hand. I traced a P. Then A. Then N, and then T and H.

Then she caught on. And in real earnest. I have never seen a
human being spring quite so fast to a standing position from a
sitting one. Literally like lightning, she threw herself into the air,
tripped over me, and fell head over heels into the bushes at my
back, giving me a nasty kick in my face with her boot.

But that was not all that happened. Not by a long chalk. For the
panther emulated her feat—and very creditably. Hearing what
could only have been Satan himself, or whatever name Satan
bears in the language of panthers, spring from the earth beside
him, the panther did likewise in sheer alarm. He jumped into the
air, somersaulted, and fell on top of the left side of ‘wall’ of our
hide, next to which my companion had been seated a split second
before. Realizing he was terrified and might strike out blindly
with his claws or even bite, I then gave the grand finale to the
entertainment by springing into the air and toppling backwards
myself.

Well, it had all ended very happily and safely. We sorted

ourselves out without getting too close to each other, at least, so
far as the panther was concerned, and he was good enough to
reciprocate. He simply vanished.

We had a great laugh over it. My friend avowed she would not
have missed the incident for anything—not even for a thousand
rupees. But—and here was a real question—would it have ended
thus if we had been dealing with a man-eating tiger instead of an
inoffensive panther?

Coming back to realities and the present, I feared the caretaker’s

nerves might suddenly snap. He might do anything: jump up, cry
out, or even scream. And then it might not be so good—
remembering we had the ‘unholy partners’ to deal with, and not
just a very ordinary panther. I knew that Ananthaswamy was a
brave man and was certainly not afraid of the tiger. But it was the
supernatural part of what was happening that was unnerving him
—rather, I should say, what he thought to be supernatural: the
diabolical partnership, the inhuman, or rather superhuman
intelligence of that uncanny ‘lone jackal’ in leading the man-
eater directly to us. I squeezed his knee harder than ever, then
tapped it gently, over and over again, to reassure him, to try to
calm him.

After that things began to happen fast. I heard the pitter-patter

of quick footfalls on the dried leaves of the undergrowth to my
left; that was the least fortified side of our absurd little fort, the
armchair side, facing towards the bungalow, from which direction
we had not anticipated that anything would approach us.

They were coming towards us, and in the undergrowth; for it

was the dried leaves that were making the sound. Had it come
from in front or even half-left, we would not have heard it, for
there the grass was thick and soft and green, and the earth was
damp from the proximity of the pool.
 The pattering hesitated, came forward again, and then
hesitated; forward it came two or three steps, and then it ceased
altogether.

The only animal that could have made the pitter-pattering

sound was the jackal—that lone jackal. And he had now halted.
Why? Was it because he had become suspicious? Had he located us?
Or had he stopped for quite another reason? Was his role of ‘guide’
and junior member now over? Was it the turn of the senior partner
to take over?

We had not heard a sound from the tiger. But I was certain—as
certain as I was of my own name—that the tiger was there too.
Every instinct in me, every fibre of my being, furiously and
insistently telegraphed the message. Beware! Danger! The man-
eater is close.

Another and still more disconcerting thought flashed to my

brain. Perhaps the junior partner, the cunning one, the lone
jackal, had deliberately walked through the leaves to make a
noise and distract our attention. Perhaps at that very moment the
senior partner, the executioner, who meant business, was creeping
soundlessly across the damp earth and the green grass in front, to
get near enough for the last fatal charge. Worse still, he was
perhaps creeping up behind.

I removed my hand from the caretaker’ knee, because my hand

was trembling almost as much. I stared out into the darkness
before me, eyes burning, ears alert. I could see nothing, hear
nothing. The seconds ticked away, perhaps the last seconds I
would spend on this earth. Sweat ran down my face, trickled from
my cheek on to the stock of the .405 which nestled against my
shoulder, its muzzle pointing vainly outwards into the black
darkness, seeing nothing. My hands, holding the rifle, were
clammy with sweat.
 How he got behind us we never knew, but suddenly from that
direction burst, with startling suddenness, the weird, diabolical
challenge: ‘Ba-oooh-ah! Ba-oooh-ah!’

And for the first time that evening, the unholy partner
answered. We heard the tiger roar as he sprang upon the dummy.
In our excitement we had quite forgotten it. We had overlooked
the possibility that the jackal—if indeed he had led the tiger to his
‘prey’—had led him to the dummy, and not to us. Our ruse had
actually worked.

But Ananthaswamy was so frightened that he did not, or

perhaps just could not, shine the torch. He appeared to be
paralysed as we sat in inky darkness and heard the tiger worrying
his ‘victim’.

And at that critical moment we heard another sound— but a

comforting, reassuring, homely sound, this time. The caretaker’s
mongrel dog began to bark vigorously. He must have come in
search of his master. He had heard the noise made by the jackal,
followed by the tiger roaring and tearing at the dummy. But
instead of running away as he should have done, he had started
barking for all he was worth.

I prodded Ananthaswamy’s thigh vigorously with my clenched

fist and whispered very faintly: ‘Battery Podu (shine the torch).’

He shone it, poor fellow. But not at the tiger. He shone it

directly in my face. Blinded, I grabbed the torch from him with my
left hand and turned it into the darkness before us, where the
dummy had been sitting. It reflected the eyes of the tiger and
outlined his form very faintly behind. Raising the torch up with
my left hand, I tried to hold it against the barrel of my rifle to
outline the foresight while still lighting the tiger and his glaring
eyes.
 But luck was dead against us that night. Once again the tiger
showed the man-eater’s inherent fear of the man who pursues
him. A loud ‘Wr-r-oof!’ rent the air, and the next second the tiger
had gone.

I shone the torch in all directions, hoping to be able to pick up

his eyes at some other spot. But he had disappeared. I shone the
torch behind us, hoping to locate that accursed jackal, which
most certainly I would have shot had I but seen it. But like his
partner he had vanished. Then something small and brown and
white ran whimpering towards us. Could it be the lone jackal? At
last at our mercy? But it whimpered and barked as it came. It was
only Ananthaswamy’s little dog.

Fifteen minutes later the three of us got up and started walking

back to the bungalow. It was obviously useless to stay any longer.
The trick of the dummy had been exposed. Both tiger and jackal
now knew that men were there—not unwary men—who would
slay them first. So they had decided to decamp.

As we walked back to the bungalow I reversed the conclusion I

had made only a few minutes earlier. I had thought that this had
been my unlucky night. Now I was sure that it had, indeed, been a
very lucky one. For one thing, the so-called cunning partner, the
jackal, had not proved so very cunning after all. He had warned us
of the tiger’s coming. Secondly, when I shone the torch, but was
not ready to take the shot, the tiger had accommodatingly decided
to run away. Supposing he had attacked us instead? Thirdly,
perhaps by his sharp bark the little dog had helped to unnerve the
tiger and had made him decide to bolt when he could have sprung
upon us very easily.

Yes indeed, it had been a lucky, rather than an unlucky, night!

We had both been scared stiff. We had both bungled and therefore
lost the tiger. But recriminations are useless anyway. So we went
to sleep.
 The sun, shining brightly and warmly next morning, helped us
to forget our disappointment of the night before. Ananthaswamy
was thoroughly ashamed of himself. He assured me, repeatedly,
that it was not the man-eater he had been terrified of, but the
uncanny evil spirit, the lone jackal, the inexorable brain behind
the diabolical partnership. I assured him, in turn, that I had been
equally afraid, but of the tiger and not of the evil spirit or lone
jackal with the calculating brain. Thus, with the air cleared
between us by a mutual confession of cowardice, we started
planning afresh.

It was very doubtful if the trick with the dummy could be tried
again with any chance of success. The tiger, having discovered
that, instead of leaping upon a living man, he had attacked a
bundle of old clothes and a water-pot, would not be so foolish as to
be taken in a second time within twenty-four hours. So we would
have to think—and think really hard—of some fresh line of
action.

I studied the pug-marks of the tiger, or such of them as we could

find near the edge of the pool. He had leapt upon the dummy and
then slipped in the mud as it had crumbled beneath his weight, so
that there were just two fairly clear impressions of his forefeet—
probably at the spot where he had stood still for a second while I
had tried to align the small torch with my left hand along the
barrel of my rifle. They appeared to be of the same size as the
tracks left by the animal I had followed the previous day along the
footpath to Gunjur. On the green grass he left no trail, while the
jungle behind was dry and stony, showing no marks at all.

One fact was evident. With or without the aid of the jackal, the
tiger had been pretty hungry. He had attacked the dummy straight
away, and that had left him more hungry than ever. He would
have to eat, and soon. Therefore, either he must have killed some
animal during the later hours of the night, or he would do so in
the early hours of the night to come. As a rule tigers do not hunt
wild game during daylight, and there were no domestic cattle at
Gunjur. Alternatively he had already left, or would leave the
locality at sunset, because of his fright, and take himself
elsewhere.

Together we walked back along the footpath to Joldahl for about

a mile. But the tiger had not returned that way. We went back to
Gunjur and climbed up a knoll half a mile from the bungalow.
From this elevation we carefully scanned the sky and it would
betray the presence of a kill, if there had been one. But no vultures
were to be seen in any direction.

Midday found us much more disconsolate, and quite

unsuccessful; and then we did what seemed a very silly thing. We
rigged up the dummy afresh and sat in the same hide. This seemed
silly for two reasons. Firstly, it was scarcely likely that the tiger
would be taken in by the dummy a second time. But, what was far
more important, and what did not occur to us till we had actually
taken up our positions, was the fact that, if the tiger did return, he
would know where we were because of the episode of the night
before.

The spotted deer called shortly after 8 p.m. The jungle at the
foot of the knoll we had climbed that morning resounded to their
sharp, frightened cries of alarm: ‘Aiow! Aiow! Aiow!’ A stag
started first, and then the others took it up. ‘Aiow! Aiow! Aiow!’

Undoubtedly they had seen or smelt the tiger. This caused our
morale to rise greatly. At least he was still here and had not gone
away. But not a sound did we hear from the tiger himself, or from
his partner, the lone jackal.

Ten o’clock came, and once more it seemed the predetermined

hour for the curtain to rise on the tiger’s activities. From a
direction a little to the south of us we heard an agonizing, pitiful
scream; a shriek that was but twice repeated, ending on a muffled,
sobbing note. An animal had just been done to death; probably a
spotted deer or a young sambar. The tiger had succeeded in finding
his meal. We made a mental note of the approximate direction
from which the sound had come.

After that nothing happened for the rest of the night, nor did the
spotted deer call again. Ananthaswamy fell asleep after two
o’clock, while I could hardly keep my eyes open. But just had to
remain awake. For both of us to go to sleep would have been very
dangerous indeed.

As soon as it was light enough to see, we left the hide and

started walking in the direction of the death-call of the previous
night. If we were very lucky we might flush the tiger while still on
his kill. But there was only one thing wrong with this plan. We
had no idea where the kill really was or where to look for it. We
searched till nearly nine o’clock. Then the sun began to get hot,
and I was very tired. I had not slept the whole night and had slept
only half the night before that. So we went back to the bungalow.

Ananthaswamy started to cook his ragi balls, which I had begun

to look upon more as cannon balls than anything else. Without
waiting for this frightful food, I went to sleep. It was after one
o’clock in the afternoon when I awoke to find an unusually large
ragi ball left thougtfully beside me on a plate with a bowl of tea
that had gone quite cold. Ananthaswamy was curled up asleep in
the further corner of the room. Resignedly, I nibbled at the
glutinous, tasteless mess. If only it had a little sugar with it, or
even salt. I turned to the cold tea and emptied the bowl. At least it
had some flavour.

Walking out on the verandah of the bungalow, I looked

hopefully towards the south. No vultures circled in the sky. There
was not a clue to lead us to the kill of the night before. And that
meant that again we could not plan any definite line of action for
the coming hours of darkness.
 For one fact I was grateful, however. Even if the deer the tiger
had killed had been a fairly small one, and he had consumed it all,
the chances were that he would linger for another twenty-four
hours in the vicinity before hunger again drove him out to seek
another kill.

It was too late for me to walk the ten miles back to Joldahl,
purchase a live bait, and bring it back to tie up before nightfall.
That, I determined, was what I would do the following day. For
that night there seemed nothing better to do than sit once again in
our old hide near the spring, changing the position of the dummy
this time. Meanwhile, as it was not yet two o’clock and the
caretaker was still asleep. I decided to spend the next two hours of
the afternoon in walking along some of the game-trails that led
into the foothills surrounding the little bungalow.

I was sure the tiger had killed the night before, for both
Ananthaswamy and I had heard the victim’s death-cry. If only I
could locate the spot before nightfall and sit up over it, there was
reasonable certainty that the tiger would return.

With this idea in mind I once more walked south towards the
hillock from which that dying scream had sounded. This time I
approached it from another angle, my attention divided between
scanning any ground sandy enough to show pug-marks and
looking around for vultures or even a crow perched on a tree to
indicate the spot where the tiger had hidden the carcass. And all
the time I had to watch carefully where I was walking, avoiding
passing too close to a thicket or bush that might conceal a tiger
lying in wait behind it.

For just as certainly as I was hunting him, the tiger, being a

man-eater, would hunt me. It was a game in which neither could
afford to make the slightest error, which would mean not only the
end of the game but the end of the one that made it. Such caution
made my progress very slow. Eventually I reached a sandy nullah
that wound around the base of the hillock. Here I stopped and
turned to my left to follow the nullah for a short distance to see if
the tiger had crossed it. After a while I saw pug-marks in the sand,
but they certainly had not been made the night before. These were
at least a week old; perhaps ten days. Disappointed, I crossed the
nullah and started climbing the hillock.

The ground became pebbly, covered with the red laterite gravel
that abounds on so many of the lesser hills throughout Mysore
state. Because of this the vegetation became sparse, the
undergrowth giving way to isolated ‘vallary’ plants, dwarf grass,
and lantana mixed with prickly pear growing intermittently. I was
glad of it because the tiger could no longer spring a surprise on me
in this comparatively open terrain. By the same token, he would
not have brought his kill up here, for there was nowhere to hide it.
So it was useless for me to continue my search. When I looked at
my watch I was surprised to find it was 3.20 p.m. I would have to
hurry back, for we should arrange the dummy and be in our hide
by five.

The return journey was quicker, for I did not look for pug-marks
or vultures although I certainly continued to give a wide berth to
large clumps of bushes or grass behind which the tiger might be
hiding. It was just after four when I got back to a very anxious
Ananthaswamy. Fortunately he had prepared some fresh tea,
which I drank gratefully, although I could not respond to his
invitation to try another ragi ball. We titivated the dummy a little
and carried it back to the stream. This time we did not put it at
the edge of the pool, but on the grassy patch about twenty yards
from our hide. This particular spot had no merit beyond being a
few yards closer to our zareba, behind which we settled ourselves
shortly after five.

Knowing that, in spite of the hours he had already slept that

afternoon, Ananthaswamy would fall asleep again by midnight, I
asked him to keep watch till seven, when it would be dark, while I
took a short nap to prepare myself for an all-night vigil. Thus it
came about that I was deprived on that occasion, of listening to
the full-throated notes of the birds of the day gradually fall into
diminuendo, giving place to the crescendo of calls of the birds and
beasts of the night.

I awoke tardily, with the caretaker shaking my shoulder. Above

me, in the clear velvety sky, the stars twinkled serenely. It was
inky dark and I knew that Ananthaswamy had had compassion on
me and let me sleep beyond the time at which I had told him to
awaken me. I glanced at my watch. It was 8.12 p.m. Gently, and
as soundlessly as possible, I sat up.

And then I heard it. Although far away, the sound carried
clearly in the cool night air: ‘Ba-oooh-ah! Ba-oooh-ah!’

Involuntarily, instinctively, my hand closed on the stock of my

rifle, as the old, frightening thoughts, born of the age-old jungle
rumour, once more impinged themselves on my mind. The ghastly
partners were on the prowl again. Would that uncanny jackal
guide the tiger to us, just as he had done two nights previously?

The answer came, almost like a spoken reply to my unvoiced

thoughts: ‘A-oongh! O-o-n-ooh! Aungh-ha! Aungh-ha!’

The tiger was roaring, and his voice came from exactly the same
direction as had that of the lone jackal, hardly a couple of
minutes earlier. The jungle-folk sounded the alarm in every
direction. To the north and beyond the bungalow a sambar stag
bellowed his deep-throated nasal warning, beginning with a
startled ‘Ponk!,’ then ‘Whee-onk! Whee-onk!’ Finally he settled
down to voicing a steady alarm-call that floated across the hills
and far, far away: ‘Dhank! Dhank! Dhank!’ Far closer to us a
muntjac, or barking-deer, uttered the hoarse, almost dog-like bark
which has given him his name: ‘Kharr! Kharr! Kharr!’
 Hearing the calls of fear, a spotted deer hind, hidden in the
thickets behind us, screamed her preliminary warning, a grating,
sharp, whistling-like sound; ‘Phrew! Phrew!’ Then the stag, leader
of the heard, took it up with a startled ‘Aiow! Aiow! Aiow!’ Even
a peacock, roosting and fast asleep on some distant bough, was
disturbed. ‘Pe-haun! Pe-haun!’, he squawked as he awakened,
changing to his usual ‘Mia-a-oo! Aaow! Mia-a-oo!’

The whole jungle was alarmed and alert. The frogs in the pool
ceased their croaking. Even the crickets in the damp grass stopped
chirping. Every living creature, big or small, thinks and knows the
same thing: Beware! Tiger! Danger!

But for us there was no fleeing. We were there with a set purpose
—to destroy the man-eater. With tensed nerves and muscles we
awaited the drama that was to be played out in the next few
minutes or hours.

The cries of alarm died away in the distance as the animals that
uttered them made for safer regions, as far as possible from the
presence of that striped terror which to them, as to every living
creature at that moment, spelled violent death. The jungle fell
into a silence that was full of menace. I thought about
Ananthaswamy’s feeble two-cell torch, the light from which had
become even weaker after the use we had lately given it. It was
the one and only means of showing up the tiger to enable me to
take a shot.

Nothing happened. An hour passed, an hour of utter, complete

silence. Even the frogs and crickets had not begun their relatively
homely noises again. More time passed, and with the lessening of
tension I stole a glance at my watch. It was 10.5 p.m. and I was
feeling inordinately hungry.

Then the hair at the back of my neck seemed of its own volition
to stand on end. Ananthaswamy’s cold and clammy hand reached
out to catch my arm. He was trembling violently.

Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. The noise came from

behind us this time, once again in the undergrowth. The same
undergrowth in which we were hiding, protected by our flimsy
cage. Some animal was walking swiftly over the carpet of dried
leaves that covered the ground. A few twigs snapped as it forced
its way through the bushes and shrubs.

What could it be? Certainly not the tiger. The footfalls were too
light, too swift. Could it be the lone jackal showing the way once
more? Wistfully I longed for the little mongrel that yapped and so,
perhaps, saved our lives only forty-eight hours before. Alas, we
had made certain he would not again interfere at a critical time
by locking him in the caretaker’s room.

Then silence fell again. The glow from the stars enabled me to
distinguish the dummy faintly, only twenty yards away: a dim,
white object, almost invisible to my tired eyes. It was impossible
to penetrate the undergrowth behind us from which the pitter-
pattering sound had come.

After a while we heard the quick light footsteps scampering to

our right, south of where we were sitting. Again silence and then a
grey, wraith-like shape seemed to flit across the grass in front of
us, and between us and the dummy. It seemed rather small, and it
moved in a swift, peculiarly jerky, manner. It came to a stop
almost opposite us.

The reflected glow of the stars did not shed enough light to
enable me to see clearly what the animal was up to. It seemed
suddenly to shrink to half its size, but I realized this was because
the creature had turned to face us. What was apparently the head
seemed to bob up and down quickly as the eyes strove to pierce the
screen of undergrowth that hid us, to determine what manner of
creatures we were.
 One thing was certain: our position was no longer secret. The
animal knew there was something or someone behind the
camouflage. This was corroborated by the fact that it took no
notice whatever of the dummy. It had turned its back upon the
dummy and was staring at us intently.

The next moment I not only heard the cry of the lone jackal but
saw the animal raise his head towards the sky to utter it: ‘Ba-
oooh-ah! Ba-oooh-ah!’

Immediately after, as if galvanized into action, the jackal sped

some yards away, where it stopped abruptly, turned around and
stared intently in our direction.

So interested had I been in this animal’s movements that it was

Ananthaswamy’s hand, squeezing my arm in a vice-like, painful
grip, that made me half-turn my head towards him. And as I did
so, my glance took in an apparition that momentarily paralysed
me with shock. On the very spot where the jackal had been but a
second before was a beast of apparently colossal size. In that
unreal light it looked as big as a horse.

I knew that I was gazing at the tiger as he stood before us in the

grass, broadside on, looking at us intently, just as the jackal had
done a moment earlier.

Twice I nudged Ananthaswamy, hard and quickly. It was the

prearranged signal for him to shine his torch on the animal. There
was no response. The caretaker could not move. Ruefully I
realized that once more he had failed me just when I needed his
help. I nudged him again, with the same lack of response. With
closed fist I pummelled him. But Ananthaswamy just sat and
gaped. I cursed myself for having left my own torch behind. But
how could I have foreseen events as they happened?

The tiger spotted my movement. Or he may have heard the

infinitesimal sound of my fist on Ananthaswamy’s thigh. He
growled menacingly and his silhouette grew smaller and seemed
to merge with the grass. I knew he had sunk to the ground
preparatory to charging upon us. Two or three bounds and he
would be on top of us, through the unprotected front of our hide.

The tiger’s action and my conclusions were almost

simultaneous. Perhaps it all took less than ten seconds.

Grabbing the torch from the caretaker’s nerveless fingers, I

pressed the button even before I had aligned it against the barrel of
my rifle. The beam certainly did not show up my foresight, but did
shine directly into the tiger’s eyes. Although it was a far from
powerful light, the tiger baulked appreciably. Perhaps it associated
the light with the surprise it had received two nights earlier, when
it had leapt upon the dummy. Whatever caused it to hesitate gave
me the split-second I needed to put the bead of the foresight in a
direct line between the backsight and the gleaming eyes.

Such a shot is by no means ideal, particularly as I was holding

both torch and rifle together with my left hand. If placed too high,
the bullet was apt to glance off the receding forehead of the tiger.
But there was no time for anything else, and I squeezed the trigger.

The report of the rifle was followed by an ear-splitting roar as

the tiger reared on its hind feet, its front paws clawing at its
smashed face. Feverishly I worked the under-lever and fired into
the exposed white fur of its chest.

It came down to earth after that, floundering around blindly

while clods of mud and grass were torn up by the threshing talons
as they struck wildly into the ground, and by the gaping jaws as
they bit savagely in agony. Roar after roar rent the air, while I
fired every bullet the magazine held. Losing count of my shots, I
heard the click of the firing-pin against the empty chamber. The
tiger was still writhing and squirming, but the roars had given
place to a gurgle, the unmistakable death-rattle of an expiring
tiger.

‘Hold the torch.’ I whispered hurriedly, thrusting it into the

caretaker’s numbed hand, while I feverishly loaded three rounds
into the magazine.

I could just see the heaving flank of the tiger as it lay on its side
in the long grass. The gurgle became irregular. Suddenly it ceased
and I knew the tiger was dead. We waited another fifteen minutes,
but there was no further movement.

The lone jackal never reappeared. Perhaps he knew by instinct

that he had led his partner to his death and was sorry. Maybe he
hurried away after that to find another partner, remembering that
the association had hitherto brought him easy and big dividends.

We examined the tiger carefully next morning. He was a very

old male with worn canines. But apart from that he appeared to
have no other defects. What had turned him against the human
race? Maybe it was just a whim in the first place. Perhaps he had
felt old age creeping up on him and had discovered a convenient
way of procuring his food. Possibly it was the jackal that had in
the first place tempted him by leading him to easy prey—the
caretaker’s unfortunate daughter. Who can tell?
 2

The Evil One of Umbalmeru

HE golden-brown of the jungle grasses, mellowed at first by

T the rains and then burnt dry by the merciless heat of the
midday sun, covers the sides of the sloping hills that appear to
have raised themselves haphazardly in this jungly corner of the
land. At the base of each hill, narrow, sharp valleys have been
formed by the rain-water during centuries of storms that have
burst against the steeper heights and then cascaded in turbulent,
muddy streams down the jungle-clad slopes to the valleys below,
where, joining together, they have eventually formed the
northeastern branch of the little Kalyani river.

These small valleys are choked with undergrowth: cane-

bamboo, lantana and the clinging vines of the ‘killer’ creeper,
which certainly has earned its name.

Years ago some little bird may have eaten a few of its brown
berries and had then rested on a leafy perch. The meat of the
berries was soon assimilated, and the little bird passed out the
undigested seeds. One such seed would have fallen at the foot of
the mighty tree where it had rested. Then the rains came and the
little seed sprouted and a baby ‘killer’ was born, no bigger at first
than the nail on your little finger.

But the seedling grows apace and puts out its tendrils when a
month old, thus revealing itself for the first time as a plant that
creeps and supports its weight on other plants and trees. It grows
and grows, and by the end of the first year it has perhaps climbed a
third of the way up the big tree which has sheltered it. But its stem
is still no thicker than your middle finger. Within two years it has
reached the top of the tree, whence its tendrils reach out hungrily
towards the neighbouring forest giants, all of them, like the host
tree, possibly two or three centuries old. And the stem of the
creeper is now about the thickness of your wrist.

The years roll by and the creeper has completely covered and
enmeshed the old tree that supports it. The stem, which was as
thick as your finger and then your wrist, has now become as thick
as your thigh, and it continues to grow till it becomes as thick as
your body. Its weight is colossal. It has wound even tighter around
the trunk and branches of its host, biting through the soft outer
bark into the very heart of the wood.

Slowly, inexorably, it strangles its host to death. Years later the

rains and storms come again. Perhaps on a night very similar to
the one on which the ‘killer’ was born, the grand old tree that had
played host to the innocent-looking killer crashes to earth,
devoured by the ‘baby’ to which it once gave shelter. From amid
the fallen debris the tendrils of the ‘killer’ reach out voraciously
towards the stems of neighbouring trees, there to repeat the grim
story and to earn its name of ‘killer’ over and over again.

Because of the heavy undergrowth in the narrow valleys, it is

impossible for a man, and almost out of the question for an animal
of any size to penetrate the leafy tangle. It is the home of rodents
and other such tiny creatures, and the many species of snakes that
prey upon them. It is always green there, despite the driest
summer months and hottest tropical sun. For the weight of the
surrounding hills seems to press the moisture out of the very earth
itself, to make slushy marshes in the tangled verdure where the
crickets chirp all day and there is perpetual twilight. No rays from
the sun can penetrate the canopy of greenery. A moment’s delay in
sprouting and upward thrusting means that the neighbouring
bush, vine or shrub has seized the opportunity and the laggard is
doomed to an existence of perpetual shade and eventual death
from rot and decay.
 But above the valleys, on the slopes of the hills, it is different.
There the sun beats down mercilessly, and in the summer months
the leaves of the trees dry up and fall to the ground to form a
rustling carpet upon the earth, till the rains bring decay and turn
them into mould to feed the very trees from which they have
fallen.

Higher up on the hills it is cooler and rockier: a region of

tumbled boulders and lichens and mosses, while orchids hang from
boles and branches, and the large blue-black bird, known as the
‘whistling schoolboy’, thrills the listening ear with his wondrous,
rambling, warbling notes, carrying never quite the same melody
twice.

It is shortly after midday when my story begins: and the

whistling schoolboy, together with most other birds and nearly all
the beasts, both large and small, is taking his afternoon siesta
under some shady boulder overlooking the crystal-clear icy-cold
water that trickles from a crack in the face of a rock at the foot of
an overhanging escarpment. Hardly a puff of air can be felt, and
the twigs on the trees and the barbed stems of the tall grasses are
motionless. It is strangely quiet at this noonday hour. Even the
crickets are silent, and not a leaf stirs or rustles in the
neighbourhood. It is as if all the world had been lulled into a deep
torpor.

But there comes a faint sound after a while, audible above the
gentle murmuring of the waters of the stream as they glide over
the smoothly-worn, moss-green, slippery rocks that form their bed.
It is a staccato, intermittent sound. The noise of someone or
something digging, and it comes from the farther bank of the
brook and about fifty yards away.

A human figure can be seen there, crouched on its haunches and

almost hidden from view among the huge leaves of the ‘elephant-
ear’ lily that grows in profusion along the banks of the stream.
Only the jerky movements, as the man wields his short crowbar,
and the sound of the digging itself, betray his presence; for his jet-
black body, naked except for a small strip of dirty loincloth,
blends perfectly with the dark shadows beneath and around the
huge leaves of the lilies.

Old Kothanda Reddy has come a long way from his village—the
village of Rangampet—nearly twelve miles distant, to dig up the
rare bulbs of the kuloo water-plant, famed as an aphrodisiac of
rare and magical power, that grow here and there among the giant
lilies. He has to search carefully for the kuloo water-plant, with its
three-petalled, shamrock-like leaf, so tiny as to be almost
completely hidden from view by its huge bedfellow. And when he
finds one he has to dig deep into the mire after levering aside the
movable stones in order to reach the slender bulbous white roots
of the little plant. These roots, when dried thoroughly and later
powdered and mixed with male semen and finally treated with
magical incantations on the night of the new moon (called
‘Amavasa night’), assume their full potency.

It is said that a pinch of this powder, mixed with the loved one’s
food, or better still administered in coffee without milk and
liberally sweetened with jaggery or brown sugar to hide the
slightly acrid taste, would so excite the woman as to cause her to
throw all modesty to the winds, and incidentally herself,
unreservedly and unashamedly, into the arms of her eager and
already-prepared lover. The concoction evidently has some value
—or at least a reputation for value—for old Kothanda Reddy had
been selling it for some years for one rupee per pinch. He is
secretly proud of the number of illegitimate children in the village
of Rangampet—living testimonials in his opinion to the efficacy of
the kuloo roots.

So Kothanda Reddy bends himself to the task and digs deeply,

while the dull and intermittent sound of his crowbar is almost
drowned, but not quite, by the gurgling and burbling sounds from
the hurrying waters of the rivulet. And being thus engrossed he
does not notice the malevolently cruel eyes that glare down upon
him from a point immediately above and higher up the bank of
the rocky little rill.

The creature that watches him makes not the slightest sound
that might betray its presence. No growl of any sort issues from
the cavernous chest and throat. Nor do the eyes blink once in their
searching and merciless gaze.

The point of the crowbar finally lays bare the tender white
roots. Old Kothanda Reddy sets it aside and stoops forward to
reach with both hands into the hole he has made to disentangle
the roots from the surrounding ooze.

The silent watcher above, who has been observing his every
movement, notices the action and knows that the man, with his
head bent forward and downward, cannot possibly see it now. A
red tongue swiftly licks the lips of the upper jaw. Then the
creature crouches lower before committing the first of a series of
murders that will give it the name of the ‘Evil One’ in a score of
villages and hamlets that border the three forest ranges known as
the Bhakarapet Reserve, the Chamala valley, and the Mamandur
High Range forests of the Chittoor district, now belonging to the
state of Andhra Pradesh.

A moment later the deed is done. Kothanda Reddy never saw

the massive form that hurtled through the air and down upon
him, although for a second he did feel its stupendous weight, and
the agony from the deep wounds inflicted by its talons as they
embedded themselves in his exposed back and sides. But that was
only for a moment, because the next instant powerful jaws, armed
with massive fangs, crunched through his neck and the back of his
skull. So Kothanda Reddy died, and he did not know the moment
of his passing to another realm where aphrodisiacs are not in
demand and the kuloo roots have no value.
 It was quite a long time before the old man was missed at
Rangampet. It had been his habit to wander off into the jungle to
look for his mysterious roots and herbs, or go on a round of the
neighbouring villages to sell his concoctions and magical powders
and charms and amulets which had spread his reputation far and
wide as a great magician or mantramkara, as he was called. And
when eventually he was missed his bones were never found to
associate his passing with the Evil One. But, weeks later, two
wandering forest guards, who had climbed the slopes of the hill
and stopped at the little brook for a drink of its icy-cold water,
noticed the crowbar and beside it a dirty cloth bag that had been
partly devoured by termites which, however, had not eaten the
evil-looking and mouldering roots that now spilled out and lay
scattered on the moist ground of the streambed. Then they
remembered that Kothanda Reddy had been missing for quite a
long while, causing some people to say he had left Rangampet
suddenly and for good. Now, for the first time, the forest guards
knew why he had never returned.

The tragedy had evidently taken place quite a long while

before, and there were no traces to indicate the nature or identity
of his murderer. The forest guards duly reported their find to the
police chowki at Rangampet, where a note was made of what they
had said.

No very definite or proper record was kept of the activities of the

Evil One, at least at the beginning of its career; but reports say
that the next event occurred in the following manner.

It was again afternoon and around three o’clock, when a line of

seven bullock-carts were returning from the jungle along the
rough forest track that led to Rangampet from a well seven miles
away in the jungle at a place called Pulibonu. About a quarter-of-
a-mile off the roadway, and almost opposite the fourth milestone
from the village, is a perennial water hole known as Narasimha
Cheruvu. The seven men halted their carts beside the fourth
milestone and descended the two furlongs to the water hole,
chatting as they went, to wash their faces and hands and legs in
the limpid, lukewarm brown water, and then their mouths by the
simple process of holding a handful of water to their lips, gargling
without swallowing it, and ejecting it into the pool.

Finally, the seven men squatted down beneath a babul tree near
the water’s edge for a brief smoke of beedies. The beedies finished,
they got up and returned to their carts in single file. They reached
the carts all right. At least, six of them did— but there was no sign
of the seventh man. What could he be about, and where had he
got to? His half-dozen companions, with the stoical indifference
and patience of the Indian villager, time being of no consequence
anyhow, sat down at the roadside to wait for him and smoke some
more beedies. Idly one of them remarked that Puttoo Reddy, the
missing cartman, had been walking last in the file. The speaker
had happened to turn around for a moment and had noticed
Puttoo Reddy stop to light a beedi. He was a very heavy smoker.

Time passed and the missing man did not put in an appearance.
It would have been safe to wait for him indefinitely under normal
circumstances. But if they now dallied too long it would be dark
before they were out of the jungle and among the fields
surrounding Rangampet. That did not appeal to them.

They began to call him: ‘Puttoo Reddy! Hurry up, man; where
the devil are you?’—‘Puttoo Reddy!’—‘Puttoo Reddy!’ Puttoo
Reddy did not appear.

Panic seized the six cartmen. It was unthinkable to go back the

short distance to the water hole to look for their missing
companion. Perhaps some evil spirit had seized him. Maybe a
snake had bitten him. Perhaps he had been taken by a tiger. Or a
panther. Or a bear. But the majority of them ascribed his
disappearance to supernatural agencies.
 Within a few moments each of them had scrambled into his
bullock-cart and the six pairs of bullocks rattled off with their
carts as fast as they could, urged on by constant whipping. Left
alone at the fourth milestone was the seventh cart— Puttoo
Reddy’s, the bulls waiting patiently for their owner. He never
came.

During the night it grew cold and the dew was heavy. The two
bulls that were still yoked to the cart forgot their owner and
remembered their dry, cosy stalls at Rangampet. They travelled
through the night and reached the village at about 4 a.m. There
could be no tigers about, for they were unmolested.

Nevertheless Puttoo Reddy—just like Kothanda Reddy before

him—had apparently vanished into thin air without leaving a
trace. When a third man, and then a fourth, disappeared within
the next two months, people began to say the Chamala Valley was
haunted by an ‘Evil One’, who left no evidence of his coming or of
his going, except that he took a human being with him on each
occasion.

The third victim was a petty trader who had been driving a pack
of ten or twelve donkeys, laden with gram, from Rangampet to a
small hamlet thirteen miles away to the northwest. He had been
seen eating his midday meal at the well at Pulibonu, which was
just beyond the seventh milestone along this track. In fact, he had
requested one of a number of bamboo-cutters who had been
camped there to draw some water for him from the well, as he had
no rope. The man had obliged and the petty merchant had drunk
his fill. Then he had been seen reloading his donkeys and had
finally moved off, driving them before him.

The following day some other travellers, coming from the

opposite direction, had found the pack of donkeys scattered but
browsing contentedly in the vicinity of the tenth milestone. They
were still carrying the sacks of gram on their backs. But there was
no trace of their owner.

The fourth man to vanish had done so at Pulibonu itself. And by

a quirk of fate he was the very bamboo-cutter who had obliged by
drawing water from the well for the owner of the donkeys. A party
of cutters, engaged on contract to fell bamboos in what is known
as a ‘coupe’ in the vicinity of Pulibonu itself, had been camping
there for over a month. Just a few days after he had obliged the
vanished merchant, this very bamboo-cutter had assembled with
his companions beside the Pulibonu well to eat his midday meal
and drink water. Thereafter all of them had returned to their
respective tasks. But later in the evening, when the day’s work
was over, he had not rejoined his companions in the small huts
they had temporarily built close to the roadside. Nor was he ever
seen again.

The other bamboo-cutters had not immediately panicked. In

fact, the following morning they set out in a body to look for him.
They had come to the place where he had been lopping bamboos.
A short distance away they had found his koitha or chopping-
knife. Close to it was the white cloth of his turban where it had
fallen off, still shaped to his head. It looked just as if he had taken
off the turban carefully and set it aside on the ground, rather than
as if it had fallen off.

Spreading out fanwise, his companions had thoroughly searched

the jungle, the ground, even the leaves of the trees and blades of
grass for a clue to his mysterious disappearance. If he had been
attacked and killed by a wild animal there would surely be some
traces, a smear of blood, a pug-mark, or a drag-mark where his
body had been hauled through the undergrowth. But there were
none of these things.

It looked as if he had just taken off his turban deliberately and

neatly, laid it on the ground, and then decided to vanish into thin
air. But no one would, or could, do that, and in the absence of any
trace of violence, the only other conclusion that could be reached
—at least in the minds of the other bamboo-cutters—was that
supernatural agencies had once again been at work and had
whisked away their companion just like the petty merchant before
him, and the cartman before that. Even their reputed village
magician, Kothanda Reddy, had been helpless before these evil
spirits or spirit— this Evil One—which had now come into their
jungles, and had come apparently to stay.

Once panic had seized the inhabitants of Rangampet, it gripped

them in real earnest. From alarm it soon turned into terror, and it
spread through all the villages. The police were alerted, as were
the officials of the Forest department. Even the Collector at
Chittoor was informed. But the ancients living in Rangampet
wagged their heads sadly, if not amusedly. What could the police
and other officials do against the Evil One?

Obviously, the only remedy was to appease the Evil One. And
the only method of appeasement was by sacrifice—by blood! The
police officials in the vicinity grew apprehensive. When the
question of sacrifice in a case such as this arose, it was a moot
point whether the frightened villagers would consider the life of
an animal, such as a fowl or a goat, which were the creatures
generally used for a sacrificial ceremony, of sufficient importance
to propitiate this Evil Spirit that now haunted the jungle. They
might get the impression that a sacrifice of a higher order was
called for. A human sacrifice; perhaps a child. Such things had
happened before.

So the police daffedar (head constable, who ranked as a

sergeant) incharge of the tiny Police Chowki at Rangampet
warned Krishnappa Reddy—the new village voodoo-man,
magician and witch-doctor combined, upon whose shoulders the
mantle of old Kothanda Reddy had automatically fallen as he was
the only eligible candidate in the vicinity—that they would lock
him up and then hang him if any of the village children were
found missing.

Faced with this curb to his professional activities, Krishnappa

Reddy was not easily upset. Whatever conclusion he reached is
not known. It was not long afterwards that Adiraj, the nine-year-
old son of a Harijan woman named Adima, who was of the
‘scavenger’ or ‘sweeper’ class, was reported by his mother as
missing from the town of Chandragiri.

Now Chandragiri is hardly six miles from Rangampet, and is the

headquarters of the district. A weekly market-fair, called a shandy
, is held there every Monday. The people from the surrounding
villages are in the habit of attending this weekly shandy to buy
such provisions and other odds and ends as are not procurable in
their own hamlets. What was more to the point, Krishnappa
Reddy had been seen by several people at the shandy on a Monday
morning. The small boy, Adiraj, had slept the previous Sunday
night beside his mother. On Monday morning he had told her he
intended to wander off to the shandy to see what was to be seen,
and he had not been seen by anyone after that.

It was not till Friday that Adima screwed up enough courage to

report to the police that her son had been missing since Monday
morning. The sub-inspector, hot on the scent, requisitioned a
jutka —a two-wheeled conveyance drawn by a pony—and ordered
the driver to make his pony go at a gallop all the six miles to the
hamlet of Rangampet. There he searched Krishnappa Reddy’s hut
very painstakingly, hoping to find some clue to the missing lad’s
fate—perhaps a bloodstained cloth or knife, or some part of his
anatomy, such as his liver or heart or other organs, as these are
known to play an important role in sacrificial rights. But he found
nothing.

Very indignant and disappointed at his failure, the annoyed sub-

inspector took Krishnappa Reddy back to Chandragiri in handcuffs
and kept him there over a week. But nobody had come forward to
say they had seen him talking to the missing boy, Adiraj. Worse
still, nobody could be found who would at least say he thought he
had seen the man and the child together. After all, remember,
Krishnappa Reddy was a magician! Suppose he laid a curse upon
the man or woman who volunteered such witness, false or true,
against him?

So on the ninth morning the sub-inspector released the magician

and told him to walk back the six miles to his village, where he
was to remain and not leave without the permission of the police.
To this Krishnappa Reddy had said enigmatically: ‘The fox is
cunning; but can he outwit a jackal?’

The sub-inspector pondered over those words for several days.

Had he been alluded to as the jackal? Or was he only the fox?
Whatever fate befell Adiraj was never known. But if he had,
indeed, been used as a secret sacrifice, apparently the Evil One
would have no part of him. For within a week the fifth victim
disappeared.

This time it was a woman. And she vanished near the turning
where the footpath, leading to a nullah named Ragimankonar,
branches off the road from Rangampet to Pulibonu. This turning is
within three miles of the village.

The woman, whose name was Venkatamma, had prepared the

midday meal for her husband, who had left earlier in the morning
with their cattle to graze them in the jungle where he had grazing
rights. She set forth at noon to take the meal to the rendezvous
they had agreed upon before he left—the sacred peepul tree that
grew on the bank of the Ragimankonar nullah, where it dropped
some thirty feet into a wide sandy hollow where water only
gathered during the rainy season.
 The man grew angry, because he was hungry; and his anger
increased in direct proportion to his hunger, when his spouse never
showed up with the long-overdue midday meal. He decided to beat
the lazy wench soundly when she did appear. That would
encourage her to be more prompt in future.

But the beating never took place. Venkatamma never came to

receive it.

It was a highly indignant and furious grazier who drove the herd
home much earlier than usual that afternoon, both to eat a
belated lunch and to administer the thrashing his wife would long
remember, instead of just a normal beating, which was the usual
corrective. Once again he was doomed to disappointment. There
was no lunch awaiting him—and no Venkatamma. His little
daughter told him that mother had left exactly at noon, carrying
the meal in an earthen ‘chatty’ pot.

Some days later searchers found the chatty pot lying broken
beside the footpath less than half-a-mile from the peepul tree
beneath which the herdsman had been waiting all afternoon. But
of Venkatamma there was not a trace.

I came one day with an Indian friend to camp for a week at the
Forest Bungalow at Nagapatla, which is built near the outskirts of
the jungle one mile from Rangampet, on the track that led to
Pulibonu. The manner of my coming and the purpose of my visit
on that occasion had certainly been unusual. Although I had
brought my rifle and gun as a matter of course, we had not
planned a serious hunting trip. My friend, Deva Sundram, was in
trouble, and I had brought him to Nagapatla to help him out of it.
For, of all things, Deva Sundram had contracted whooping-cough,
and by his own admission he was thirty-eight years of age.

I know little of sicknesses and far less of doctoring. But I

understand that whooping-cough is a child’s complaint and
seldom, if ever, affects adults. Nevertheless, Deva Sundram had
most certainly contracted it in real earnest from his own little son.
All the known remedies had apparently not helped the poor man,
nor had they allayed his fits of coughing and wheezing and
whooping. I had happened to visit him one evening at his home in
Bangalore. He was crouched on a sofa, his eyes popping out of his
head, spluttering and making strange noises in his throat. Between
spasms he waved me frantically away and stuttered: ‘Go away. I
have whooping-cough. If you come near me you will catch it. Go
away—go away.’ His wife anxiously explained that they had tried
every remedy on the market and several doctors, but Dev seemed
to be getting worse.

Now it so transpired that not so many years previously my own

daughter, June, and son, Donald, had contracted whooping cough.
I had planned to go to Nagapatla on a hunting trip about that
time. My wife, who is a bit of a nurse, had thought that the dry,
hot climate of the place would shorten the malady and suggested
we take the children along. We did so, and she had been right.
Both of them had stopped whooping within forty-eight hours.

I mentioned this to Mrs. Sundram. Dev ceased trying to choke to

death long enough to listen. Being a lover of the jungle himself, he
had just been able to stutter: ‘Capital; let’s start today,’ when off
he went into another paroxysm of whooping. It was rather funny
to watch him and I could barely repress a smile. Later, he told me
he did not think much of my sense of humour.

However, as a result of all this, we left for Nagapatla the

following morning in the T Model Ford I owned in those days. We
left Bangalore rather early in order not to expose Dev to the chill
of the night air. For the Model T, in spite of all its virtues, is not a
fast-moving vehicle, and we would never have reached Nagapatla
till late at night, the distance being about 170 miles. By leaving in
the morning and chugging along at an average twenty miles an
hour, stopping now and then to pour water into the radiator, and
for lunch, we got to the bungalow shortly before five in the
evening. It was noticeably warm even then, and Dev was
delighted that I had suggested coming to this place. In spite of the
long and somewhat uncomfortable and bumpy journey on the
hard springs of the Model T, he had been coughing less since the
time we had reached low country after passing Chittoor.

Eating dinner by lantern-light on the wide verandah of the

thatched bungalow, I began to chat to the ‘bungalow-keeper’, a
humble servant of the Forest department and an old friend of
mine, and asked him for jungly khubbar, the latest news of what
had been happening in the jungles surrounding the little
bungalow.

He was absolutely bursting with excitement and in a torrent of

speech began to tell of the exploits of the Evil One that had come
to the forest during the past few months and had accounted for the
disappearance of five people already.

Mixed with what he had picked up in the way of rumours, and

his own conjectures, plus the centuries-old background of
superstition and the tales of witchcraft he had learned as a child,
the old bungalow watcher told us an interesting and romantic
tale, filled with fantastic details of how each of the five victims
had disappeared.

Dev and I were thrilled; and to make it even more thrilling as

we listened, a panther began its sawing call as it walked down to
the Kalyani river that skirted the forest less than half a mile from
where we were sitting. ‘Ah-hah! Ah-hah!’ he called, uttering a
sound almost exactly like someone sawing wood, only it was far
louder and deeper.

By his calls we could follow the movements of the panther in

our minds, padding softly from bamboo-clump to muthee tree, and
from the sheltering bushes through the long grasses to the waving
belt of rushes that border the banks of the Kalyani and its softly
rippling stream of water, that speeds on its way through the dense,
silent and mysterious labyrinths of the darkened forest, with only
the stars in a velvety-black sky to cast their reflections upon the
restless current.

We tried sleeping inside the bungalow that night, but it was far
too hot, with not a breath of air to relieve the stifling atmosphere.
Further, the gambolling rats in the grass thatch above our heads
squeaked as they chased one another about. Suddenly one of them
cried out in fright and then pain. We were both lying awake on the
hard-boarded cots that furnished the room. The rat had squealed
loudly and pitifully for a few seconds and then stopped. Dev asked
me if I could think why it had cried out. To me the answer was
only too obvious. It had been bitten, caught, and was now in the
process of being swallowed by some snake which had crawled into
the thatch for that very purpose.

When I told him this, Dev scrambled out of bed and suggested
pulling the cots on to the verandah. I thought that a good idea,
too. The verandah was not only cooler, but it had a zinc roof
where rats would not gambol all night, and snakes would not
pursue them.

We fell asleep after that, and Dev did not disturb me much
during the night. His cough was already better.

‘Whe-e-e-ew! Kuck-kaya-kaya-khuck’m.’ It was the old familiar

call of the junglecock that awoke me next morning, just as the
false dawn was fading, to give way to a short renewed spell of
darkness. Then came the real dawn, spreading over the eastern
horizon, to outline the distant jungle-clad hills in all the glories of
shell-pink, vermilion, red and indigo blue, blending into peacock
green, tinged with yellow, orange and purple. I had watched many
dawns and sunsets before, but I have never tired of seeing another
as the golden orb of the rising sun dispels the wreaths of mist that
rise from the rich damp mould of the forest.

‘Cock-a doodle-doo.’ The cry came from south of the bungalow,

where the hamlet of Rangampet nestled a mile away. The village
rooster, hearing the challenge of his jungle cousin, could not resist
the impulse to reply, although nearly two miles of cultivated
lands divided them. The forest, a mile to the north, awoke to the
new life of another day as Deva Sundram shook his sleepy head
and raised himself on his elbows to listen.

‘Mia-a-oo. Mia-oo,’ called a peacock, fresh from roosting on

some far distant forest tree. Spotted dear, frightened by something,
insistently cried, ‘Aiow! Aiow! Aiow!’ Perhaps the panther we had
heard the night before was returning homewards and had alarmed
them.

I fried some bacon on my primus stove, which we ate with the

chappaties we had brought from Bangalore, while waiting for the
hot water to boil for the special coffee that Dev said he was going
to make that morning. And he carried out his promise. It was
delicious.

We took a walk into the jungle a little later, going as far as the
peepul tree on the bank of Ragimankonar, near which the woman,
Venkatamma, had so mysteriously disappeared. I scanned the
ground on the outward journey and the sandy bed of the nullah at
Ragimankonar itself, to see what animals had passed in the night.
We picked up the trail of the panther as soon as we came to the
bank of the Kalyani River. He had been a large male. A mile
further on a female sloth bear had rested under a jumlum tree,
while her two cubs had frolicked around her. Their tiny childlike
footpads were quite distinct on the sand. Isolated sambar, spotted
deer and wild-pig tracks showed the other beasts that had been
abroad during the hours of darkness.
 But I entirely failed to find what I had particularly sought and
had hoped to discover: tiger pugs. No tiger had passed that way.
Dev and I returned to the bungalow, swallowed more coffee and
then walked southwards to Rangampet. We wanted to hear other
versions of the strange tale that old Dadoo, the bungalow-keeper,
had recounted over our dinner the previous night. Both the patel
and village munsiff made us welcome with more coffee, and the
villagers clustered around. The advent of visitors, especially from
afar, was always an occasion for a chat.

‘The Evil One, dorailu?’ queried an ancient, bent and tottering

and leaning on his staff. ‘Aye, he is in the jungle in real earnest,
and has taken five people already. But he will never fall to your
firearms, sirs, for he will never give you a chance by appearing
before you. He is cunning—very, very cunning indeed. Although
your bullets would have no effect on him even should he show
himself, he will never do that. For you are strangers, foreigners,
and different from us. But he will lurk in the jungle, hiding behind
a bush or in a hole in the ground, or perhaps he will shrink to the
size of a beetle and climb to the top of a lofty tree, where he will
watch, watch for one of us; man, woman or child, whoever
happens to pass alone. Then in the twinkling of an eye he will
change in size and shape. From a tiny beetle he will become a
giant ogre. He will seize the unfortunate and eat him up and leave
not a trace behind. It will go on like this till we are all taken or
leave this accursed forest to him and never enter it again.’

The throng of onlookers nodded their heads in melancholy

agreement. Face to face with such deep superstition, we felt very
helpless indeed. I tried to appear disdainful and said: ‘Nonsense,
ancient one; I am surprised that a man of your years and wisdom
should talk like a little child. Doubtless it is a tiger or panther that
has turned man-eater and is causing all the mischief.’

He smiled superciliously. ‘Man-eaters, dorailu, I have met

before. When I was a youth one attacked me at the foot of the
escarpment beyond Umbalmeru. Fortunately I was carrying a
wood-cutter’s axe at the time and threw it at the brute. By still
greater luck the blade struck it full between the eyes. That tiger’s
liver turned to water that day. It whirled around and fled. So I am
here to tell the tale. Ho. Ho. Ho.’ He cackled toothlessly at the
recollection of the incident.

‘But this is entirely different, sir,’ he went on. ‘Look: you know
something about tigers and panthers, and we know you are a
hunter who has visited these forests before. Have you ever met a
tiger or a panther that leaves no pug-marks; no trail of any kind?
Not a drop of blood is to be found where

any of the five victims were taken. Not even a drag-mark, where
he pulls or carries their bodies into the jungle. If there is a tiger in
these parts just now, particularly a man-eater, would we not have
found his tracks in the forest, or along the dusty footpaths, in the
sandy nullahs, or the moist earth on the banks of the Kalyani
river? Would we not have heard his moaning calls at night while
searching for his prey? And the same goes for a panther, too,
although there are some harmless ones around. Resides, as you
know well enough, dorailu, it is not the habit of a panther to drag
his victim very far from the place he kills it. For one thing, he has
not the strength.

‘Finally, man-eaters invariably strike during the hours of

darkness or in the evening, when the shades of night are not far
off. But in this case every one of the five victims has been taken in
broad daylight, and that, too, in the blazing heat of the noon or
afternoon, when all carnivora are resting.

‘You can’t explain that, can you, dorailu ? But I can; and the
explanation is simple and obvious. We are up against the Evil One
himself—a spirit that can appear and disappear at will, and can
assume any form or shape he wishes, from that of an insect to that
of a monster, which he is. Your guns will be useless, sirs. For you
are not dealing with any flesh-and-blood tiger or panther. I advise
you to go home. Perhaps if you annoy him too much, he may even
take one of you; maybe both of you.’

And so saying the ancient again grinned mirthlessly. To signify

he had spoken the last word, the old man spat a mouthful of betel-
nut and pan-leaf against the foundation of the wall of the
munsiff’s little brick-and-mud villa with unerring aim. There was
a chorus of assent and approval from the bystanders. Even the
patel and the village munsiff nodded their heads dolefully.

Dev and I made our way back to Nagapatla in silence. The old
man’s words rang in my ears. What manner of creature was this
that left no pug-marks, no blood-trail, no drag-mark of any kind,
that operated in complete silence, that murdered at the hottest
hour of the day? No man-eaters in my experience had behaved in
this manner. Yet I knew there was no such thing as an evil spirit
responsible for the attacks. There must be a rational explanation.

The five people had been done to death at irregular intervals.

The common factor in each case was that the killing— or
disappearance—of every victim had always taken place soon after
midday. Secondly, there had been no other human witness to the
incident. The disappearance of Kothanda Reddy was largely a
matter of conjecture; but certainly the cart-man, the trader, the
bamboo-cutter, and the woman carrying food to her husband, had
each been alone. In the case of the petty merchant, his donkeys
were with him when it had happened. They, of course, could not
speak. Significantly, none of them had been attacked, hurt or
killed. And apparently they had not even been alarmed unduly
when their owner vanished, for they had all been found grazing
closely together the next day. If they had received a fright, they
would naturally have scattered in every direction. And most
certainly the sudden advent of a tiger, or even a panther, would
have scared the wits out of any donkey.
 We got back to the bungalow where we prepared our frugal
lunch. Dev asked me: ‘Jock,’—he always calls me ‘Jock’ for the
twenty-eight years I have known him—‘what do you think it is?’

‘It can’t be anything but a tiger or panther, Dev,’ I replied,

‘although I must admit it is certainly a peculiar and unusual
beast. There are no elephants or bison in this particular forest, and
the only other animal that might attack without provocation
would be a sloth bear. And a sloth bear is a stupid, clumsy beast.
He would certainly have left some sort of trail. Besides he would
not have carried away the bodies of his victims. He would have
left them where he had killed them.’

After lunch I said to Dev: ‘This mystery intrigues me. I would

certainly like to solve it. Tell me, would Leela’—Mrs Deva
Sundram—‘object to you staying another ten days?’

He was enthusiastic about it. As a matter of fact, since hearing

about the Evil One, Dev had completely forgotten his whooping-
cough, which had almost subsided anyhow. So each of us wrote to
his better half saying we were staying rather longer than
originally planned. Although we did not say so, we hoped they
would conjecture that Dev’s whooping cough attack was the only
reason for prolonging our stay.

By three o’clock in the afternoon we were back in the jungle,

searching for evidence of a tiger. We found none. We walked up
the roadway as far as the fourth milestone and then broke off into
the jungle to the east, walking the two furlongs to the water hole
known as Narasimha Cheruvu. Even on the muddy edge of the
pool we found no tiger pug-marks. A panther had come for water
recently and, of course, quite a number of deer of varying sorts.

Instead of returning by the road, we came back along the banks

of the Kalyani River. Here we picked up the trail of another
panther in several places. He was quite a large beast, and
certainly not the animal whose tracks we had found at Narasimha
Cheruvu. Perhaps the large panther had been the one that had
been calling the previous night.

Of one thing we were now almost certain. No tiger appeared to

be in residence at that time in that part of the jungle. But there
were definitely two panthers; probably more.

Was one of them a man-eater? If the answer to this question was

‘yes’, then there was all the more reason that at least in one or
more of the five instances of the vanished people, some evidence
of the attack should have been found. For a man-eating panther,
although a deadly antagonist, lacks the great physical strength of
a tiger to carry his human prey away bodily. Occasionally he will
begin to eat it on the spot, but generally drags the remains into a
thicket to consume them there. In either case there would be
ample signs for even almost inexperienced searchers to pick up a
trail of some sort.

We were immensely intrigued.

Early next morning we walked the seven miles to Pulibonu and

pursued our inquiries at the bamboo-cutters’ camp, which was
still there. Nobody could suggest a rational explanation, and that
some malevolent evil spirit was responsible was the universal
belief.

We searched the banks of the Kalyani, the game trails, and the
footpaths that bifurcate from Pulibonu. One of these leads in a
northwesterly direction, and it was along this track that the petty
merchant had parted company with his donkeys. The other
footpath branched off towards the northeast, skirted a rocky pool
known as Gundalpenta and led to another pool, named
Umbalmeru, at the foot of a lofty, frowning escarpment. It was
somewhere in this latter region that the first victim, old Kothanda
Reddy, the village wizard, had disappeared.
 These two pathways, branching off at Pulibonu, form a letter Y
with the main track leading from Rangampet to Pulibonu. We had
walked along the tail of this letter Y for the seven miles from the
village of Rangampet to Pulibonu. From there we followed each of
the top branches of the Y for more than a mile. On the section
leading to Umbalmeru we came across the first tiger pug-marks.
They were some days old, but they confirmed that at least one
tiger was in the area. On both the bifurcating sections, as well as
along the tail of the Y, we had seen the pugs of panthers, and the
imprints of what was undoubtedly an outstandingly large hyaena,
but no tiger tracks whatever.

Dev asked me if I thought the hyaena might be responsible for

what had occurred, and I very definitely rejected the suggestion. I
had met hyaenas many times and in many places, and had found
them not only quite harmless towards human beings, but
particularly cowardly. They would eat only carrion, such as the
kills of tigers and panthers, or animals that had otherwise died. I
have heard rumours of them encroaching on village burial-
grounds and exhuming corpses, and I had read once or twice in the
newspapers that in certain jungles in Madhya Pradesh they were
credited with carrying off children from the outskirts of villages.
But in all my experience in southern India I had never heard of
even a single case of this sort. The hyaenas of the south appear to
confine themselves exclusively to a diet of carrion, excreta of any
sort from beast or bird, and filth of every description, together
with such small animals as rodents, lizards and nesting birds as
they were able to surprise and catch. Once or twice they have
been reputed to have attacked goats and sheep.

We were dead-beat when we got back to the bungalow at

Nagapatla after dark that evening, having walked a distance of
over eighteen miles. And we were ravenously hungry, too. Dev
and I slept so soundly that night that the sun was shining brightly
the next morning when we awoke.
 Three days later our friends, the bamboo-cutters, provided the
first tangible clue to the identity of the Evil One. They had
finished their felling operations in the coupe near the well at
Pulibonu, and the bamboo-contractor, who employed them,
shifted the whole party to the next coupe at which he had secured
the right to cut. This coupe was at the very end of the right-hand
branch of the letter Y, after leaving the main path at Pulibonu. It
was within half a mile of the rocky pool that bore the name of
Umbalmeru, and almost at the base of the lofty escarpment which
formed the natural northeastern boundary of the Chamala Valley
Reserve Forest, where the Evil One at last revealed his identity.

The whole region abounds in bamboo and the Forest

Department had apportioned it into blocks or coupes. When the
stems grow to a certain height and thickness, that particular block
or coupe is auctioned for cutting, and the contractor who
employed the party of bamboo-cutters, as the highest bidder at the
auction, had obtained the right to fell and sell the bamboos in
that area. Time meant money to him and so he did not delay in
shifting his employees to the site where they were to begin felling
operations at once.

The very first afternoon, one of the men resting from his task
had happened to look up. On top of a shelf of rock, and regarding
him malevolently, he saw the head and face of a tiger. He fled.

The bamboo-cutters refused to camp in the forest that night, or

any longer for that matter. They told their employer that they
would rather walk back all the twelve miles to the safety or
Rangampet each evening and return next morning until the coupe
was cleared.

The contractor was not impressed. He argued that, even

walking very fast, it would take them two and a half hours each
way. That meant the loss of five working hours every day, which
in turn implied that so many less bamboos would be cut daily. The
less bamboos, the less money for him, he reminded them. They
replied that, if he did not agree, they would quit in a body. Then
no more bamboos would be felled and there would be no money
for him at all. They stressed that their own lives meant more to
them than the bamboos they cut and the money he earned. The
contractor tried to compromise by saying he would agree if they
consented to a proportionate reduction in the daily wages he was
paying them. But the men seemed to him unreasonably
determined. They demanded the same scale of wages, threatening
again to quit work.

‘Ah, yes,’ the contractor thought to himself. ‘Times are

certainly bad. Labour is getting more unreasonable, more
troublesome and more difficult to manage all the world over. If I
don’t give in, these fellows will leave and then there will be
nobody to cut bamboos for me. My curses on this beastly tiger.
May it die a very painful death, and that soon.’

So he agreed to their demand and that evening at dusk the

whole band, including the contractor, came home to Rangampet.
On the way they had to pass the gate of the Nagapatla forest lodge
where Dev and I were camped. All of them trooped inside and the
man who had seen the tiger told us about it. The contractor also
poured out his tale of woe. We were elated. The mystery was
solved at last. The Evil One was no evil spirit, intangible and
unreal, as everyone had thought. It was a flesh-and-blood tiger, as
I had more than half-anticipated it would be.

The tiger chose to strike the very next day. The bamboo-cutters
had returned in the morning and were working at their allotted
tasks. By common consent they gave the spot, where one of them
had seen the tiger the previous evening, a wide berth. The
maistry, or foreman in charge of the coolies, announced the
midday hour for them to stop work and gather beneath the grove
of tamarind trees for their meal, by a series of long, sharp whistles,
which he made with the aid of his tongue and teeth. One hour was
allowed for this purpose and the bamboo-cutters made the most of
it. After eating their curry and rice, washed down by bowlfuls of
muddy water drawn from a passing stream that trickled from the
pool at Umbalmeru, they sat and smoked, or chewed betel leaves,
or dozed.

At the end of the hour the maistry gave the signal for them to
return to work by a similar series of whistles, and soon the sound
of the chop-chopping of bamboos, and the crash of falling stems,
echoed from the glen in which they were working.

But the story of the man who had reported seeing the tiger the
previous day made them nervous and kept them unusually alert.
And to that fact alone did one of their number owe his life that
day. For as he chopped he glanced apprehensively around him now
and then. Thus he noticed the slight shaking of some fronds of
tender bamboo that sprang from the ground at the base of a larger
clump, and the glaring, greenish-yellow eyes that gazed at him
hungrily from a background of russet brown and black and white.

The man whirled around with raised koitha just as the tiger
leapt. The movement of its quarry told the feline that it had been
discovered and the man was ready to defend himself. It checked its
spring in midair by a convulsive twisting of its spinal cord and
tail, landing just short of its victim whose sharp-bladed chopper
swished harmlessly through the air, missing the animal by a
hairsbreadth.

But the tiger had no stomach for this kind of reception. It had
hoped to seize its quarry unawares. When it landed on the ground
it snarled viciously, crouched for a moment as if about to attack
again, and then turned tail and leapt back into the bamboos from
which it had come and was immediately lost to sight.

The man raised the alarm by screaming at the top of his voice,’
Aiyo! Aiyo! Pilli! Pilli!’ (Help! Help! Tiger! Tiger!), and then made
a run for the sheltering tamarind grove. His fellow workers in all
directions, hearing his cries, joined in the general pandemonium
and stampeded for the tamarinds. The contractor, who had just
fallen asleep there, was rudely awakened by the hubbub and the
men running headlong through the bamboos till they reached
him.

There was no thought of work for the rest of the day. The
coolies, this time headed by the contractor himself, put their best
feet forward to place as great a distance as possible between
themselves and the dreaded feline that lurked in the fastnesses of
Umbalmeru.

Dev and I had had an early tea and were near the third
milestone on the road to Pulibonu when we met the chattering
batch of men making at a jog trot for the safety of the village.
They all began to jabber at once and it took at least a minute to
sort things out and find the man who had been through such a
harrowing experience. He described the tiger as having stood ‘that
high’ on its four feet, indicating his chest as he did so. Truly a
brute of mammoth proportions.

It was 3.45 p.m. when all this happened. I told the man to hurry,
because he was to come back with Dev and myself and show us
the spot where the tiger had appeared. I had a reason for wanting
to do this. In plain words, I wanted to verify his story if possible,
by seeing the tiger’s footprints for myself. You must remember that
up to that time we had only heard the most exaggerated tales
about this weird beast, without the smallest shred of evidence as
to its factual existence. And I know from experience to what
lengths exaggeration can go when allowed to run riot in the minds
of the simple jungle folk.

The man was aghast. Go back to that fearsome place? Not on

your life! To hell with the very idea! He said all this and much
more to me in his vernacular, and I really could not blame him for
feeling that way about it. But I just had to have verification of his
story. So I got tough.

I will not tell you what I said, but in a little while Dev and the
bamboo-cutter and myself were walking at our best pace up the
road that led to Pulibonu, and from there along the righthand
branch of the letter Y to Umbalmeru.

We had nine miles to cover and we did it just before 6.30 p.m. It
would soon be dark, but that did not worry us unduly as both Dev
and I had brought our electric torches with us in case we might
return late from our long walk. Also it would not be particularly
cold at night except for Dev, who, as a whooping-cough patient,
really should not expose himself to the night air and the dew-fall
that went with it. I muttered a word of warning to this effect.

‘Whooping-cough!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who said I have whooping-

cough? I did have it, but that was long ago.’

The coolie pointed out the place where he had been cutting
bamboos, and the fronds of young bamboo that he had noticed
moving and from which the tiger had emerged. We examined the
ground around and behind it. In spite of the growing dusk we
clearly saw the pug-marks of a tiger. Not a very large one it is true,
and whether a male or female I could not distinguish because of
the fading light and the wisps of fallen, rotting bamboo leaves on
which it had trodden. But they were the footprints of a tiger all
right.

From scrutinizing the ground I stood up a happy and satisfied

man. The mystery was indeed solved. The Evil One that had
puzzled us for so long was nothing supernatural or uncanny. It was
just a tiger; but an extraordinarily shy, cunning and elusive tiger
at that. Also a coward.

We had no bait; nothing to sit up over. Water was to be found in

abundance in all directions. To go back to the bungalow meant
walking twelve miles in darkness and exhausting our torch cells.
So, why not spend the night in the jungle just for the fun of it? We
might hear or see something, or we might hear or see nothing at
all. At least it would be fun. Better than spending another night in
the rat and snake-infested rest-house at Nagapatla.

I made the suggestion. Dev was enthusiastic. The man we had

brought with us was shocked. But there was nothing he could do
about it, poor fellow, unless he chose to walk back alone—which
he most definitely did not.

The next question was where to sit. The pool at Umbalmeru

itself would be as good a place as any. At least I hoped we could
find a suitable spot there. The jungle where we were was too dense
and the bamboos were too close. With nightfall we would be
enveloped.

It was getting decidedly dark by the time we covered the short

distance to the pool. There was no time to construct a hide on the
ground, much less to build a platform or machan of any kind on a
tree. But a banyan grew not far away, and it was quite a large old
tree.

The banyan is a tree that drops roots from its branches. These in
turn reach the ground, penetrate, and in due course form the
trunks of other trees. So the banyan grows ever wider, covering
more and more ground, and consists of many trunks, the original
parent one and any number of others that have taken root
subsequently. A beautiful specimen of this tree—the largest of its
kind in India—grows in the Botanical Gardens at Calcutta. It
covers an enormous area. It is one of the landmarks for which the
Gardens there have become famous. A similarly mighty banyan
grows about forty-two miles from Bangalore and two miles from a
village named Thali. A stone temple originally stood at its base.
The pendant roots have entirely covered the stone walls of this
temple, although its entrance has been kept clear. At a casual
glance the roots appear to have formed a natural cave.
Incidentally a black cobra, supposed to be a hundred years old, is
reputed to live in a hole at the back of the cave. He is fed with
bowls of milk and half a dozen eggs at a time by the Brahmin
priest who looks after the temple. The priest told me the tree is
2,000 years old.

But to return to Umbalmeru. A banyan grew not far from the

pool. Not nearly such a large and old one, but it had quite a
number of root-trunks which had started growing in the ground
around the main stem. Two of these grew about four feet apart; in
diameter each may have been about eight feet.

We took up our position sitting on the ground between the two

root-trunks. I kept my rifle and faced the jungle. Dev sat with his
back to me, facing the pool, and on his lap lay my .12 bore
shotgun, loaded with a lethal ball in the right barrel and an L.G.
cartridge in the left. The bamboo-cutter sat on Dev’s right and
faced in the same direction. Dev and I each had our own torches,
but whereas I had remembered to bring the clamps which held the
torch to my rifle, there were no clamps for Dev and the shotgun.
So the woodcutter was to hold the torch for Dev and shine it if
occasion arose. Except for our two flanks, protected by the root-
trunks of the banyan, we were completely exposed and visible.

In front of Dev lay the pool. Unless the tiger came along the
nearer bank, he would have to cross the water, which afforded
some protection. At least we could hear him. In front of me was
the jungle into which I could not see once it had become dark
unless I flashed my torch. All three of us would have to rely on our
sense of hearing alone. The tiger, if he approached either from the
side of the pool or from the jungle I faced, would immediately see
us. What happened next was a matter of chance and depended on
the tiger’s courage. Would he attack three men together or slink
away?
 Dev was as elated and as excited as a schoolboy at a fair.

In no time it was pitch-dark. My feathered friends, the birds,

had gone to roost long before we had taken up our positions. After
a while the only audible sound was the faraway hooting of a
horned owl. Somewhere high above us, in the fastnesses of the
towering escarpment, maybe a mile away, he sat complacently
regarding the valley that stretched below him. And as he sat he
hooted: ‘Whooo-oooo! Whooo-oooo!’

Suddenly a bull-frog began to croak in the pool. ‘Khor! Khor!

Khor! Khor! Khor!’ Others joined in, one by one. It became a
throbbing pulsating chorus.

‘Skitch! Skitch! Skitch! Skitch!’ The bamboo-cutter, whose back

touched my left arm, started violently. I could imagine him
staring hard into the darkness. But it was only a water-frog.

Much smaller than the bull-frog and with long, slender

hindlegs, this species of frog sits half-submerged at the edge of
pools and lakes. Occasionally one of them will skim across the top
of the water, barely touching the surface with violent kicks of its
hind legs for some yards, before coming to a halt and floating with
its eyes and half its head out of the water. It was this act of
skimming or leaping along the water that had made the sound
that had caused the coolie to start so violently.

I knew that so long as one such frog skimmed the surface of the
water now and then, there was nothing to worry about. But if
several of the frogs were to do that together, it would be a very
reliable signal that something was coming and had frightened
them, causing them to take shelter in the middle of the water.

The Umbalmeru pool itself is not very large. Oval in shape, it is

about sixty feet by thirty feet. At the northern and narrower end
it is bounded by rock, being a continuation of the terrain that lies
at the foot of the escarpment. On the other three sides is jungle.
We were sitting on the eastern bank. It was too dark to see now,
but before settling down I had looked up and noticed the
escarpment looming above us, perhaps to a height of 500 feet.

The bull-frogs croaked noisily beside the water behind me.

Otherwise there was silence. Then the horned-owl began his eerie
call again: ‘Whooo-oooo! Whooo-oooo! Whooo-oooo!’

In the dell below us a plover suddenly started screeching: ‘Did-

you-do-it! Did-you-do-it! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick!’ Something
had alarmed the bird. What could it have been? Almost together, I
felt the backs of Deva Sundram and the coolie straighten and
tauten behind mine. But I knew there was time yet. Whatever had
frightened the plover, if it happened to be coming towards us,
would take at least another five minutes, maybe ten, to arrive.

A small animal rustled the leaves in the jungle before me.

Perhaps a mongoose, or one of those creatures that are distinctly
rare in south Indian jungles—a ratel. The rustling alternated with
silence as the small mammal stopped its search for food every now
and then and listened for possible enemies. Then it began again to
scratch the earth and scrape the leaves.

All at once it stopped and remained quiet. The five minutes

were about up. Could it have sensed something approaching?
Coinciding with the thought I felt the elbows of both my
companions excitedly digging me in the small of my back.

Very slowly I turned my head. At first I could see nothing. And

then, forming a silhouette like a shifting black blur against the
faint lighter outline that was the surface of the water, something
seemed to be moving towards us.

It merged into a black background of shadows cast by the outer

fringes of the main banyan tree and was completely lost to sight.
But it had been approaching us when this happened. The thought
was a most disconcerting one. I felt certain it was the tiger, and to
be helpless in the dark while a man-eater came on and attacked us
at close quarters would indeed be an ignominious end.

I turned around, balancing on my right knee. Placing the stock

of my rifle to my shoulder, I pointed the muzzle in the direction
where I judged the killer would be and quickly pressed the button
of my torch with my left thumb. The bright beam lit a ghoulish
head, from which two bluish-green eyes stared back at me in
surprise, fully reflecting the torch-light. But they were cowardly,
sly, scheming eyes, albeit a bit foolish in their startled expression.
The enormous head, out of all proportion to the sloping body of a
large hyaena, looked up at us. I could clearly see the long, upright
ears, the dark muzzle and the black patch under its throat,
although being head-on to us, most of the grey body, with its
straggling black stripes, was hidden.

I kept the torch burning. All three of us remained motionless

and silent.

‘Grr-rr-rr! Goo-doo! Goo-doo! Goo-doo!’ growled the amazed

beast, not being able to understand for a moment the origin of the
light, nor its association with human agency.

Then perhaps his nose, or maybe just instinct, told him.

‘Pfoof! Pfoof!’ he snorted, darting to cover with his peculiar

undulating gait, caused by his ridiculously short and weak hind
legs trying to keep pace with his long and powerful front ones. He
ran with an awkwardly loping motion, while the mane of hair
along his neck and back stood erect, giving the illusion that he
had suddenly grown to twice his size before our very eyes. His grey
tail, bristling all over like the rest of him, fanned out behind like a
feather-brush.

The hyaena vanished in the undergrowth, but he certainly did

not leave the scene. He scampered around us in a wide circle,
crackling the thickets as he forced his way through them, while
making the most curious and disconcerting medley of sounds
imaginable: ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ he cackled, ‘What-have-we-
here? Ha! Ha!’

When he came to the windward side of us and finally got our

scent, he was able to realize at last that human beings sat close
by. He changed his cries to a series of disdainful remarks: ‘Cheey!
Shee-ay! Shee-ay!’ as he scurried about hoping that we would go
away. But we did not go away and he was not happy about it. In
fact, he grew displeased. ‘Garrar! Garrar!’ he growled, then
breaking into a gargling-like series of protests, ‘Guddar! Guddar!
Guddar! Guddar! Guddar!’

In his indignant displeasure at our persistent refusal to budge,

he fairly made the jungle ring, scampering around and around and
making his ridiculous noises till we were about sick of hearing
him. One fact began to stick out a mile. If we did not drive this
garrulous visitor away, we might as well pack our traps and walk
back to the bungalow to put in a few undisturbed hours of sleep.

‘Shoo! Shoo!’ I said. ‘Shoo! Shoo!’ cried Dev. ‘Chee! po phissach!

(go devil),’ repeated the coolie. But it was all to no effect; for go
he certainly would not.

I groped in the earth beside me for a clod, found it and hurled it

at the noisy intruder. He made more noise than ever.

‘Goalee utchoodoo thaywoolee maylay!’ advised the bamboo-

cutter, which means. ‘Shoot the so-and-so!’ But he was only a poor
hyaena, although he was certainly not minding his own business,
and I did not want to do so. The din was shocking.

The hyaena came into view again—a dark shadow against the
lighter sheen of the pool of water reflecting the starlight.

Just then the tiger growled on the other side of the water: ‘Aa-
ooo-om! Aa-ooo-om!’
 The effect on the hyaena was instantaneous. He stopped dead in
his tracks, as if turned into stone. His long ears were clearly
outlined as he turned his head away to look for the dreaded author
of that ominous sound. The next instant he was gone!

We heard a scrambling patter for a few seconds as he dashed

over the fallen leaves. Then came silence: intense and frightening.

We knew the tiger had been somewhere in front of us and across

the water when he had growled. But was he still there? He might
be, but just as likely he might now be behind us or on either side.
For tigers do not advertise their movements as the hyaena had
done. Or he might have gone away.

The hyaena had warned him and he knew that all was not well.
The question was: would he want to investigate? Or would he
slink off, just as the hyaena had done? The next few moments
would give us the answer, and it was very important to us. So we
kept silent and remained watchful.

The minutes dragged by and an hour had passed. Except for the
distant chirping of wood-crickets and the closer croaking of the
frogs, there was no other sound to be heard. I began to wish the
hyaena was back. The noise he had made, although ridiculous,
had been something tangible and concrete. But this silence was
disconcerting and unnerving! We grew fidgety.

Midnight came and passed, and then it became chill. We heard

slight rustlings and faint scampering sounds on the dried leaves
and in the undergrowth. Rats perhaps, or other small animals,
feeding and quenching their thirst at the water.

A shadow glided overhead. We heard the heavy flapping of

wings. Then came silence again.

‘Whooo-oooo! Whooo-oooo!’ The horned owl was now our

companion. No doubt he knew the time when the small creatures
would come for water and thus expose themselves for a few
seconds. We never knew when he attacked; but we certainly heard
the result.

A rabbit (called a ‘hare’ in India) was the victim. We heard his

plaintive scream for mercy as the cruel talons of the owl drove
into his tender back, and we heard the faint ‘thud, thud’, as the
powerful beak struck his skull. Then the hare shrieked no more.
For he was dead.

The hours dragged by and it grew more chilly. We could not see
the sky immediately overhead because of the canopy of branches
formed by the banyan; but through the clearing over the water
hole, across which the giant owl had lately flapped his way, we
caught glimpses of it. There were no clouds, and one or two stars
twinkled distantly.

The clear sky assisted the earth in radiating what little heat had
remained since the hours of sunlight. Rapidly it became colder
and colder. This caused a heavy dew-fall and we could hear the
moisture dripping from the leaves of the trees around us, although
we were protected by the two trunks of the banyan and its
branches above our heads.

The coolie, poor fellow, was the thinnest clad and he began to
react to the cold in real earnest. I could feel him shivering against
my back and hear the faint chattering of his teeth. The barrel of
the rifle in my hands was like ice and the dew ran down it in a
little trickle. I pointed the muzzle downwards to keep the
moisture from running inside.

To a certain extent the cold discouraged the mosquitoes which

had been very active since sunset. Even the faint scratching
sounds made by the rats and other small animals subsided. No
doubt they were feeling the cold too. The chorus of the bullfrogs
died away to a spasmodic individual effort by one or other of their
number. It was that hour, early in the morning, when even the
denizens of the night appear to rest.

After 3 a.m. the wind began to blow. The warm air in the valley
below us, which had cooled by now, had long risen from the
ground to be replaced by the cold air from the lofty escarpment to
the north and northeast. It soughed and moaned and bent the tops
of the lesser trees as it blew into the valley in short violent gusts.

I began to forget about the tiger and felt sleepy. But it was too
cold even to doze. The distant crow of a single jungle-cock
indicated the time as past 4 a.m. Our vigil was drawing to a close
and the tiger had not come.

The false dawn came at about five o’clock, with its hopes of an
early sunrise. Then, as usual, followed a few minutes of renewed,
intensified darkness. The faint outline of the summit of the
escarpment to the east showed that the night hours were coming
to an end at last. The valley below was still enveloped in darkness
as the crags above began to show up in the most delicate hues of
pale pink, curiously mixed with a mauve and blue background,
before which wisps of mist spiralled upwards from the trees
growing on the slopes like the smoke-signals of a band of
marauding Red Indians.

‘Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!’ The rousing cry reverberated

across the ragged perpendicular face of the escarpment and
boomed with a hollow echo in the wooded valley below. It was the
joyous call of the male langur, the large grey monkey with the
whiskered black face and abnormally long, curved tail, that lives
in the forests of south India, as he awoke to greet the coming day.
Soon other langurs joined in and call after call echoed from crag to
cliff and then re-echoed across the forested valley to fade away in
the distance.
 It was quite bright where we were sitting, although the sun had
not topped the serrated line of rocks and boulders that marked the
summit of the escarpment to the east, when at last we rose to our
feet, stamped and stretched and yawned to dispel the effects of a
sleepless, uncomfortable night, and began the twelve-mile march
to the bungalow at Nagapatla. None of us was in a good mood, nor
did we feel like talking.

At the bungalow gates we met some of our friends, the bamboo-

cutters, who had come there from the village to await our return.
‘What happened?’ asked someone. ‘Did the tiger come?’ queried
another. ‘Did it attack you?’ asked a third.

‘Damn the tiger,’ I replied crossly. Then, relenting, I told our

coolie to acquaint his colleagues with the details of all that had
happened. They were discussing it loudly as I placed the kettle on
the primus stove to make hot water for tea. And they were still
discussing it when Dev and I tumbled onto the hard beds and fell
asleep at once.

We slept through the afternoon and awoke about 4 p.m. to eat a

late lunch, washed down with more tea. Then we put our heads
together to think out some way of settling accounts with the tiger.

Marshalling the facts, or rather as many of them as were known

to us, we found we were up against an animal that did not follow
the normal habits of a man-eater in the least. Firstly, all its
human kills had been made in the afternoon, during the heat of
the day. Secondly, they were all more or less localized and within
a few miles of the Umbalmeru pool and escarpment where he
appeared to be living. Ordinarily, man-eaters cover a large area
and follow a more or less distinct beat, which sometimes extends
for more than a hundred miles. Thirdly, those of his victims whom
he took he made away with completely and mysteriously. Not a
single body had been recovered. Fourthly, he appeared an
abnormally shy animal, with more than the usual degree of
cowardice that all man-eaters evince towards the human being
who fights back. In this case the bamboo-cutter had frightened it
off with his koitha, while the hyaena’s warnings of the previous
night had caused it to slink away when it could easily have
attacked us. Fifthly, it did not seem to have the habit of
wandering about its jungle domain as tigers usually do. We had
not found this animal’s tracks along any of the jungle-paths or
stream-beds which we had searched for that very purpose. Sixthly,
we had not received any reports of cattle being killed in the
surrounding area.

We could make nothing of it, so we decided to do the only

possible thing—tie up a live bait or two in the vicinity of the
Umbalmeru water hole, although we scarcely expected they
would be taken.

With this in view we went down to Rangampet village after

dinner that night. The villagers co-operated readily, and Dev and I
each bought a three-quarters-grown bull for the sum (in those
days) of about forty rupees. In English currency this ran to about
three pounds apiece! One of them was brown in colour, the other
ash-grey. We deliberately avoided animals that were white, or
even black, as some tigers shun baits of either colour, but
especially white. We wanted to take no chances. Having
completed the deal, we led our animals back to the forest lodge
and quartered them for the night in the motor-shed, pushing the
Model T into the open.

Early the following morning we got busy and with the help of
two of the bamboo-cutters led our animals all the way back to
Umbalmeru. We tied one under the banyan at the side of the
water hole, and the other about two miles away, near the track
leading back to Pulibonu. Here also we tied it close to a selected
tree. We did this deliberately so that in the event of either animal
being killed, a suitable tree would be readily available in which
we could sit and await the tiger’s return.
 All this took us till past midday, so that it was evening by the
time we returned to the rest house at Nagapatla.

The following morning we used the Ford to cover the first seven
miles of rough track to Pulibonu. The car could go no further for
the simple reason that the road ended there. So we visited our
baits on foot. They were both alive.

Untying each in turn, we led them to water, and then retied

them, leaving both with enough to eat until the next day. There
was nothing more we could do after that. Dev said he would like
to visit some of the temples at the town of Tirupati, which was
about fifteen miles from the bungalow. So we did that.

Tirupati is a centre of Hindu pilgrimage, devotees coming there

in their thousands throughout the year to pay homage to the god
Govinda, whose name they keep chanting aloud. All the women
who visit these shrines are required to shave their heads entirely
as an outward token of having made the pilgrimage. Considering
they arrive in hundreds daily, the quantity of hair removed must
be colossal.

Just before returning we dropped in at the refreshment room on

the railway station for tea. No train being due for some time, the
manager was at a loose end for the moment. So he came over to
the table where we were sitting and opened a conversation to pass
the time. In the usual easygoing manner of India he began asking
who we were, where we had come from, why we had come, and
numerous other questions.

Dev good-naturedly gave him all the details. The manager, who
professed to know a great deal about shikar, also agreed that the
tiger’s general conduct was most unusual and not in keeping with
a man-eater’s normal behaviour.

Then he said something that made me sit up with a jerk. ‘I

wonder if it could be the tigress that escaped some months ago
from a circus that came to town.’

Now it was my turn to ask the questions, and I fairly rained

them on him. What circus? How long ago? At which place had the
tigress escaped? Had a report been made? Had she been recaptured?

He answered my questions piecemeal, and from the information

he gave we gleaned the following facts. A small travelling circus
with a tigress and a few other animals had visited Tirupati and
had camped a mile or so outside town. The proprietor of the circus
had come to make friends with the manager of the refreshment
room at the railway station because they were not teetotallers,
and in a district where prohibition prevails people who are not
teetotallers find much in common in their search for that of which
they both feel in need.

One evening, after a few glasses had been surreptitiously

consumed, the proprietor of the circus had loosened up a bit and
had confided to the manager of the refreshment room that two
nights before the tigress had escaped. The stupid fellow who
looked after her had not closed the door of her cage properly. The
proprietor had been afraid to inform the police, and as he was a
likeable fellow, held in esteem among his own artists and
employees, he was confident that they would not divulge the
secret. Nobody had. A half-hearted attempt had been made to find
the missing tigress, but no one appeared to have seen her. As the
jungle lies within a mile of Tirupati, the proprietor naturally
concluded that his tigress had found her way back into the forest
where she would be able to look after herself. He became
reconciled to his loss and the circus moved on.

I asked the manager if he had ever seen this animal before her
escape. He replied that he had, as the circus owner had given him
a free pass to visit the show as often as he pleased. She was not a
very big tigress, but she was full-grown. He added that he thought
she was unusually fierce, having often seen her snarling and
growling as she ate her usual single meal of beef each day. He also
felt she had never been thoroughly broken in, as he never saw her
put through the usual acts of circus tigers.

A curious thought entered my mind and I asked him: About

what time did this tigress receive her daily meal?’

He glanced at me rather in surprise, but answered promptly

enough: ‘In the afternoon, after the circus-people had finished
their own lunch.’

The enigma was solved, and the animal’s peculiar habits were
no longer a mystery. For I was sure now that the man-eater was
the escaped tigress and no other beast.

She maintained her habit of eating at midday. She was terrified

of people—unless she could spring upon them unawares and kill
them quickly. She could not hunt properly and hence had not
developed a specific line of beat like a normal man-eating tiger.
Being fundamentally still afraid of people, she made off with her
human kills as quickly as she could, leaving no traces behind, in
order to devour her victim very far from the scene of the crime.
And, still not completely rid of her habits after living so long in a
cage, she had found some shelter for herself, probably a cave, and
had made it a permanent abode, instead of wandering from one
area of forest to another, after the manner of normal tigers,
whether man-eaters or not.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I felt that my
theory was correct. And her abode was doubtless somewhere in
the vicinity of Umbalmeru; probably a cave or rocky hollow of
some kind at the base of the escarpment. After all, as the crow
flies, the distance from Tirupati to the escarpment near
Umbalmeru could not be more than twenty miles, if as much. And
that is no great distance for a tiger to cover.
 I did not confide my ideas to Dev just then, but kept plying the
manager of the refreshment room with more questions. But it was
soon evident that he had told us all he knew. The only additional
information he could give was that the circus had shifted from
Tirupati to Renigunta, and from there to a place called Puttur, and
then to Arkonam, a railway junction about forty miles from the
city of Madras. He had kept up a desultory correspondence with
the proprietor and had received letters from all these places. Then
the letters had stopped, so that now he had no idea where the
circus had gone.

One last thing he told me, and that was that he remembered the
tigress had been called Rani.

When eventually we left Tirupati after dark that evening to

return to the forest bungalow at Nagapatla, I felt our visit had
been most opportune.

Before dawn next morning we drove to Pulibonu, left the car

and visited our baits again. Both were alive and well. After that
we scoured several nullahs and pathways, looking for fresh tiger-
pugs and hoping to encounter our quarry. All without result. It
was evening when we got back to the bungalow. We had dinner
and then went to Rangampet to enlist the aid of a man named
Ramiah, who had served me on hunting trips in the Chamala
Valley years before. I hoped he would be able to help me now.

Ramiah is a rather extraordinary fellow, at least so far as

villagers go. The first time I met him, which might have been
eight to ten years previously, he had attracted my attention by his
quite unusual interest in matters no other villager would have
bothered to know. Ramiah claimed to have discovered a secret
herb growing in the valley, the leaves of which, if eaten, would
counteract the effects of the bite of any poisonous snake. He said
he kept a stock of these leaves, dried and powdered, with him in
his hut, and by means of them had saved the lives of many people
who had been bitten by cobras and Russell’s vipers, and also of
cattle that had been bitten. At my request he had brought me a
small plant which I had taken back with me to Bangalore and
attempted to grow in my garden. Unfortunately, it died. Ramiah
had also discovered another herb, a couple of leaves of which, if
dropped into a teapot while the tea was being made vastly
enhanced its flavour. I had tried this herb and discovered his claim
to be true. He had presented me with a smooth egg-shaped stone
the size of a tennis ball which he said would always exude a trace
of moisture, particularly in the mornings. I had also taken this
stone back with me to Bangalore and found that what he said was
true. The strange phenomenon had surprised and interested me
enough to show the stone to a geologist at Bangalore. But that
gentleman, as amazed as I was, had offered no explanation for the
strange occurrence.

On one occasion, at the end of a hunting trip, I had offered to

pay Ramiah for his services. Instead, he asked me to buy a piece of
land at the head of the valley where the forest began, which was
for sale cheaply, and allow him to cultivate it, and in return he
would serve me any time I wanted when I came to Nagapatla on a
shooting trip.

I had done what he asked and bought the land, which was about
two and three-quarter acres in extent, for fifty rupees (less than
four pounds in English currency). Thereafter, Ramiah had
cultivated the land rent free for himself, and had willingly come
to my assistance whenever I had called upon him.

So we got Ramiah out of his hut that night and, sitting on his
doorstep, I related what I had heard from the refreshment room
manager. I had already consulted Ramiah when we had first heard
about this killer, but as he had been one of the many who had
subscribed to the ‘evil spirit’ theory, I had not thought it
worthwhile to enlist his aid until now.
 After relating the story of the escaped tigress, I said: ‘I am sure
that if any man knows every nook and corner of the Chamala
Valley jungle, that man is you. Now think very very carefully. Is
there a cave at the foot of the escarpment in the vicinity of the
Umbalmeru pool, or within the radius of two or three miles from
it?’

His answer came immediately. ‘Why certainly, sahib. There are

—now, let me see—one, two, three, four, and yes, one more, five
caves, within about the distance you have said. Two of them are,
roughly speaking, to the north, and the remaining three to the
east. One of the two to the north is rather high up on the face of
the escarpment. I don’t think a tiger would readily use it. The
ascent is too steep. I know the langur monkeys play around that
cave, but they don’t live in it either. All the other four would be
quite suitable for a tiger to lie up in.’

I was elated and showed my joy. ‘Good man, Ramiah,’ I

exclaimed. ‘Will you lead me to each of them?’

‘Surely, Sahib,’ he assented readily. ‘I have promised to

accompany you anywhere you want in this jungle, and at any
time, in return for allowing me to cultivate your land, free of rent,
these many years. That promise I will keep, Sahib,’ he concluded
simply.

I questioned him further about these caves and gathered that

three of the four he had in mind were rather small. The fourth,
which was one of the three caves at the foot of the escarpment to
the east was considerably larger than the others and had a name
of its own: ‘Madapenta’, because it was close to a small pool
formed by a rill that trickled down the escarpment. Penta signifies
a pool.

‘We will be able to visit all four of these caves in one day, will
we not?’ I asked him.
 ‘Surely, Sahib,’ he assented. ‘The cave to the north is hardly a
mile from Umbalmeru. The three to the east are from two to three
miles from the water hole, but within a mile of each other.’

‘I will come for you in the car tomorrow morning at cockcrow,’ I

told him. ‘Be ready. With an early start we should be at Pulibonu
by daybreak. We will walk the remaining distance to Umbalmeru,
and from thence to the caves, beginning with the one to the
north.’

‘As you say, Sahib,’ he acquiesced immediately. ’ I will be

waiting for you.’

Dev and I went back to the forest bungalow as happy as two

children. There Dev spent till midnight cleaning and re-cleaning
the .12 shotgun. He even cleaned my rifle.

The grey-hackled junglecocks were crowing when the Model T

chugged out of the gate of the Nagapatla rest house next morning,
and their cousins, the village roosters of Rangampet, had begun to
answer them when we arrived at Ramiah’s hut. It was almost 5
a.m. He had heard the Ford approaching and stepped out of the
doorway as I stopped the car.

We drove the seven miles to Pulibonu, and it was 6.5 a.m. when
we halted near the well and set out on our walk along the
footpath that formed the right-hand stroke of the letter Y and
which ran, very roughly, in a northeasterly direction to end at the
water hole at Umbalmeru. We arrived at the pool a few minutes
before eight, and the sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky.

Ramiah told me that from Umbalmeru no well-defined footpath

led to any of the four caves we were about to search. We would
have to rely on his sense of direction alone.

And Ramiah’s sense of direction never failed him. He led the

way, armed with his koitha, which is a long knife curved at the
end, fitted to a bamboo handle about a foot long. It resembled a
question mark without the dot at the bottom; but it proved
extremely useful when, at times, he employed it to hack a path
through the undergrowth.

Very often we met game trails leading in all directions, made

chiefly, as I could see from the tracks themselves, by sambar and
wild pig, with an occasional trail left by sloth bears, which had
dug for roots here and there, and had systematically demolished
every ant hill in their eager search for termites. But such things
did not deter our guide nor cause him to lose his sense of direction
for a moment. Onwards he moved to the north with me just
behind him, holding the .405 ready against a surprise attack. Dev
brought up the rear with the shotgun.

The land began to rise steadily towards the base of the

escarpment which we could see between the trees, frowning down
upon us. Soon the larger trees gave place to more bushy
undergrowth and boulders lay scattered about, increasing in size
and number as we rose ever higher. I had little doubt these had,
from time to time, been washed down from the escarpment by rain
and the consequent landslides.

Ramiah stopped half an hour later and said in a whisper that we

were approaching the first of the caves. We redoubled— if that
was possible—the caution we had been exercising since leaving
the pool at Umbalmeru. The man-eater might be lurking
anywhere, without our knowing anything about it.

Then Ramiah stopped a second time, indicating with a nod of

his head, but no spoken word, where the first of the caves lay. And
I saw it—the cave, I mean. A pile of boulders had fallen, one upon
another, and in doing so had formed a cave. I could see the
opening now. Not a large one by any means, perhaps a yard in
diameter at the entrance, but big enough to shelter a tiger very
easily.
 Stretching out my left hand, I touched Ramiah’s shoulder. Then
I drew him back and took the lead, placing him between myself
and Deva Sundram, still at the rear. On tiptoe, and as silently as
possible, taking care not to tread on a dried piece of wood or leaf
that might crackle, I inched forward till I stood about fifteen feet
from the mouth of the cave. Unfortunately the ground before it
was hard and stony. Besides, straggling clumps of spear-grass grew
everywhere. No tracks would be visible on such terrain.

I made signs to Ramiah and Dev to pick up stones and throw

them into the cave. They understood my signals and in a few
seconds a desultory bombardment began as they hurled stones, big
and small, into the narrow entrance.

Nothing happened. I could hear the thud as each stone fell, and
the clatter as it bounced and rolled inside. Certainly, if a tiger was
hiding there, it would either charge out upon us or at least
demonstrate in no uncertain manner, by growling. But nothing
whatever happened. There was complete silence, except for the
thud and clatter of the stones. It began to look as if the tiger was
not at home.

More stones followed, but without response of any kind. After

ten minutes I was sure the cave was uninhabited. I moved right up
to the mouth, where the grass and rubble ended and plain earth
formed the flooring of the recess. Still keeping a sharp lookout on
the dark interior, I stooped down and glanced at the ground for
tracks. There were no pug-marks anywhere. The only animal that
inhabited the cave, as I could see from his small footprints, was a
porcupine; and I knew that no amount of stone-throwing would
ever induce him to come out and face the bright sunlight. Being a
creature of the night, a porcupine can only be smoked out of his
burrow, and that with considerable difficulty. Generally, he will
prefer to suffocate under such conditions, if he cannot manage to
burrow still deeper.
 Just before we turned away, Ramiah pointed upwards to the
escarpment. He directed our attention to the second of the two
caves he had said lay to the north of the water hole. We could just
see the entrance, hidden as it was by the rank grass that half-
concealed it from sight. The cave looked to be at least 200 or more
feet above us and was perhaps two furlongs away.

Ramiah had been right. No tiger would attempt that steep

climb. Besides, there was another piece of conclusive evidence
that no feline lived in that second cave. A langur monkey sat
complacently at the entrance staring down at us inquisitively. If a
tiger had passed anywhere nearby, certainly if one was living in
the cave, the langur would not be there. They are far too cute to
take chances.

We made our way down the slope to Umbalmeru and then set
out for the three caves that lay at the foot of the eastern
escarpment. Once again Ramiah showed himself a good judge of
distances. The first cave took us nearly forty-five minutes to
reach, by which fact I judged it to be a little over two miles from
the water hole. The sloping ground and terrain were much the
same, but the cave appeared to be a chasm rather than a regular
cave, in that it was open at the top and had been formed by a big
slice of the rock face that had fallen in a landslide and lay about
ten feet from the base of the cliff. The piece that had fallen looked
to be some twenty feet or more in height, and the space of ten feet
between it and the escarpment was what Ramiah had called a
cave. Being open at the top to admit rain and sunlight, it was
thickly overgrown with lantana and long grass.

Although a wonderful place in which to hide temporarily, it did

not seem a very likely spot for a tiger to choose to live in for any
length of time. For one thing, it was too choked with
undergrowth. A tiger does not like to make a home in which he
himself might be taken by surprise.
 I told my companions to follow the same plan of hurling stones
into the recess while I stood guard over them with my rifle. As
expected, nothing happened. After a while we drew closer. The
ground was too stony and hard to reveal tracks, but the intense
bombardment of stones that Dev and Ramiah rained into the gap
soon made it clear that the tiger was not there.

We skirted the escarpment southward to the next cave, which

we reached in about fifteen minutes. It seemed to form the exit of
some sort of subterranean passage which led into the escarpment.
The opening was comparatively small, at most two feet across.
The usual stoning followed and we achieved a negative result for
the third time. Once again the ground was too dry and hard for
tracks, so we approached the mouth of the passage and set fire to
the grass that grew around.

Even if our stoning produced no results, the sight of fire and

smell of smoke would bring the tiger out at the double. Still
nothing happened. We spent the next ten minutes or so carefully
extinguishing every trace of the fire we had made. We knew too
well that a single glowing ember would be quite sufficient to start
a forest fire that might blaze for days and destroy thousands of
acres of timber.

To say we were disappointed would be putting it mildly. We

were thoroughly crestfallen. But one cave remained to be visited,
the largest of the lot, the one Ramiah had called Madapenta. He
told us it was over a mile away.

With little hope of success we set out for this place. Just before
we reached it we came to the little jungle pool that gave the cave
its name. And here our hopes soared skyward. Clearly imprinted
in the mire at the edge of the pool were several sets of pugs, and
they had been made by a tigress. Obviously this was her main
source of water.
 It took another 200 yards, at least, of careful noiseless progress
before the cave itself came into view. It had a large entrance, more
than five feet in width and perhaps a little over that in height.
Lastly, it was clear of grass and undergrowth and provided an
excellent view of the approach of an enemy to a lurking tigress
within. How excellent this was became clear within the next few
seconds. Before Dev or Ramiah could throw the first stone, there
came a thunderous growl from the darkness within, and the very
next moment out leapt the tigress.

The bright sunlight blinded her for a while. Then her eyes
adjusted themselves and she spotted us. She hesitated a brief
second, then cowardice, which appeared to be quite strong in this
animal’s make-up, overcame her. She swerved to her right to make
off.

At that instant I acted on the spur of the moment. Loudly and

sharply, I called: ‘Rani! Rani!’

The tigress halted. She turned to face me. There was ferocity in
her countenance; but also a strange expression of bewilderment,
recognition and partial submission. But our presence was a riddle
to which she never found the answer, for, taking no chances, I
fired into her chest, following up, as she toppled forward, with a
bullet in her brain.

She was a young animal, hardly full-grown, and obviously thin

and underfed. What had turned Rani into a man-eater?

The answer was plain. Years of captivity had rendered her

useless at the art of stalking and killing wild game. On the other
hand she was conversant only with the appearance and habits of
mankind, although she never to the very end lost her instinctive
fear of them.

So, in these circumstances she did the only possible thing to

keep herself alive. She killed her human victims by surprise
attack, and then took the bodies far away, where she would be
safe from the danger of pursuit while she fed.

Before closing this story may I add a word of caution that, of

course, will only apply to people living in places such as India,
Africa and other countries where wild animals can be caught
young and kept as pets. I know a lady who brought up a panther
cub until it grew too big and too dangerous to be kept any longer.
She was passionately attached to the animal, which was equally
fond of her. She would not hear of presenting it to a zoo or a
circus, as she was convinced that it would be ill-treated at both
places. Shooting it, naturally, was for her out of the question. So
she took it by car to a certain large jungle and there set it free.
Incidentally, she told me later with tears in her eyes, that as the
car drove away the panther bounded along behind in an attempt
to get back to her.

I wonder if this well-meaning but sadly misguided lady quite

realized what she was doing. She had just liberated a very
dangerous animal which she had brought up from a cub upon
boiled meat, rice, bread, pudding, porridge and what not, omitting
to mention such delicacies as sweets, ice-cream and things of that
sort. This unfortunate creature was totally unfit to look after itself
and catch and kill its legitimate prey. There were just three things
that could happen to it, and all of them most unpleasant to
contemplate. It might approach the first human being it met in a
friendly spirit and be killed for its pains. Secondly, it might starve
to death, although this is very unlikely, for when driven by hunger
the instinct for self-preservation would become so strong that the
panther would eventually kill something. Thirdly, and worst of
all, the animal might become a man-eater.

She told me what she had done less than a week after she had
liberated her pet. I advised her to scan the newspapers closely for
the following month or so. I did the same.
 Within a few days we both read a short announcement that told
of the strange behaviour of a very emaciated panther that had
wandered into a village (which was within a few miles of the
place where she had liberated her pet) and gone to sleep inside a
grass hut. Then came the sad part. The villagers had closed the
door of the hut, poured kerosene oil over the thatch and set fire to
it, burning the poor beast to death.

The lady was heartbroken at her pet’s horrible end. But I wonder
what she would have felt had she read instead that it had become
a killer of men, forced to the pernicious habit by her foolishness in
setting it free when it was totally unable to fend for itself.
 3

A Night by the Camp Fire

Y WIFE says I am eccentric. my friends say so too. and I

M suppose they are all quite right. But what if I am? I like being
eccentric at times.

One of my habits, even to this day, when I get disgusted with

the sight of too many people and the awful noise they make, is to
jump into my car and drive away to some nearby jungle. There I
will leave the car, wander off into the forest, make myself a nice
large camp fire as night approaches, and spend the hours of
darkness just seated by the blaze. I throw fresh wood on the fire as
occasion demands, having already gathered it before darkness fell.
Eventually the supply of wood will give out, or I might feel sleepy.
In either case there is only one thing to do. That is to go to sleep
beside the fire. The embers will keep me warm when the chill and
dewfall of early morning might otherwise prove uncomfortable.
They will also protect me from elephants and snakes, the only
creatures to be feared when no man-eaters are around. With
daybreak I will go back to the car and come home and wonder
why I did such a foolish and eccentric thing, and what I got out of
it.

But I have done it, and will do it, again and again.

Other forms of this madness are to go out to the jungle on

moonlit nights, and also on dark nights, and sit behind some tree,
or on a rock, or beside a water hole, and just watch and listen.

Those who have had the good luck at any time to sit beside a
camp fire, out in the wide open spaces, even where there was no
danger from lurking animals or poisonous snakes, might be able to
understand my fondness for this pastime. There is a pleasure that
comes to one at such times that words cannot describe. It touches
some hidden inner chord and sets one’s soul afire!

Perhaps it is on such occasions, and in such solitudes, that a

man’s inner self comes into closest touch with the infinite. I feel
very near indeed then to God, far closer than I can feel in any
church where the padre, either on the basis of a monthly salary or
other means of remuneration, automatically repeats words for the
uplift of my erring and sinful self.

However, let me not talk about myself. Perhaps you would like
to come with me on one of these night prowls—‘camp fire trips’
you may call them—into the jungle.

The Studebaker is ready with six gallons of petrol in her tank.

She also has a six-cylinder engine and is rated to have horse-
power, although how many of those horses are alive after these
many strenuous years, I wonder, nor try to guess. Just bring some
sandwiches, a water-bottle and if you can get it, a thermos flask of
hot tea. I will like you all the better. Your great coat and a cap,
too, in case you feel cold, and a pipe, tobacco and matches if you
are a smoker. That is all that is necessary. It is 3 p.m., but we have
only about fifty miles to cover.

I am taking you to a place called Kundukottai, where there is a

nice forest. Two ranges of hills converge there; and two streams,
coming from different directions, join together to form one large
stream. In the vernacular, the big stream is called Doddahalla (big
hollow or big ravine), but I have called it the Secret River. The
jungle around this area holds a few animals of every species,
except bison. I am told bison were once there also, but they have
been shot out long ago, although the forest range officer says they
were wiped out by foot-and-mouth disease contracted from the
village cattle that graze in the forest. After all, how can the poor
man admit the real fact? He is, after all, the range officer.
 We are away, and for the first twenty-five miles of our route we
spin along a metalled road. At the nineteenth mile from Bangalore
it leaves the state of Mysore behind and enters the state of Madras.
Exactly at the twenty-fifth milestone we come to the small town
of Hosur, which is also the taluk headquarters of that area. From
Hosur we branch off the main road and for the next sixteen miles
travel along what is known in India as a kutcha road—that is, a
road made with sand and stones where, for some reason or the
other, these two components never seem to be in the proper
proportion to make it a good road. One or the other predominates
in turn. The stones cut the car’s tyres, while the sandy stretches
make heavy going. In the rainy season these sandy sections
become very entertaining for the motorist with a sense of humour,
if there is such a man, for then he will slide and skid from side to
side, or perhaps get bogged down to the axle if he is not careful.
But this is not the rainy season and we cover those sixteen miles in
fair time, to reach the smaller town of Denkanikota, which is the
headquarters of two forest range officers controlling different
blocks of jungle.

Now we leave the stone-and-sand road and travel on a road that

is not a road at all, for this is nothing but a glorified bullock-cart
track. About three and a half miles from Denkanikota this track
crosses the upper reaches of one of the two streams I have
mentioned. There are no complicated and expensive bridges here;
the track just splashes through the stream. This is fair enough,
unless there has been heavy rain. Then the stream becomes a
torrent and the water may rise to a depth of ten feet. When that
happens you just go back to Denkanikota and try again after two
days, when the water-level may have subsided. Just think how
lucky you were to have been on the Denkanikota side. Supposing
you had been on the other bank; you would have had to remain
there till the flood went down.

Twice more we cross the stream that snakes alongside the track.
At the eighth milestone we pass the hamlet of Kundukottai,
overshadowed by a rocky hill noted for two things—panthers and
the large rock-bee.1 And remember that of these the bees are far
more dangerous when really roused.

The track now drops sharply into a valley while curving around
the spurs of the rocky hill. But we have only a mile more to go,
and there, beside the ninth milestone, we must leave the
Studebaker after first backing it and turning it around for the
return journey—rather an awkward manoeuvre since the track is
scarcely wider than the length of the car, with a steep decline on
one side.

It is done at last. We place four stones behind the four wheels

besides leaving the car in gear, just in case some fidgety wayfarer
tampers with the controls. Also we must disconnect one of the
leads to the battery, since the wayfarer may switch on the lights
for you and allow them to burn. Carrying the few things we have
brought with us, we must walk sharply downhill to the
Doddahalla stream, the two halves of which have united less than
a mile higher up, to form the one watercourse which I have named
the Secret River.

Indeed, it has secrets of geological interest further down its

course. But you will not tempt me to divulge them, for if I did, this
beautiful stretch of forest and stream would be invaded and
commercialized to their utter destruction.

At last we reach the bed of the little river and find it a veritable
fairyland. There is not much water in it at this season; just a tiny
trickle that meanders sometimes down the centre of the sandy
bed, and at other times curves from bank to bank. Both sides are
thickly wooded with towering, gnarled trees—tamarind, jumlum ,
and muthee mostly, with here and there a stray flame-of-the-
forest, ficus tree, banyan, neem and mhowa. Between the trees
the tall, feathery stems of bamboos bend gracefully over the sandy
stretches. Sudden currents of cool breeze now and then rush down
the valley and blow along the streambed. When that happens, the
branches of the trees and the lofty tufts of the bamboos swing and
sway in unison to make a distant soughing sound like a faraway
waterfall, or the thunder of the sea on distant reefs in a restless
ocean.

It is just 5 p.m., but we have a deal of work to do before it gets

dark. First we select a camp site: a spot fairly high up on the sandy
bank. And now comes the all-important task of gathering wood for
our camp fire. Bear in mind that the more wood we gather the
longer the blaze will last, and also the stronger and brighter it will
be. There is no difficulty whatever in getting the wood, for it lies
everywhere in abundance, thrown up on both banks and even on
the wide streambed itself, wedged tightly between boulders and
tree trunks that blocked the way when the river was in spate after
the rains and carried everything before it—tree-trunks, logs,
branches, roots—everything and anything.

It is 6.15 p.m. and we are ready. It is also growing dark. But let
us not light the fire just yet, for that will alarm the birds. Rather,
let us listen to them awhile: the challenging calls of the grey
junglecocks, the wrangling of spurfowl, the strident, plaintive
‘meowing’ of peafowl, the restless cries of the ever-watchful
plover or ‘Did-you-do-it’, and the distant, provoking crescendo of
the ‘brain-fever’ bird.

Now it is almost dark and the nightjars flit around. One sits on a
boulder and is lost to sight in the matchless camouflage that
blends with the stone. But we know it is there for we hear it,
‘Chuck! Chuck! Chuck! Chuck! Chuck-oooo!’ it trills.

Suddenly a distant medley of sound falls on our ears. Not

discordant, but strangely thrilling; maybe eerie.

‘Ooooo-oooo-ooooh! Woooo-woooo-wooooh!’

‘Oo-where? Oo-where? Oo-where? Where? Where?’

 ‘Here! Here! Here! Heere! Heere! Heeeere!’

‘Hee-yah! Hee-yah! Heeee-yah!’

‘Yah! Yah! Ya-ah! Ya-ah! Heeeeee-yah! Heeeeee-yah!’

It is the chorus of a jackal-pack in their restless hunt for food.

The leader calls stridently, raucously—‘Oo-where? Oo-where? Oo-
where?’—and the pack seem to answer: ‘Here! Here! Heere! Heee-
yah! Yah! Yah! Yah!’

The long-drawn ululation bursts forth again and is answered by

the staccato, raucous, vociferous refrain. The savage call and
plaintive reply echo and re-echo from the forbidding darkness of
the surrounding forest, rise and fall in crescendo and diminuendo
down the aisles of the jungle. The shrieking crescendo of noise
passes frantically into a prolonged and indescribable clamour. It
permeates the clinging, enveloping, enshrouding blackness.
Nothing can restrain it. That wildly beautiful and infinitely
savage chorus lingers, dies away and screams again to a crescendo,
snivels, abates and swells in turn; an unending medley of
outrageous sounds.

Night has fallen. It is time to light the fire, not because of the
jackals, for in spite of the forbidding calls they are harmless; not
because of a wandering tiger or panther, because there are no
man-eaters in this area at present, nor will they hurt you. The
reason for the fire is the existence of two different sorts of
creatures, one of them very big and the other quite small, which
will harm you in no uncertain manner if either happens to come
too close: a wandering solitary elephant, and a creeping poisonous
snake. We have brought no firearms, and it will not be a pleasant
experience in the darkness should an elephant come upon us or a
venomous snake find us obstructing his path.

The fire is soon crackling merrily. A few sparks fly heavenward

and the glow fitfully lights up the boles of the trees surrounding
us, silent sentinels of the watchful wild. The jackals see the glow,
or maybe smell the smoke. Their yowling comes to an abrupt end.
The fire has frightened everything into silence, except for the
wood-crickets which chirp ceaselessly from their shelters among
the fallen leaves.

The larger animals will not start moving till after eight o’clock
at the earliest, so we have about an hour for a chat. There is no
place quite so suitable for a friendly talk as a camp fire. The red
embers, the crackle of flames, the occasional shower of sparks as a
fresh piece of wood is thrown into the blaze, the acrid smell of
smoke that curls upwards in a spiral to the sky above—all these
help to give one the feeling of being at home with oneself, with
Nature and with God.

Perhaps you would like me to tell you something about the more
intimate and individual natures of some of the denizens of these
forests. So far I have told you stories of hunting and shooting them
which will give the impression that these animals are without
qualification fierce, implacable and unreasonable, given only to
the lust of killing and destroying. I thought so, too, in my younger
days. But since that far-off time I have kept most of these creatures
as pets, admittedly from an early age, but to quite an advanced
age in various ways and capacities; every one of them has
exhibited traits of remarkable good sense and affection, if only the
owner can get to understand their little peculiarities and
shortcomings.

Let me try to illustrate my point by telling you about a few of

them.

I will begin with Bruno, my wife’s pet sloth bear. I got him for
her by accident.

I was with a party of friends who had gone to hunt wild boar for
meat. There is a place about thirty miles beyond Mysore city
where the sugarcane fields are infested by wild-pig, which cause
much damage to the crops. The pigs lie up in the sugarcane
plantations during the day and we had them driven out by
‘beaters’ (who are the willing owners of the fields and their
hirelings), shooting them as they broke cover between adjoining
fields or tried to escape into the surrounding scrub jungle. The
arrangement is that half the meat goes to the beaters while we
take the rest.

Nearly two years ago, on one such beat, out rushed a sounder of
pigs and some of them were shot, while the rest escaped.
Everybody thought the fun was over when suddenly there came a
loud ‘Woof! Woof!’ and a solitary sloth bear followed, looking
decidedly black and decidedly hot in the midday sun.

Now I will not shoot a sloth bear wantonly but, unfortunately

for the poor beast, one of my companions did not feel that way
about it, and promptly shot the bear on the spot.

As we watched the fallen animal we were surprised to see that

the black fur on its back moved and left the prostrate body. Then
we saw it was a baby bear that had been riding on its mother’s
back when the sudden shot had killed her. The little creature ran
around its prostrate parent making a pitiful noise.

I ran up to it to attempt a capture. It scooted into the sugarcane

field. Following up with the beaters, I was at last able to grab it by
the scruff of its neck while it snapped and tried to scratch me with
its long, hooked claws.

We put it in one of the gunny bags we had brought for the meat,
and when I got back to Bangalore I duly presented it to my wife.
She was delighted! She at once put a coloured ribbon around its
neck, and after discovering the cub was a ‘boy’ she christened it
Bruno.
 Bruno soon took to drinking milk from a bottle. It was but a step
further and within a very few days he started eating and drinking
everything else. And everything is the right word, for he ate
porridge made from any ingredients, vegetables, fruit, nuts, meat
(especially pork), curry and rice regardless of condiments and
chillies, bread, eggs, chocolates, sweets, pudding, ice-cream, etc.,
etc., etc. As for drink: milk, tea, coffee, lime-juice, aerated water,
buttermilk, beer, alcoholic liquor and, in fact, anything liquid. It
all went down with relish.

The bear became very attached to our two Alsatian dogs and to
all the children of the tenants living in our bungalow. He was left
quite free in his younger days and spent his time in playing,
running into the kitchen and going to sleep in our beds.

One day an accident befell him. I put down poison (barium

carbonate) to kill the rats and mice that had got into my library.
So did Bruno; and he ate some of the poison. Paralysis set in to the
extent that he could not stand on his feet. But he dragged himself
on his stumps to my wife, who called me. I guessed what had
happened. Off I rushed in the car to the vet’s residence. A case of
poisoning! Tame bear—barium carbonate—what to do?

Out came his medical books, and a feverish reference to the

index began: ‘What poison did you say, sir?’ ‘Barium carbonate’.
‘Ah yes-B-Ba-Barium Salts-Ah! Barium carbonate! Symptoms—
paralysis—treatment—injections of…Just a minute, sir. I’ll bring
my syringe and the medicine.’

A dash back in the car. Bruno still floundering about on his

stumps, but clearly weakening rapidly; some vomiting, heavy
breathing, with heaving flanks and gaping mouth.

Hold him, everybody! In goes the hypodermic—Bruno squeals—

10 c.c. of the antidote enters his system without a drop being
wasted. Ten minutes later: condition unchanged! Another 10 c.c.
injected! Ten minutes later: breathing less stertorous—Bruno can
move his arms and legs a little although he cannot stand yet.
Thirty minutes later: Bruno gets up and has a great feed! He looks
at us disdainfully, as much as to say, ‘What’s barium carbonate to
a big black bear like me?’ Bruno is still eating.

Another time he found nearly one gallon of old engine oil which
I had drained from the sump of the Studebaker and was keeping as
a weapon against the inroads of termites. He promptly drank the
lot. But it had no ill effects whatever.

The months rolled on and Bruno had grown many times the size
he was when he came. He had equalled the Alsatians in height
and had even outgrown them. But was just as sweet, just as
mischievous, just as playful. And he was very fond of us all. Above
all, he loved my wife, and she loved him too! She had changed his
name from Bruno, to Baba, a Hindustani word signifying ‘small
boy’. And he could do a few tricks, too. At the command, ‘Baba,
wrestle’, or ‘Baba, box’, he vigorously tackled anyone who came
forward for a ‘rough and tumble’. Give him a stick and say ‘Baba,
hold gun’, and he pointed the stick at you. Ask him, ‘Baba,
where’s baby?’ and he immediately produced and cradled
affectionately a stump of wood which he had carefully concealed
in his straw bed. But because of the tenant’s children, poor Bruno,
or Baba, had to be kept chained most of the time.

Then my son and I advised my wife, and friends advised her too,
to give Baba to the zoo at Mysore. He was getting too big to keep
at home. After some weeks of such advice she at last consented.
Hastily, and before she could change her mind, a letter was
written to the curator of the zoo. Did he want a tame bear for his
collection? He replied, ‘Yes.’ The Zoo sent a cage from Mysore in a
lorry, a distance of eighty-seven miles, and Baba was packed off.

We all missed him greatly; but in a sense we were relieved. My

wife was inconsolable. She wept and fretted. For the first few days
she would not eat a thing. Then she wrote a number of letters to
the curator. How was Baba? Back came the replies: ‘Well, but
fretting; he refuses food too.’

After that, friends visiting Mysore were begged to make a point

of going to the zoo and seeing how Baba was getting along. They
reported that he was well but looked very thin and sad. All the
keepers at the zoo said he was fretting. For three months I
managed to restrain my wife from visiting Mysore. Then she said
one day: ‘I must see Baba. Either you take me by car; or I will go
myself by bus or train.’ So I took her by car.

Friends had conjectured that the bear would not recognize her. I
had thought so too. But while she was yet some yards from his
cage Baba saw her and recognized her. He howled with happiness.
She ran up to him, petted him through the bars, and he stood on
his head in delight.

For the next three hours she would not leave that cage. She gave
him tea, lemonade, cakes, ice-cream and what not. Then ‘closing
time’ came and we had to leave. My wife cried bitterly; Baba cried
bitterly; even the hardened curator and the keepers felt depressed.
As for me, I had reconciled myself to what I knew was going to
happen next.

‘Oh please, sir,’ she asked the curator, ‘may I have my Baba
back?’

Hesitantly, he answered: ‘Madam, he belongs to the zoo and is

government property now. I cannot give away government
property. But if my boss, the superintendent at Bangalore, agrees,
certainly you may have him back.’

There followed the return journey to Bangalore and a visit to

the superintendent’s bungalow. A tearful pleading: ‘Baba and I are
both fretting for each other. Will you please give him back to me?’
He was a kind-hearted man and consented. Not only that, but he
wrote to the curator telling him to lend us a cage for transporting
the bear to Bangalore.

Back we went to Mysore again, armed with the superintendent’s

letter. Baba was driven into a small cage and hoisted on top of the
car; the cage was tied securely, and a slow and careful return
journey to Bangalore was accomplished.

Once home, a squad of coolies were engaged for special work in

our compound. An island was made for Baba. It was twenty feet
long by fifteen feet wide, and was surrounded by a dry pit, or
moat, six feet wide by seven feet deep. A wooden box that once
housed fowls was brought and put on the island for Baba to sleep
in at night. Straw was placed inside to keep him warm, and his
‘baby’, the gnarled stump, with his ‘gun’, the piece of bamboo,
both of which had been sentimentally preserved since he had been
sent away to the zoo, were put back for him to play with.

In a few days the coolies hoisted the cage on to the island and
Baba was released. He was delighted; standing on his hindlegs, he
pointed his ‘gun’ and cradled his ‘baby’. My wife spent hours
sitting on a chair there while he sat on her lap. He was fifteen
months old and pretty heavy, too!

The way my wife reaches the island and leaves it is interesting. I

have tied a rope to the overhanging branch of a mango tree with a
loop at its end. Putting one foot in the loop, she kicks off with the
other, to bridge the six-foot gap that constitutes the width of the
surrounding pit. The return journey is made the same way.

But who can say now that a sloth bear has no sense of affection,
no memory and no individual characteristics?

I will tell you next about quite a different sort of animal— a

hyaena—which is also with us now and is my particular pet. His
name is Jackie, and I got him under rather tragic circumstances.
 Nearly fourteen months ago I was spending a night in the
jungle. But the place and circumstances were different. It was at a
spot named Sopathy, a rocky stretch on the Chinar river in the
Salem district, and it was a moonlit night. I had not made a camp
fire, but was sitting on one of the boulders overhanging a sandy
stretch of the river. I was alone and had brought no weapon.

About ten o’clock I noticed an indefinable something moving

along the sand in my direction. As it came closer I made out, by
the peculiar loping gait, the slanting body and the grey form on
which the black stripes were hardly visible in the moonlight, that
it was a hyaena. When almost opposite me it halted abruptly and
faced about, staring intently away from me at something in the
jungle. I could see clearly its large, upstanding, bat-like ears
cocked to catch the slightest sound.

Very soon the reason for its behaviour became evident. A wild
dog, looking as grey as the hyaena in the moonlight, although it is
actually a reddish-brown animal with an almost black, bushy tail,
broke cover from the opposite bank of the river that was
overgrown with jungle, and advanced on to the sandy bed. Almost
immediately it was joined by five others of its kind. The hyaena
turned about and tried to slink into the cover of the trees growing
near the rock on which I was sitting. But the wild dogs caught the
movement and without further ado attacked.

I have had occasion to remark before that wild dogs are fierce
and implacable hunters. Except for man, elephants and bison,
they will attack anything that moves, including tigers and
panthers, and are quite unmindful of the losses they may sustain
in the fray, so long as they eventually succeed in pulling down
their prey, tearing it to shreds, and eating it while still practically
alive. My own experience up to that time had been that wild dogs
either regard hyaenas as cousins or beneath contempt and leave
them alone. But that night was an exception, for the six dogs
attacked the hyaena forthwith.
 The hyaena tried to make a run for it, but his shambling feet
moved too slowly and in an instant the dogs were upon him. The
first attacker came too near. Like lightning, the hyaena switched
around, dipped its head at an angle, and closed its vice-like jaws
on the dog’s neck. I heard the dying wail of the stricken animal
when the powerful teeth sank into its throat. The loud crunch of
bones followed as the neck snapped like a dry twig. But the other
five dogs piled themselves on to the unfortunate hyaena.

The hyaena striata , to give him his full Latin name, is no

fighter. Rather, he is a cowardly, sneaking, skulking creature by
nature, that slouches along the jungle, covering enormous
distances in his search for carrion—anything that is dead, no
matter how it died or in what stage of decomposition the carcass
may be. For the hyaena is a scavenger. Very occasionally he may
attack, kill and eat a stray goat, sheep or village cur, but that is
only when driven by the pangs of extreme hunger. He will try to
avoid a fight at any cost.

This unfortunate hyaena, whose plight I was watching, had

attempted to slink away, but the dogs had been too quick.
Realizing now that it could not escape, it decided to sell its life
dearly. While the dogs squealed and ‘whistled’ in their curious
fashion to attract reinforcements of their own kind, with
rumbling, throaty growls the hyaena snapped right and left,
scoring telling bites on its attackers, who screamed in agony. But
the five of them were too many. They covered the hyaena’s body,
growling, biting and rending the living flesh from the bones. I
knew that in another minute the beast would be torn to shreds.

I wanted to help, but I had no weapon with me—not even a

stick or stone. For a second I contemplated scrambling down from
the rock on which I was sitting and rushing to the rescue while
driving the assailants off with shouts. But it was just possible that
in their infuriated state they might resent my intrusion and
attack. So I stood up from my place of concealment, showed
myself, and started whistling and shouting at the top of my voice.

The combatants were so busily engaged in tearing each other to

bits that it was some time before they heard the noise I was
making. Then, one by one, the dogs ceased attacking the hyaena
and turned around to look up at the rock on which I was standing.
In the moonlight I could see the hyaena was in a bad way: no
longer grey, but bearing large black patches that glistened even at
that distance. I knew the patches were caused by the blood that
flowed from many wounds. All the five dogs were injured, too.
Some of them licked themselves or each other, as they looked at
me and then back at their victim.

The hyaena seized the chance, tottered across the dry riverbed
and disappeared into the jungle on the other side. A few minutes
later the five dogs followed, intent no doubt in finishing the task.
But I heard no further sound, and after the disturbance created by
the din of the fight, together with the noise I had made, no other
animal showed up for the rest of the night.

With daybreak the thought occurred to me to follow in the

tracks of the hyaena to see what had happened. This was
comparatively easy, for although the ground on the opposite bank
was too hard to show footprints, there was a clear trail of blood
that had dripped on the grass and had been smeared on the leaves
of the bushes. The trail led to a small knoll that was perhaps half a
mile away. Close to the summit of this knoll were some large
boulders, heaped one upon the other, with spear-grass growing
around. Here the hyaena had made a last gallant stand and met
death as the relentless pursuers had once again closed in.

One of the red dogs lay dead, stiffening in the long spear-grass
that was lank and bent with the weight of the glistening dewdrops
that still dripped from the ends of the stems. Only a few bones and
the skull of the hyaena remained. Fragments of the grey and
black-striped coat lay in shreds around me, most of them dyed a
dark rusty-red with blood. But no carcass or flesh were to be seen.
The dogs had eaten it all.

Hardly ten yards away was an opening between the tumbled

boulders. No doubt it was the den to which the hyaena had been
making its way when the attackers had moved in. As I looked
upon the scene of carnage, a slight movement at the entrance to
the den caught the corner of my eye. I glanced up to gaze into the
frightened, sad faces of two baby hyaenas.

So the gallant animal who had fought the previous night against
such odds had been a female hyaena, and not a male, as I had
thought. Further, she had been a mother and had left two
orphaned pups. I could see by their size that they were too young
to look after themselves and would starve to death in three or four
days. I determined to try to catch them. I retreated downhill the
way I had come, in full view of the hyaena’s pups. Then I made a
detour and approached the hillock from the opposite side. I
eventually hid myself behind the pile of boulders and waited for
the puppies to come out of the shelter. I knew this would happen
very shortly, just as soon as they grew hungry.

My chance came at last. They came out of their den side by side
and advanced a few steps to gaze down sadly and wonderingly at
the remains of their mother. That was when I pounced. I was
fortunate enough to seize one of the pups by the scruff of its neck.
But unluckily the other had heard or sensed my approach, and ran
back into the cave.

Still holding my struggling captive, I went back behind the pile

of boulders and waited for the second pup to come out again. But
although I remained for nearly an hour, it did not do so.

Meanwhile, by his constant struggling, the pup I held in my

hands became difficult to handle. He bit and scratched and
wriggled continuously. Once or twice he almost slipped from my
grasp, and I knew if that happened I would never be able to catch
him again. So, after another quarter of an hour I reluctantly
decided to leave the second pup to its fate and walked back the
five miles or so to the village of Pennagram, where I had left my
car.

That was how I acquired Jackie, as I called him, for he turned

out to be a male, and brought him back to Bangalore. For a few
days I fed him on the bottle, with goat’s milk, as I have found that
cow’s milk disagrees with most carnivorous wild animals because
it lacks proteins. I supplemented the goat’s milk with a few annas’
worth of raw, minced mutton that could easily be digested and
which at the same time afforded the essential proteins.

Jackie grew apace both in strength and size, soon outgrowing

the need for goat’s milk and minced mutton. Henceforth his diet
consisted of raw beef and bones and it did not matter in the least
whether this was fresh or in a high state of decomposition,
crawling with maggots and swarming with flies.

Then Jackie met with his first mishap which nearly cost him his
life. About thirteen miles east of Bangalore is a little settlement
called Whitefield, consisting almost entirely of Anglo-Indian
families. In this place a small five-bedroomed cottage, with
verandah and kitchen and over half-an-acre of land was for sale
for the sum of Rs 5,000, which in English money comes to about
£375. My wife fell in love with this place, calling it a ‘dinky’ little
cottage, and wanted me to buy it. I bought it, together with a
village cur that had been deserted by her last owner but had
remained on the premises. This dog at once attached herself to me.
I named her Gypsy as appropriate to her antecedents.

I came to live in this cottage for a few days each week, returning
to my home in Bangalore for the remaining days, and I took Jackie
with me by car on these visits.
 Now this cottage had been lying vacant for some time, and
because of that the villagers around had decided to treat it more or
less as their own property. Not only did they graze cattle and goats
in the compound, thereby destroying the garden, but they had
been lopping the trees for firewood and cutting the grass for their
cattle, in addition to making the place a rendezvous for the
graziers during the daytime. I tried to stop all this, but in vain.
The only difference was that, instead of stealing wood by daylight,
the villagers came on moonlit nights to do so, while their
womenfolk came at break of day to cut the grass, in the manner of
the early bird that catches the worm. This led to complaints to the
police and one or two ‘personal encounter’. So the villagers
decided to teach me a lesson.

Now I suffer from many bad habits, and one of them is to keep
my dog inside the house at night, rather than let it loose in the
compound. I do that because I have previously lost dogs from
snakebite or from being carried off by panthers in jungly areas.
Thus Gypsy came to be sleeping on a mat at the foot of my bed.

One morning, in the early hours, I awoke to the sound of her

growling softly at the bathroom door. It was bright moonlight
outside and the time was 3.10 a.m. Now a dog will not growl in
that manner without reason. So, taking my torch, I softly opened
the door and went into the bathroom. Gypsy brushed past me,
halted at the outer door of the bathroom, which was also locked,
and still growled ominously.

I was sure there was a snake about somewhere. I then

remembered that a section of plank in the door, about two inches
wide and three feet or so from the ground, was missing. I stooped
down and peered through the gap. What I saw left me with mixed
feelings. In the brilliant moonlight stood eleven men—I counted
them easily—armed with staves and bamboos. Obviously it was a
party of resentful villagers, come to ‘beat me up’ for my
uncompromising attitude.
 Even as I watched, one of the men climbed on the shoulders of
another and from there on to the tiled roof which, at that spot,
was only about nine feet off the ground. I guessed what he was
going to do: remove a tile or two, come through the gap into the
house, and then slip the bolt of the outer door to admit his pals. I
felt very resentful.

Tiptoeing back to where my .12 bore shotgun was standing in

the corner of my bedroom, I slipped two or three No. 8 gauge
cartridges into the pockets of my nightcoat and returned to the
bathroom. I was toying with the idea of scoring a quick right and
left with the No. 8 shot into the legs of the assembly. But, just in
time, I realized what would be the outcome; of course, a good
many of the fellows would have ‘sore legs’ from the pellets, and
perhaps one or two would have to go to hospital, but that would
bring the police into the picture, and any amount or ‘red tape’.
Why did I fire? Why did I hurt so many men? Was it really in self-
defence? I would have to prove that. The men might swear they
had come with no evil intent whatever. But they would have a lot
of explaining to do as to how and why they had come at that time
of night. Altogether it would be a nasty business, requiring my
presence at the police station and at court. So I overcame the
strong temptation to pepper their legs and decided to fire a shot
over their heads.

The report and flash of the gun in that silence caused the nine
men who were still standing in a group to make off at top speed.
The fellow who had put his companion on to the roof lost his
nerve completely and screamed that he had been shot and killed,
hastily amending that statement to one that he was dying. He was
so afraid that his powers of locomotion failed him and he stood
rooted to the spot, yelling at the top of his voice. The eleventh
adventurer, who had climbed on to my roof, did not wait to
scramble down. He jumped, landed on the ground with a thud,
and recovering himself, made off like greased lightning. That
broke the spell, and his comrade at last regained his wits and
followed hotly in his wake. It all happened in a matter of seconds,
and Gypsy and I were then alone.

I opened the bathroom door and went outside to see if any more
of the miscreants were lurking about. There was not a trace of
them. But there were a few ‘souvenirs’ left on the field of battle—
or perhaps I could more aptly describe them as ‘booty’. Three
bamboo staves, one solid wooden cudgel which would certainly
have broken my thick head had it descended thereon, and, of all
things, two pairs of chappals or rough leather sandals such as the
yokels in southern India usually wear.

The next morning I told the vendors who bring fruit, vegetables
and eggs for sale from door to door that, in exactly three mornings
from that day, I intended to sell two pairs of good chappals very
cheaply to the first applicants. On the morning fixed for the sale
two ‘purchasers’ presented themselves for the two pairs of sandals
and offered to buy them. I announced that I was selling them at
knock-down prices—only one rupee and eight annas each pair—
about two shillings! The price was accepted and each man paid his
money, took his pair of chappals, put them on and went away
contented. I had little doubt that they had been the original
owners of the sandals which they had discarded on that
memorable night. After that there were no more attempts to break
into my little cottage, and trespassers of all sorts became
conspicuous by their absence.

My purpose in telling you this is to tell you that I became rather

fond of Gypsy as a consequence. It all happened a little while
before I acquired Jackie, so that when I started to bring him up and
down to Whitefield from Bangalore he was quite a little fellow,
while Gypsy was a full-grown slut, well on the way to becoming
very spoilt.

The first calamity that befell Jackie happened when he tried to

steal a bone Gypsy was eating. She bit him, and one of her teeth
barely missed his left eye, gouging a deep hole just beneath it. An
abscess formed and I thought I would lose Jackie, or at least that
he would lose his eye, as he developed a high fever. The vet gave
him penicillin injections, four lakh units at a time, till he had five
such injections. Then the abscess burst—outwards, fortunately—
and his eye was saved as well as his life.

He grew quickly after that and soon outgrew Gypsy. But never
once did he attempt to bite her, either in play or anger. He treats
her as gently as a lady should be treated, and just loves to romp
and gambol with her.

Feeding Jackie now became a problem, for at this time he was

eating from eight to ten pounds of raw beef per day, and in
Bangalore beef costs eight annas a pound, roughly eight pence! I
did not feel justified in spending almost seven shillings a day on
buying raw beef for him.

So I kept him permanently at my cottage in Whitefield where,

with great tact, I had made friends with the two local butchers,
who undertook to supply me with ten pounds by weight of beef, in
the form of lungs, guts, tripe, liver, etc., daily, for six annas for the
lot. That is, roughly six pence per day for ten pounds of
miscellaneous beef!

This arrangement worked well for quite a time, when one day
serious trouble befell me and Jackie.

I should tell you that what is termed as ‘cow-slaughter’ is

forbidden in some parts of India, including Mysore state. The
slaughtering of cattle is not allowed in these places, although the
law does not forbid anyone from eating beef provided he can get it
from a place where the prohibition is not in force. As with
prohibition of alcoholic liquor, which operates in some states and
parts of India and not in others, prohibition of ‘cow-slaughter’ in
one place is an open invitation for brisk business in supplying
meat from a neighbouring part of the country or state where that
law is not in force. Thus Madras state is allowed by law to supply
beef across the border into Mysore state and Bangalore, where
cow-slaughter is forbidden. It is said that some individuals in parts
of Mysore state, such as the Bangalore district, where the
prohibition of alcoholic liquor is not in force, return the favour,
although not legally this time, by supplying the prohibited item
across the border to Madras state, which is a totally ‘dry’ area.

This is how Bangalore now gets its beef! But what about
Whitefield? The butchers claim they also get their supply of beef
from across the Madras border, which is about twenty miles away.
But one day the police at Whitefield became suspicious and raided
the butchers’ houses where the meat was stored and sealed the
doors. They said that cattle were being slaughtered on the
premises. So, there was no meat for Jackie and he was ravenously
hungry. What was I to do?

That night I took a sack and walked to the butchers’ homes. The
police had sealed the front doors. But are there no such things as
back doors, windows and skylights? And tiles can be removed to
allow the entry or exit of a human body through the roof, can
they not? The gentlemen who had visited me early that morning
had given me the idea.

To cut a long story short, I came away with a sackful of beef, for
which I had had to pay heavily, slung across my shoulders, and
made for my little cottage across the fields, along the outskirts of
Whitefield cemetery and then over a hill, till I had reached home
dripping with blood that had soaked through the sack. At that
time of night, had I been caught I would without doubt have been
suspected of murder. But I had secured enough meat to feed Jackie
for a whole week, although my little cottage stank vilely of rotten
flesh after the fourth day. But by then the Police had come to
understand that the beef came from Madras, and not from the
unwanted cattle of Whitefield itself.
 Jackie is with me now and becoming very big, and in
appearance repulsive. But he is not at all fierce. On the contrary,
his only aim in life is to romp and play. I leave him loose at times
and he follows me about, comes out for long walks in the evening
and does not harm children, sheep, goats or other dogs. He is
passionately fond of little creatures such as puppies, kittens,
chickens and the like.

At times his ideas of romping and playing are decidedly

boisterous. Although Gypsy is very friendly with him now, she
resents too much of his rough play, and she growls at him
although he towers above her.

So to serve as a playmate for him I brought home from one of the

butcher’s houses a female puppy of the breed very definitely
known in India as ‘pariah dog’. She is about four months old,
although Jackie is now over a year, and is approximately one-fifth
his size. I have called her Jill. But she gives him all he wants in the
way of exercise by chasing him, or being chased herself; romping,
playing and even biting him when he becomes a little too rough
for her. All this Jackie takes meekly. He is devoted to little Jill,
who even snatches the raw meat out of his mouth. Never once has
he bitten her; never once has he even growled at her.

Nor has he done either of those things to me. He is rather

foolish, with far less intelligence than an average dog. But he is
sweet and good-natured, rather like a buffoon among dogs with his
grey coat, striped with black, his large head with sharply-pointed
ears, the mane of long hair running down his neck and back like a
ridge, his short hind legs, and his slouching, shambling gait. So
you see, the hyaena is not such a terrible, fierce and loathsome
creature as people may think.

We have had about eight panther cubs in all, most of them

rescued from their dens after the mothers had been shot. I
remember that we lost the first two very shortly after we had
acquired them, from gastritis! They also fall very easy victims to
colic. Contrary to expectations, a panther cub is extremely
delicate and dies easily, being nothing like so hardy as a bear or
hyaena. Cows’ milk disagrees with them entirely and proves fatal
within a few days. Goats’ milk seems to agree better, but has to be
supplemented, even when they are very young, with a spoonful of
minced mutton and mutton blood—not beef. As they grow older,
beef can be substituted for mutton, but the quantity given to them
at any one time has to be regulated. The need for mutton in the
early stages is to compensate for the fact that, as I have remarked
in an earlier book, in the wild conditions the mother helps the
digestive processes of her cubs by first eating the meat of her kills
herself and then vomiting it out for them to eat again. The cubs
are gluttonous creatures and will gorge themselves till they can
hardly move. That is when the colic sometimes attacks them, and
as I have said, when they get colic or gastritis it is fatal.

Panther cubs are extremely playful and mischievous. They can

recognize their owner from among other people. Although, as they
grow older, their play becomes exceedingly rough, none I have had
has been in the least fierce.

I remember one of them, a female which we named Spottie and

kept for about nine months. She was a very sweet and intelligent
creature. She would stalk my wife or me when we were reading or
otherwise engaged when she thought we were not aware of her
presence, hiding behind a door, or creeping up behind a chair or a
table till she was close enough. Then with mock severity she
would charge or pounce upon us. On such occasions she never
once bit us, but tried her best to be gentle. Yet her claws were
sharper than she realized and, as often as not, we would emerge
from the game with at least a few scratches.

Some people have the notion that if a panther cub is brought up

on boiled meat and soft foods it will not become ferocious. Well,
for one thing this idea would not work out, for the cub would
probably die! A panther must have proteins, and all the cubs we
have kept have been fed on raw meat and given blood to drink as
they grow older. Yet not one of them became in any way fierce
because of this diet.

The female I have been telling you about, Spottie, died

tragically one day, and this is how it happened. My son Donald
shot a large sambar stag, and for some reason or other we wanted
to see how much Spottie could eat of the carcass. So we allowed
her to eat her fill. She gorged till she could hardly crawl. That very
night she began to vomit and purge. In a few hours she growled
and then screamed with pain and bit savagely in the throes of
colic. By morning she was dead.

Sometime later we acquired another cub, this time a male. We

called him Spottie II. Benefitting from our earlier errors, we
regulated his diet and kept him for over ten months in our house
at Bangalore. During all this time he never once harmed a living
thing. But we had responsibilities. There were tenants in the
house and they had children. The children insisted on coming
near the panther. Spottie II loved them and played with them. But
we realized we were running a great risk. Finally, very sadly and
reluctantly, we gave him to a friend, a Swiss gentleman, who
eventually sold him to a German animal-dealer. The last we heard
was that Spottie had been sent to some zoo in Europe.

Lately Donald brought home another panther cub. We have had

him for about a month and he is not yet three months old. But this
one we have called Grumpy, and he is with us now.

Then there is Ella the jackal. She plays with the dogs, cats
anything, but loves to hide in dark corners, such as beneath an
almirah. Ella gives her ‘jackal call’ occasionally at nights, but
being a vixen she renders what might be termed as ‘half notes’
rather than the complete and peculiarly attractive full call of the
male.
 A villager one day brought for sale five jackal puppies, perhaps
four to six weeks old, and thinking she might be lonely for want of
company of her own kind, I bought them for Ella. That afternoon
she was delighted and mothered them in a most touching manner.
Around midnight, however, I heard the puppies screaming and
found Ella had killed one and was in the process of devouring it. I
rescued the other four, and next day, as I had nowhere to keep
them, put them with Jackie, the hyaena. They tried drinking milk
from him, which disconcerted the poor fellow dreadfully. Since
then they have grown quite a bit, and so has Jackie. I kept them
together for a considerable time and it was interesting to watch
how he took upon himself the serious duty of looking after these
four rascals. At feeding time Jackie could hardly finish his meat
before the four jackals, who had already swallowed their own
share, swarmed around him to steal what remained. Invariably,
while he chased one of them away playfully, the other three
would gobble up all that was left. Matters became so bad for
Jackie that I was compelled to move the four jackals away and put
them with Bruno, the sloth bear. He is not so good-natured as the
hyaena at meal-times and swipes at the jackals if they come
within reach of his paw, although in the afternoons and at night
they sleep around and sometimes on top of him in his wooden box.

Meanwhile Ella, the adult female jackal, has grown clever too.
She jumps onto the dining table, removes the cosy off the teapot,
then the lid, and drinks up all the tea.

We have kept all species of the deer family. They are sweet and
gentle, but not so interesting or intelligent as the meat-eaters or
Bruno, the bear.

My father had a sambar doe for nearly ten years. He named her
Flora. She was his special pet and loved him intensely. But as she
grew older she formed a nasty habit of attacking strangers by
rearing on her hind legs and striking at their heads with her fore
hooves. This was because, being a doe, she grew no horns. Indeed,
when she had perfected this technique she would often waylay our
Indian cook-woman as she arrived from market. The poor woman
would either be knocked down by Flora or run for dear life. In
either case she would drop the basket of provisions she was
carrying and Flora would eat all the contents except for the meat
and the firewood.

I will just mention one more of my strange pets—and I still have

her with me. She is Jemima, the python. ‘Rock snakes’ we call
them in India. I caught her by the water-channel in the forest at
Yemmaydoddi, and have had her for over seven years. She is quite
tame and easy to keep. Don shoots a rabbit for her once a month. I
buy a bandicoot— which is a big variety of rat, larger than a
guinea-pig—from a man who catches them for me in traps at the
market, at the price of four annas per bandicoot, once every
fifteen days. That is as often as she eats. One night Don shot a
mouse-deer. She swallowed it whole and would not eat again for
nearly a month.

Now that you have heard about some of the strange animals and
reptiles my wife and I have kept, let us have a sip of tea and nibble
our sandwiches; for after this the serious business of listening to
what the jungle may have to tell us will begin in earnest.

For a long time there is silence, broken now and then by the
crackling of the fire or a loud ‘putt-putt’ noise, followed by the
faint hiss of steam, that comes from the greener bits of wood, or
those pieces that have moisture trapped within them. Then, from
somewhere on top of the hill, above the road where we have left
the car, a horned-owl hoots repeatedly, making a resonant, weird
sound which nobody would normally think came from a bird.
‘Whooo-oooo! Whooo-oooo!’ For a long time there is silence again,
broken periodically by the great owl, and now and then by the
chirping, flitting nightjars, who do not seem to worry about the
firelight.
 We hear faint creepings and rustlings in the bushes growing a
little beyond our camp fire, and from higher up the bank of the
stream. They come in fits and starts—jerkily. But they seem to be
always there, never for a moment ceasing altogether. They are
nothing to worry about, for they are made by bush mice and
bamboo rats which live in thousands in these forests. Harmless
and inquisitive little creatures, but for our fire they would be
running over our bodies in their search for food, if we sat still
enough and refrained from movement. Their presence is one of the
reasons why snakes of all varieties, both poisonous and non-
poisonous, abound here. The rats and mice, as well as frogs, afford
an abundant food supply.

All of a sudden, from somewhere quite far away, we hear it: a

cracking, crashing and thudding. Elephants! They are breaking
down whole branches of trees merely to eat a few of the succulent
new shoots that are just beginning to break at the ends of the
stems.

‘Quink! Quink! Quink!’ A faint, sharp sound comes from the

same general direction in which we just heard the branch broken.
That means elephant calves; baby elephants!

But there is no reason to be nervous. If there are babies, it very

clearly indicates that their mothers are about. In fact, a herd of
elephants; for baby-elephants will not associate with a solitary
male tusker. And an elephant herd is quite harmless unless you
almost bump into one of the mothers, who will attack you in
defence of her calf. But here, seated by the fire, we are as safe as in
a house and have nothing whatever to worry about. Should their
grazing bring the elephants in our direction, they will smell the
smoke of our fire or see the flames, and they will make off without
delay.

It is the solitary bull-elephant, wandering all by himself, that is

dangerous. Generally, to be alone, he is either ‘in musth’, which is
a periodic complaint attacking bull-elephants and lasting for
about three months, when they become sexually excited and are
turned out of the herd by the other bulls; or he is a confirmed
‘rogue’ who likes to keep his own company. In either case beware!
There exists no fiercer, no more awesome, no more relentless
engine of destruction in the whole Indian jungle. But if there had
been a ‘rogue’ elephant about I would have known of it, as the
Forest department intimates the presence of such animals to all
game licence holders, in addition to issuing notices in the press.
Even a rogue elephant, moreover, will hesitate to approach a
blazing camp fire.

We listen to the sounds of the elephants grazing. Every little

while comes the crack of a big branch, or the sharp snap of a
bamboo stem, followed by the peeling, tearing sounds of the
leaves being stripped from them by the giant pachyderms. They
eat in silence, while a rumbling, like distant thunder, tells that
the digestive processes are at work inside those colossal bellies.
The calves ‘quink’ restlessly as they brush against their mothers,
worrying them for milk, while at long intervals one of the herd-
bulls will roar mildly, a bellowing sound resembling that made by
an ox but infinitely louder and more cavernous. It is merely a call
of contentment to indicate that all is well; or, maybe, junior has
turned his efforts to worrying papa, who is admonishing him
gently by roaring.

An enraged elephant, about to attack, makes quite a different

sound. He screams piercingly, and that penetrating ‘trumpet’ will
shake the very earth. It is a veritable call of doom, and there is no
misunderstanding the feelings of rage, malevolence, and
destruction which are involved in that terrible noise.

A frightened elephant will also scream and trumpet, but there is

a wealth of difference in the tone. It is shriller and thinner in
quality and volume, and appears to convey the elephant’s feelings
of fear and trepidation. It lacks that full-lunged menacing shriek
that preludes the charge of an enraged bull. After a while there
floats to us a dull, hollow thud: the herd has reached the bed of
the stream, maybe half a mile below us, and the noise we just
heard was caused by one of them turning over a fallen tree-trunk
that had been lying there.

The rapt attention with which we have been listening to the

elephants is suddenly disturbed by the hoarse, guttural call of a
‘barking’ deer, which is also named muntjac, kakar or jungle-
sheep. ‘Kharr! Kharr!’ he repeats loudly in alarm from somewhere
along the brow of a hill on the opposite side of the stream. A
sambar in the valley takes up the note of warning with a startled
‘Whee-onk!’, followed by an intermittent ‘Dhank! Dhank!’ as he
spreads the news of approaching danger.

Those calls can only mean one of three things: a tiger, the king
of the jungle, is on the prowl—or his lesser cousin, a panther. They
might also denote the proximity of a pack of wild dogs, the most
vicious hunters in the forest, were it not for the fact that the night
we have chosen is moonless. Wild dogs hunt by day or by
moonlight, but never in the dark. So they are not the cause of the
alarm in this case; either a tiger or a panther is afoot.

The cause of the hubbub betrays his identity a little later by a

grating, sawing sound as he follows in the wake of the sambar
down in the valley. ‘Ah! Hah!, Ah! Hah! Ah!-Hah!’ Disappointed
that his presence has been discovered by the two vigilant deer, the
panther vents his chagrin in a series of sawing-like, guttural,
grating gasps.

All is silent again for a short time. We have almost forgotten

about the elephant-herd till the sound of tearing bark reminds us
that they are still feeding along the streambed and coming closer
to our camp fire in the process. But as foreseen, one of them either
smells the smoke or sees the glow of the fire. The elephant strikes
its trunk hard against the earth while exhaling air sharply
through that organ. The result is a peculiar metallic noise,
resembling a sheet of zinc or galvanized iron being suddenly bent
in two. That is an elephant’s way of voicing its preliminary note
of alarm.

Twice more the trunk strikes the ground sharply, and twice
more the metallic sound follows. Then the elephant trumpets once
—the thin, shrill call of alarm and fear. The youngsters
understand it and fall silent. All that can be heard is a faint,
indefinable, swishing, brushing sound. It is made by the huge
bodies as they try to press noiselessly through the undergrowth on
the banks of the stream, the mothers pushing their bigger calves
before them, or carrying the smaller ones with their trunks, which
they have wound round the bellies of their off-spring before lifting
them bodily off the ground. A few seconds later the faint swishing
and rustling ceases. The herd has disappeared. Silence reigns once
more. We hear no more of the panther or of the deer.

Our fire dies down for the moment, leaving only the glow of
burning embers. We strain our eyes into the darkness on the
opposite bank of the stream, and for a moment see nothing, as we
have been gazing into the fire and our eyes have not yet adapted
themselves. Then mysterious little lights appear, weaving singly
and in twos and threes among the branches of the trees beyond the
reach of our firelight. As the pupils of our eyes expand to explore
and penetrate the gloom, we are surprised at the number of little
lights that we can see. There seem to be thousands of them, as
they flash, scintillate, fade away and then break out again,
sometimes in bunches and at other times in myriads when, for a
brief moment, they outline and illuminate the towering trees and
their boughs which have until now been indistinguishable in the
gloom.

Fireflies! Thousands of them! Now here, now there, now

appearing and then disappearing, only to flash forth again, they
make a spectacle of ethereal charm which can never be seen in the
inhabited parts of the land. No doubt the dampness of the
atmosphere in the vicinity of the stream has attracted them. On
some occasions, when I have been watching in the jungle, but
without a camp fire, I have found the combined brilliance of an
innumerable mass of these little creatures great enough to light
the surrounding forest and make its details momentarily clear.
Though such synchronized flashes occur only at long intervals and
last only for a second or so, they are something that must be
experienced to be believed, and they bring to one an ineffable
sense of beauty and wonder.

We hear nothing more and the hours drag by. In spite of the fire,
which we feed with fresh bits of wood from the pile, we can feel
the air growing chill, and we can hear the dew beginning to drip
from the leaves of the trees growing beyond the circle of warmth
generated by the burning wood. I glance at my watch. The hands
stand at midnight.

Would you be interested to hear about some of the superstitions

of the aborigines who live in our jungle areas? They are firm
believers in the existence of spirits; but with this difference—all
spirits to them are evil. Even the spirit of a departed loved one
becomes a malevolent entity immediately after death, capable of,
and sometimes bent upon, causing grievous bodily harm to the
living. For this reason they will shun a human corpse, burial
ground or cremation place. To ask an aborigine to sit with you
over a half-eaten corpse serving as bait for a returning man-eater
is tantamount to asking him to commit suicide. Infinitely worse in
fact; for he feels he is certain to meet with a terrible and violent
end.

He will explain that you are safe from the evil spirit, because
you happen to be a foreigner. Even evil spirits dislike the
foreigners, especially if they happen to be white men. But he,
being just a miserable, defenceless jungle man, is certain to meet
with a violent end, even as he sits close beside you. This
anticipated end will invariably take place when the invisible
spirit strikes from the rear: then the victim will collapse, become
unconscious, vomit blood, and by morning will be dead. If you
examine his back by daylight, in spite of his dark skin, he says,
you will clearly see the five-finger mark of the spirit hand that
struck him down. It will be the ghost of the dead man that will do
the deed, as it seeks frantically to revenge its own violent end.

Even in the densely populated parts of the land, the towns and
cities, it is quite common to hear that some man was struck down
at night while returning home from night-shift at a factory, or
perhaps from the late session at the cinema. The victim will say
that he felt a heavy hand strike him violently in the back: he will
stagger home, tell his relatives what happened and then collapse.
He may vomit blood during the night, and the next day he will
develop a high fever. But within forty-eight hours, with a few
exceptions, he will be dead.

Such occurrences have often come to my notice and I have tried

to investigate the causes, but without success. It is significant that
it is only the ignorant, poorer working classes that experience
such things. Particularly the servant class.

There is also a strong belief that, if a man has eaten or handled

pork and goes out at night, if he is barefoot, he stands in great
danger of being struck by an evil spirit, which detests pig’s flesh.
This idea is universal. I heard it first when I was a boy. I remember
that I bought a piece of raw pork without delay, told my father
that I was going to the pictures, but went to the gates of the
cemetery instead, with the piece of pork. There I discarded my
shoes, climbed over the gate and walked down the little lane
between the tombstones, very fearfully clutching the pork. To this
day I have never been so frightened as I was that night. Every
single moment I expected a heavy spirit hand to clout me
resoundingly from behind. But no spirit had struck me by the time
I got back to my shoes. Sure enough, next day I had a fever. It was
‘blue funk’ fever!

Apart from the spirits of the dead, which are credited with doing
these things, the aborigines in the forests, as well as the poorer
working classes throughout southern India, are firm believers in
what the spiritualists of western countries call ‘elementals’. The
Tamil name for such beings is minnispurams. They are credited
with belonging to both sexes—male and female: the male
minnispuram is comparatively small, is rarely seen or heard, and
is benign and harmless, but the female is said to be extremely tall
(over ten feet) and is reputed to appear sometimes as a long black
figure without head or arms or legs, and sometimes as a tall white
figure, similarly headless, armless and legless. Another variety of
the female minnispuram appears as a midget, gaudily dressed in a
diaphanous, brightly coloured saree and bedecked with flowers
and jewellery. These live in wells, tanks and rivers and are reputed
to entice youths to the edge of the water and then to push them in
and drown them. All forms of the female minnispuram are hostile
to human beings, particularly to men.

My friend Byra, the poojaree, told me that he was once

poaching for sambar in the Salem district, when one of these
female minnispurams came upon him. Apparently he was sitting
in a ‘hide’ he had constructed on the banks of the stream, which
was dry at the time except for the artificial water hole he had
himself made during the day by scooping a deep hollow in the
sand. Into this hollow the water had percolated. At dusk he had
sprinkled some of this water on the surrounding sand, so that the
smell of water would attract the thirsty deer. When that
happened, he would kill the first with his muzzle-loading
flintlock!

Byra said that it was shortly after midnight when he heard the
jingling of bells coming towards him from the left. As there was a
curve in the bed of the Chinar river in that direction, he wondered
with interest who could possibly be approaching at that time and
place. He watched, and shortly what seemed to be a tremendously
tall pillar of white mist turned the corner and floated down the
centre of the dry riverbed, while the jingling of bells grew louder.
Byra said he knew instinctively that it was a female minnispuram.
He told me that for a few seconds he thought of running away, but
if he did that the minnispuram might see him and give chase. So
he decided to stay hidden.

Meanwhile the tall white pillar approached. It came opposite

him, while the noise of jingling bells now changed into a sound
more resembling the chink and clank of chains being dragged
along the ground. He had just begun to congratulate himself that
the minnispuram would pass by, when the terribly high white
pillar halted on the riverbed directly before him. He heard
demoniacal laughter in a high-pitched female voice.

Byra said he fainted. When he recovered consciousness the

minnispuram had vanished. In its place, clearly discernible in the
pale moonlight, stood a hesitant hyaena, which finally ran away.
Byra says that if discovered minnispurams transform themselves
into animals. He did not dare to move till daylight. Thereafter he
never again went near that part of the river once darkness had
fallen.

The belief in black magic, and the casting of spells, is universal

in southern India, particularly along the west coast and in
Hyderabad state. The sorcerers are not witches, however. They are
men who have learnt the art from their fathers or have
surrendered themselves to the practice after long years of
initiation.

It is considered a simple thing to have someone ‘bewitched’ by

one of these sorcerers. The cost of the operation will depend on
how much harm one wishes to do. The simplest thing is to have
the victim made sick, or to lose him his job, or to cause
estrangement between husband and wife. A variation is to have
him harassed by ‘spirit’ agencies, which throw stones on his roof
at night and sometimes during the day, break crockery, put sand
in his food just as he is about to eat it, and at times move the
furniture about violently or throw him out of bed.

The worst form of magic is when the victim is made so ill that
he dies. In such cases medical aid is fruitless, as no doctor is able
to diagnose the malady. I have encountered several cases of ‘spell
casting’ and I will tell you about two of them.

There was Oscar Brown, whom I came to know in 1936. Ossie’

was a mild, good-natured fellow, jovial, carefree and happy. We
became quite good friends. One day Ossie told me a story. He said
that about three years previously he happened to be working in an
office at Calicut. The staff were paid on the first day of every
month, and a number of mendicants had formed the practice of
presenting themselves at the office on every payday to get what
charity they could from the employees.

Among them was a rather truculent-looking fellow with long

hair, who wore a saffron robe. This man never failed to turn up on
the first day of each month and demanded, rather than asked for,
charity. He behaved as if he had every right to it. This habit had
annoyed my friend Ossie, who, one day threatened to hand him
over to the police. To that the saffron-robed man had replied: ‘You
dare to abuse me! I curse you, now. I will put someone into you
who will be your constant companion till the day of your death.’
With those words he strode away. Ossie went home and forgot all
about it.

That night Ossie awoke, and through the mosquito-netting

under which he was lying he saw the figure of a very tall black
man standing by his bedside. Thinking it was a thief, Ossie sat up
and began pulling the netting aside, preparatory to springing out
of bed. The figure then stooped over him and the next second
appeared to merge itself with him. ‘It got right into me,’ were
Ossie’s own words. Then he said: ‘Andy, do you know it is inside
me now? It lives with me day and night. I cannot get rid of it. It
won’t go. Sometimes it overwhelms and overcomes me. Then I
don’t know who I am or what I am doing. Friends say my voice
and appearance change. I behave differently, boisterously. To me
it is all a blank. When I regain control of myself, I don’t remember
what happened. I don’t remember anything.’

I began to suspect that my newly-found friend was slightly

unbalanced mentally. Then I forgot the whole thing.

A couple of months later I invited Ossie to accompany me on a

short trip to the jungle. By a strange coincidence, we camped on
this very river, which I call the ‘Secret River’, but nearly twenty
miles from here, beyond the village of Anchetty, at the spot where
it joins the main river, the Cauvery. We had finished our meal and
were seated beside a fire, talking about one thing and another. My
.405 Winchester rifle, loaded but at ‘half-cock’, stood five or six
feet away against a henna tree.

I forget which of us had spoken last. But I remember I was

looking out over the Cauvery river which flowed past us, just a
few feet away. And then a strange, gruff voice demanded, ‘Who
the hell are you? Where am I?’

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I looked at Ossie. Could it have

been he who had just spoken? He appeared quite a different
person. His eyes shone strangely. His face was twisted and
distorted.

‘What’s the matter with you, Ossie?’ I heard myself stutter.

‘Don’t call me Ossie. That’s not my name,’ he growled. ‘Who

are you? Where am I?’
 I tried to pacify him. ‘Don’t you remember?’ I asked. ‘We came
shooting.’

‘Shooting? Don’t lie! Where’s the gun?’

Realization came to me in a flash. Ossie was raving mad,

without a doubt. I had heard that lunatics acquire prodigious
strength; if he found my rifle he might shoot me there and then.
Fortunately he had not seen it, for it was behind him. I tried
strategy. ‘Behind me, there,’ I indicated nonchalantly, pointing
vaguely behind my back.

Ossie, or whoever it was that was speaking to me, strode past

me, bent upon finding the ‘gun’, as he had called my rifle. I made
a scrambling dive for the weapon. I reached it and swung around.
Ossie had turned and was glaring at me. Controlling myself as
much as I could, I said conciliatingly: ‘I have found it. It was lying
here.’

‘Let me see it,’ he had demanded.

‘No, I can’t,’ I lied to him. ‘There are tigers and elephants about
and I must always have this rifle in my hands.’

He did not answer, but walked across to the fire and started to
put it out by kicking river sand on to the embers.

‘Stop that, Ossie,’ I shouted at him. ‘We need the fire. The
elephants might come.’

‘I am not Ossie,’ he replied flatly.

Then he swung around and advanced purposefully towards me. I

backed a couple of steps and shouted to him to stop. But he did
nothing of the kind.

‘I want that gun,’ was all he said, and he still advanced.

 There seemed no way of stopping him, and I did not care to
surrender the weapon. Then a thought struck me. When he was
less than five yards away I raised the rifle and fired quickly over
his head. He stopped dead in his tracks. Then he shuddered all
over violently, as if with ague. Almost mechanically he raised a
hand to cover his eyes and sighed. A few seconds later Ossie spoke
to me again, but this time the Ossie I knew.

‘What happened, Andy?’ he asked. ‘You look frightened.’

I remained silent, too shocked to speak.

‘Oh, I see,’ he went on. ‘I have had one of my attacks, eh? That
other self took control of me. Now do you believe what I told you
the other day?’

‘Only too well,’ I rejoined. ‘I thought my last moment had come

and that you would shoot me—or force me to shoot you!’ Then I
added: ‘Elephants or no elephants, you won’t catch me spending
another night alone with you, my friend. Let us start walking to
Anchetty. Even if I tread on a snake, it is preferable to the
experience I have just been through with you.’

I have related this incident to doctors, who tell me that the

symptoms and the shuddering of the patient at the last moment
are typical of hysteria. I have told it to others who profess to know
something about occultism. They affirm it is a very definite case
of ‘spirit-possession’ and that the shuddering always occurs when
the foreign entity leaves the body it has temporarily inhabited. I
do not know what to believe.

But the sequel to this story is that Ossie left Bangalore shortly
after the incident. Two years later I heard that he died in
Calcutta. He had jumped from the balcony of a three-storied
building!
 The second incident can be related more briefly. A friend in an
oil company, stationed at Shimoga, got promotion over a
colleague who resented it greatly. The aggrieved man went to a
sorcerer in the same town. At the very next new moon strange
things began to happen in the promoted man’s house. Stones
rained on his roof; sand was thrown in his food as he was eating it,
apparently from nowhere at all; crockery, tables, chairs and even
beds were moved about; his baby son was lifted bodily and thrown
down again, fortunately without harm. This went on for over six
months, till the harassed man, finding no remedy or help, in sheer
desperation resigned from the post to which he had been
promoted. Simultaneously, all manifestations ceased.

It is commonly believed in India—this time by many of the

educated and higher classes of both Indians and Anglo-Indians—
that it is possible for a woman to make a man fall deeply in love
with her and become so infatuated that he does not know what he
is doing. A certain lady did this to a padre, causing him to desert
his wife and three children. The practice is commonly known in
India as ‘pilling’.

The woman I have mentioned was questioned by a well-

intentioned friend of mine, who remonstrated against the whole
affair. Thereupon the woman, in a spirit of truculence, told my
friend in detail how she made the ‘ingredients’ which caused the
mischief and how she had administered it in black coffee. I have
the recipe; it is not a wholesome concoction.

But I have not come across the other recipe, which a man should
use to influence a lady—that is, excluding the use of the powdered
tail of the big lizard known as the ‘oodumbu’ as an aphrodisiac,
about which my old friend Byra, the poojaree, told me a very long
time ago, and, of course, the powdered roots of the ‘kuloo’ water-
plant, which I have mentioned in another story in this book.
 Speaking of occult matters, I might mention that some years ago
my son, Donald, and I set forth from Segur, at the foot of the
Nilgiri ghat, to walk the fourteen miles of steep gradient to
Ootacamund at the summit. It was past eleven at night when we
left, and we had planned to reach Ooty before dawn. But when we
were just half-way, at a place named Kalhatti, it began to rain
and we took shelter in the travellers’ bungalow standing at the
end of a pathway just a short distance from the steep road.

This bungalow had long been reputed as haunted. The haunting

was said to have originated in the following manner. A severely
inebriated shikari, a European gentleman, had camped there one
night before Christmas. At about 2.30 a.m. he saw what he
thought was a sloth bear standing on the verandah of the
bungalow. With creditable aim, considering his drunkenness, he
had shot the bear, which began to scream. Thereafter he had
emptied four more rounds into it from his magazine, and the
animal screamed no longer because it was dead. But the only
thing wrong with the whole proceeding was that it was not a sloth
bear he had shot: it was a man, the bungalow-watcher, or
chowkidar, himself, put there by the government to look after the
rest house.

The local Badagas said it was this unfortunate man’s uneasy

spirit that now haunted the bungalow on certain nights. I know
that when Don and I ran into the verandah to shelter from the
rain, we were quite wet and it was bitingly cold. Moreover we
were feeling inordinately hungry. Occult subjects were far from
our thoughts just then. We wanted to find the man in charge, the
one who had replaced the poor fellow who had been shot, to know
if he could possibly brew us some hot tea.

So together we shouted: ’ Chowkidar! Watcher!’

But nobody answered us. Then Don went one way, and I the
other, around the bungalow to look for him. We met at the back of
the building. Apparently the caretaker was not on the premises.
Together we returned to the front verandah to shelter from the
drizzling rain. A black figure stood at the end awaiting us. We
both saw the man distinctly. The next moment, there was nobody
there. It was just 2.30 a.m.

But enough of such a topic. It is nearly one o’clock and you look
sleepy. Probably you are tired of listening to my tales. In that case
we can finish what tea is left in my flask, throw the remaining
wood onto the fire and snatch forty winks of sleep. Nothing will
come near us, for the embers will continue to glow even when the
fire dies down. But you will feel cold, so be prepared for it.

We do just that. We finish the tea, pile all the remaining wood
onto the fire till we have a fine roaring blaze, and then curl up in
the sand as close as possible to the burning wood. It is
uncomfortably hot for the moment, but before long, as the flames
become more feeble and only embers remain, we will be feeling
the cold.

I awaken several times before dawn. Once I hear the distant

calls of frightened spotted deer. Far away in the jungle one of them
screams its last, the prey of some successful carnivorous hunter.

_____________
1 See The Black Panther of Sivanipalli.
 4

The Black Rogue of the Moyar Valley

E WAS reported to be jet black and I did not entirely believe

H that tale till I saw him for myself. He was black all right,
certainly the darkest coloured pachyderm I have ever seen, either
in the wild state or in captivity. Also he was exceptionally hairy
for a full-grown elephant, particularly around the top of his
ponderous head. Elephant calves are all hairy, but as they grow up
they tend to lose their hirsute appearance. However, the ‘black
rogue’, as I have called him, although fully grown, had a
distinctly shaggy aspect all his roguish days for, above all else, he
was very definitely a ‘rogue’, and a nasty one at that.

But before I begin, let me warn you that this tale has rather a
sad and unexpected ending. It closes with an experience I have
never had before, and most certainly do not want to go through
again.

The Moyar river flows from west to east along a deep valley that
is all very dense jungle and the home of every species of big and
small game of which southern India can boast, with the exception
of the ‘nilgai’ or ‘blue-bull’, as it is sometimes called, a member of
the antelope family that grows to the size of a sambar. Large herds
of bison and elephant abound in these forests, and sambar and
spotted-deer are plentiful. There are always tigers and panthers in
residence, although they are not by any means numerous. This is
rather a strange feature when one considers the abundance of
game that would serve the two species of felines as food. Perhaps
the presence of ticks—both of the large and small varieties—
which infest the valley throughout the year, together with the
leeches that are to be found in the damper parts, especially during
the monsoon rains, keep tigers and panthers from remaining too
long in the low river areas. Carnivores detest these pests.

The incident I am about to relate took place in the jungles of

Mysore state which fringe that northern bank of the Moyar river,
in the Coimbatore district to the northeast, and in the forests of
the Nilgiris, or ‘Blue Mountains’ as they are called, which lie
along the south of this rivulet, right up to its junction with
another stream known as the Bhavani. Thus you will see. that,
not only was an enormous tract of jungle involved, or rather
several enormous tracts, but also the jurisdiction of three separate
Forest departments. The Coimbatore and Nilgiris areas each have
their own administration, although both fall within the orbit of
Madras state: while Mysore, which was till recently an
independent area governed by a maharajah, is now a separate
entity with a state government of its own.

Two large game or wildlife sanctuaries exist there. One of them,

north of the river, falls within the boundaries of Mysore state and
is called the Bandipur Game Sanctuary. Adjoining it, and south of
the river, is the Mudumalai Sanctuary in the Nilgiri district of
Madras state. The jungles to the northeast, belonging to
Coimbatore, are called reserve forests, where hunting is only
allowed under licence. There is a proposal to make this portion
also a sanctuary, like the other two adjoining it, where hunting is
altogether forbidden, so that the three sanctuaries will more
adequately protect the game on both banks of the Moyar. The
presence of the Bandipur and Mudumalai Sanctuaries gave
protection to the black elephant while he was within them, so
that he could only be hunted when he happened to cross into the
forests of Coimbatore, or went further down the Moyar river into
the Nilgiri jungles to the east, towards the Bhavani river and
beyond the limits of the Mudumalai Sanctuary.

Due to the abundance of elephants everywhere, the aborigines

and other people whose work took them into the jungles of all
three jurisdictions were always on the alert. Nevertheless, it was a
common occurrence to hear of someone being chased by an
elephant, while now and again isolated tragedies took place and
people were killed. These latter were few and far between,
however, and nobody paid much attention to them except to be
very careful to avoid coming anywhere within sight, sound or
scent of a wild elephant.

How the black elephant first made his appearance or came to be

a rogue is obscure. Two versions persist. The first is that a titanic
battle was waged, lasting intermittently for two days and two
nights, within the precincts of the Mudumalai Sanctuary and was
heard by the inhabitants of the little hamlet of Tippakadu,
situated on the Mysore-Ootacamund Road. A narrow iron bridge,
painted black, spans the Moyar river at this place, and during the
afternoon of the second day of the fight the inhabitants of
Tippakadu turned out and stood on the bridge to watch two bull
elephants battling furiously a couple of hundred yards away on
the river bank. They said that both the contestants were enormous
animals, but that the bigger of the two was obviously getting the
better of the fight, while his opponent, a slightly smaller, very
black elephant, was red with the blood that poured from his head
and flanks from the many injuries inflicted by his antagonist’s
tusks.

The other version comes from the village of Talaimalai in the

forests to the northeast, belonging to Coimbatore, where an
inhabitant proudly claimed the credit of having started this
elephant off on his career as a rogue. A solitary bull formed the
habit of systematically raiding and destroying the crops in the
fields that surround the hamlet. The shooting of elephants, even
by the holders of game licences, is strictly forbidden by the
government. Nevertheless, exasperated by the damage, this man
one night fired at the elephant with his ancient muzzle-loader
while it was in the midst of his field. He must have scored a hit,
because large gouts of blood were found next morning leading
from the cultivated area into the jungle. Of course, nobody
followed up the wounded beast.

Many had seen this animal and all said it was a very black, very
hairy elephant. Up to that time it had attacked nobody. After
being wounded, the elephant left the vicinity of Talaimalai; some
said it had gone into the jungle to die, while others thought it had
left the locality.

It was over three months later that a herdsman, grazing his

cattle, was attacked and killed by a very black elephant. Then the
people remembered that an elephant that had been in the habit of
destroying their crops, and had later been wounded, was a very
black animal. So everyone came to the conclusion that it was this
beast that had been wounded, while the owner of the muzzle-
loading gun received considerable credit and became very proud of
himself.

The second story is probably the true one, as it has the incident
of the first killing to back it up, although it could equally be
possible that the elephant that had received such a beating at
Tippakadu had wandered down the bed of the Moyar, emerged in
the jungle to the northeast, and come upon the unfortunate
herdsman while still in an irritable mood, venting its spleen upon
him by trampling him to a pulp.

Sporadic attacks occurred after this in all the three areas I have
mentioned. But it is significant to note that the majority were in
the Coimbatore forest region. There the elephant smashed a
bullock-cart that was being driven from Dimbum to Talaimalai.
Miraculously the two passengers in the cart escaped when it was
overtuned and fled for their lives, but the driver and one of the
two bullocks, as well as the cart itself, received the full fury of the
elephant’s wrath. The driver was literally torn limb from limb.
The elephant had evidently placed a forefoot on his body and with
its trunk had wrenched off both arms and a leg. The bullock had
been gored through and through by one of the mighty tusks, and
its spine was broken by a blow from the trunk. The cart was
reduced to fragments.

It was strange that nothing happened to the remaining bullock.

When the yolk was broken it had just galloped away, but the
villagers said that its escape had not been without reason. It was
quite black in colour, whereas the slain animal had been white
and brown, and the cartman had been wearing a white dhoti or
loin-cloth, a white banyan (vest) and a white turban. Here
seemed evidence enough to emphasize the dislike all wild
elephants have for white. Thus, when travelling through elephant
country in India you will observe that all mile and furlong stones,
normally painted white with black numerals, are black with the
numerals generally in yellow. The government has found, to its
cost, that wild elephants pull the white stones out of the ground as
fast as they are planted.

The two men who had escaped with their lives ran all the way
back to Dimbum, whence they had started out, to report the
incident. They stressed that the elephant was almost jetblack.
They also said that the left tusk was shorter than the right one and
curved inwards, while the animal was at least nine feet high, and
abnormally hairy. This was the most detailed description of the
elephant that anyone had given so far, and was accepted by the
Forest department as correct. After all, these two men had been
within ten feet when the enraged animal had upset the bullock-
cart; they, if anyone, would know what the animal looked like.

The Collector at Coimbatore, which is the headquarters of the

district bearing its name, was furnished with this description by
the Forest department and asked to declare the animal a ‘rogue’
and free to be shot by anyone holding a district game licence. But
before the declaration was made the elephant struck again, this
time about midway between the hamlet of Mudiyanoor and the
fairly large village of Talavadi, both situated on an extension of
the same track leading from Dimbum to Talaimalai, but about
eighteen miles further along it from the spot where the cartman
had been killed.

The villager who was attacked was riding a bicycle. He was

coming from Talavadi to Mudiyanoor, and was about halfway.
And he was wearing a white shirt that hung loosely outside his
white shorts. The elephant had evidently seen him approaching
and was waiting beside the track; for when he drew abreast, out
dashed the elephant upon the cyclist, screaming with rage.

The man both saw and heard the elephant coming, and
instinctively did the only possible thing, which saved his life. He
threw himself off his machine. Fortunately, at that spot the track
ran along an embankment and the villager plunged down this into
the bushes and long grass that grew densely on the slope. He
disappeared from sight in the undergrowth as the elephant
reached his fallen cycle and began to trample it into an
unrecognizable, twisted mass of metal, trumpeting lustily and
repeatedly in the process. The villager had the good sense to lie
quite still. Most probably he was so terrified that he was incapable
of movement anyway. The elephant forgot about him in its
eagerness to destroy the cycle, which it did most systematically
and thoroughly. Finally, tossing it down the khud and almost on
top of its petrified owner, the pachyderm shambled away.

The villager lay in the bushes for over an hour till he was sure
his attacker had departed. Then, smarting from numerous
scratches inflicted by the thorns into which he had rolled, he
painfully regained the track, where he looked desperately around,
expecting to see the ponderous bulk of his attacker at any
moment. But the coast was clear. Then the man bolted for all he
was worth, running back towards Talavadi, whence he had set
forth nearly two and a half hours earlier.
 His description of the elephant tallied very closely with that
given by the men who had escaped from the cart. He confirmed
that the tusks were not uniform in size or setting, and that the
elephant was very black. Shortly after this the Collector of
Coimbatore issued his proclamation that the elephant was a rogue
and free for shooting by anyone with a game licence.

As if he realized that a price had been set upon his head, the
black rogue promptly disappeared from the area and was not seen
again there till almost three months later. Meanwhile he chased
and killed a Karumba within half a mile of the Ootacamund-
Mysore state border, but within the Mudumalai Sanctuary, while
the man had been poaching honey. This incident, however, was
not taken very seriously, as it was considered that the thief had
received just retribution for his misdeeds.

The trunk road that leads from Mysore city to Ootacamund, a

beautiful hill station on the Nilgiri Mountains, 7,500 feet above
sea level, passes through the heart of both the Bandipur and
Mudumalai Sanctuaries, which cover the foothills at the northern
base of that lofty range. After leaving Tippakadu, the village
where the epic battle between the two elephants had taken place,
the road begins a climb of about forty miles, passing a place
named Gudalur and negotiating many hairpin bends through
extensive coffee, tea and cincona estates before reaching
Ootacamund. The road is tarred and excellently maintained by
the governments of Mysore state and the Nilgiri district of Madras.
It carries moderately heavy traffic, ranging from the private cars
of the many visitors to the hills, to Ootacamund.

At Tippakadu another road branches southeast and covers

twenty-one miles before reaching Ootacamund by a shorter route.
It crosses the black bridge over the Moyar river from which the
villagers had watched the elephants fighting, passes three villages
named Masinigudi, Mahvanhalla and Segur respectively, and then
climbs up a very steep ghat road to Ootacamund itself. Although
only half as long as the main road, this route is scarcely used
because of its extreme roughness and its steepness, especially
around the hairpin bends; it is definitely dangerous for all but
exceptionally good drivers using vehicles of high horse-power and
brakes in tip-top condition.

The main road from Bandipur to Gudalur and the shortcut route
from Tippakadu to Segur, at the foot of the steep ghat, were
periodically visited by the black rogue for three months or so after
the Collector of Coimbatore had officially declared him a rogue.
But this declaration covered only the forests to the northeast of
the Moyar river which, as I have told you, belong to the
Coimbatore district. It did not apply to the Mysore and Nilgiri
areas, where the elephant had not yet been declared a rogue and
was thus still protected. But growing bolder with each escapade,
the black elephant hastened his declaration before, sometimes
chasing motor cars on both roads.

At Segur he all but added an Englishman, a friend of mine

named Collett, to his bag of victims. This gentleman had gone out
for an evening stroll with his shotgun and pack of five mongrel
dogs, hoping to get a peafowl, junglecock or perhaps a rabbit or
brace of partridge for dinner. What he succeeded in bagging I do
not know, but towards evening he was sitting on the bank of the
Segur river, which is a tributary of the Moyar, his back against a
tree and his five dogs round him, when who should come down to
drink water but the black rogue himself. He spotted Collett at
once and, with his usual shrill scream of anger and hate, charged
him forthwith.

My friend had only a shotgun which is useless against an

elephant; he had also a permanent injury to his right leg, which
made him walk with a slight limp. It certainly prevented him from
running or from climbing trees in a hurry. The scene was all set for
another murder had not the five dogs, all country-bred, decided to
take a hand in the matter by counterattacking the elephant. They
ran around him in circles, yapping furiously. This so distracted
and enraged the pachyderm that he forgot all about his intended
victim and tried to trample the dogs, or seize one of them in his
trunk. But the mongrels managed to keep out of reach, and the
annoyed elephant dashed vainly in all directions. For no sooner
did it concentrate upon catching one of the dogs, than the other
four were yapping at its heels. Collett hid behind a tree-trunk and,
when the elephant was not looking, managed to reach a footpath
in the jungle along which he beat a hasty retreat to the best of his
limping ability. Shortly after he had reached his bungalow, the
five dogs turned up, all unhurt and panting happily from their
exertions.

After about three months the elephant found his way back to
the Coimbatore jungles and was not long in claiming another
victim there, a villager from a hamlet called Jeergalli which is
situated, as the crow flies, about halfway between Mudiyanoor
and the deep valley to the southwest through which the Moyar
river flows.

Shortly after this incident, an American tourist who was

visiting Bangalore came to see me and asked if I would conduct
him to some place where he could take movie-pictures of bison.
He had visited some of the well-known game sanctuaries of Africa
and had a magnificent collection of movie reels of all the game
there, including rhino, lion and the great herds of African
elephants, which he showed me. He said he now wanted a reel or
two of tigers and the Indian bison. I explained that tigers, unlike
lions which inhabit open country, live in jungles where pictures
cannot easily be taken. But I assured him that it would be
comparatively easy to photograph the bison. The outcome of this
visit was that he agreed to come with me in his car on a three-day
trip, and we started the next morning.

Now I know of no better place than the forests of Coimbatore for

photographing bison. Not only are these animals very numerous
there, but the jungle is less dense than in some parts of Mysore,
and certainly far less thorny. On the way I picked up my old jungle
friend and companion, a Sholaga named Rachen, from his hut in
the hamlet of Gedesal, and drove on to Dimbum, where we
branched off westwards to another hamlet named Honathetti,
situated about seven miles along the Dimbum-Tallamalai road. I
knew that bison were particularly prolific there.

Due to two punctures and other minor delays, it was nearly 4

p.m. when we arrived at our destination. There was hardly time
to start looking for bison immediately. Besides, as everyone knows,
evening is not the best time for photography. So I told my
American friend that we would spend the night under a tree close
to the village and start operations the following morning.
Meanwhile we got talking to some of the inhabitants of the place,
to whom I explained our mission. They were highly disappointed
to hear that we had not come on a regular hunting-trip and tried
hard to entice us to sit up that night over a water hole to shoot a
sambar for them, for meat. Now not only is shooting over water
holes forbidden, but is very unsporting, and we tactfully but
firmly refused.

A large number of Sholagas from the hamlet gathered around

our camp fire after dinner that night, and one of them volunteered
to take Rachen along at dawn next day to pick up the tracks of the
nearest bison herd. The plan was to follow the herd till it had
bedded down for the day and then come back and tell us. Bison do
not move far during the hot noonday hours and it would then be a
fairly simple matter for us to accompany our Sholaga guides, get
up wind of the place where the bison were resting and move closer
cautiously hoping to be able to take some pictures before the herd
became scared enough to rush away.

Once our plans were made, we began to talk of other matters,

and in the course of conversation the black rogue was mentioned.
Naturally, his evil reputation had spread far and wide, but he had
not so far molested any of the inhabitants of Honathetti, although
he had been seen rather infrequently by a few of them. That had
happened some months ago, however, and the consensus of
opinion was that he had gone away for good. Nobody thought
much about him thereafter.

It was scarcely daylight when the Sholaga from the village put
in his promised appearance and took Rachen with him to look for
the tracks of any bison that might have passed during the night.
He assured us that he felt confident of finding them, for bison were
very plentiful in the low hills and jungle around his village.

My friend had no game licence and I was not particularly keen

on hunting feathered game, so we spent the next few hours
lounging in the camp while listening to the early morning crowing
of the junglecocks and the harsher calls of peafowl. The sun was
well up and it was getting decidedly hot when the two Sholagas
returned, just before ten o’clock, to tell us that they had
succeeded in picking up the spoor of quite a large herd of bison,
which they had followed for another two miles till they came
upon the animals settled for the day by the banks of a small
stream that skirted the base of a hillock. From experience they
knew the bison would rest there till evening, before they started
moving again.

According to the Sholagas, we had at least four miles to walk to

this place. Sholagas, like all aborigines, have a very hazy idea of
distances, so that I knew we would be lucky if we reached the
place in less than six miles. I remember the sun was abnormally
hot that morning, so that it was from sheer laziness that I decided
to leave my rifle behind. Carrying it for twelve miles did not seem
an inviting prospect. Besides, as I have told you, we had come on a
photographing mission, and not to shoot.

We set out accordingly, my friend and I sharing the burden of his

camera and auxiliary equipment. It was well over three miles, as I
had expected, and not just two miles before we came upon the
herd’s. It was undeniably fresh. The stems of the grass upon which
the animals had fed, and their droppings, indicated that fact
clearly.

We started following the wide trail and we had covered another

three miles before Rachen and the other Sholaga pointed down the
low hillside on which we stood. At least another mile away we
saw the shimmer of water, almost hidden by trees, that marked
the stream where the herd had decided to rest for the day.

The next thing to do was to test the direction of the wind in

order to get up-wind of our quarry. Bison have keen scent, and to
approach them down-wind would definitely mean that they
would detect our coming and leave cover. Luckily we found that
the breeze was blowing uphill; that is to say, from the bison
towards us. This meant that we would not have to make a detour
but steal downwards upon the herd by following their tracks of the
night before.

I have mentioned that the stream was quite a mile away. The
hillside sloped gently downwards. It was fairly open, park-like
country, with scattered and rather small trees, long lush grass,
and a few outcroppings of rock here and there. The Sholaga from
Honathetti led, as he knew the way, closely followed by the
American and Rachen, while I brought up the rear. The sun blazed
brightly down upon us from a steely-blue, cloudless sky.
Everything appeared serene and peaceful.

Confident in the abilities of the two Sholagas, as trackers and as

men well-skilled in jungle lore, I was walking along thinking of
nothing in particular when I happened to notice Rachen glance
backwards, the way we had come. He stopped abruptly and
uttered the ominous words: ‘Dorai, annai varudu!’, which means,
‘Sir, an elephant approaches!’
 Looking in the same direction, I was dismayed to see that an
elephant was indeed heading through the scattered trees and
directly towards us. He appeared to be only a furlong away. There
was no mistaking the purposefulness of the shambling run. There
was no hesitation, no sign of timidity or fear, no attempt to avoid
us and slink away. This elephant was bent upon reaching us just
as fast as he could.

I knew what would be his next step. As soon as he felt he was

close enough he would raise his scream of hate and charge down
upon us. A normal elephant would have behaved quite differently.
As soon as he had scented or seen human beings, he would have
done his best to get away. But this animal was deliberately
following us, and there was a sinister, evil purpose about him.
Without any doubt, here was the rogue I had heard so much
about. Even at that distance, he seemed mahogany-black.

Neither the Sholaga who was leading nor my American friend

was yet aware of his presence, for he made no sound as he
approached. Fortunate, indeed, that Rachen had looked back and
observed him. Otherwise at least one of us would have died very
painfully that day!

Desperately I gazed around, looking for a way of escape. As I

have said, the trees were small. There was not one that the
elephant could not push over easily. But about 200 yards away and
to our right, I could distinguish a rock half hidden from view by
the boles of intervening trees. I had no means of knowing how big
it was or how high. But it was a rock and it was our only refuge.

Refraining from shouting, as I did not want the elephant to hear

me and perhaps precipitate a charge, I called softly to my
American friend: ‘Follow me to that rock to our right. The rogue
elephant is behind us. Run for it!’
 The effect on him might have been called amusing under less
strained circumstances. He stopped dead in his tracks and gazed
around confusedly.

‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘Where?’

Running forward, I grabbed his arm and started pushing him

towards the rock, while I tried to break into a run myself.
Meanwhile Rachen called a low warning to the other Sholaga.

The elephant had been shambling forwards and was only a little
over half a furlong away. Undoubtedly he had seen our quickened
movements and guessed that his presence had been discovered. For
without further ado he trumpeted shrilly. Then he charged!

My friend threw down his camera and the four of us ran, as fast
as we could run, for that rock. Regardless of the long grass, the
thorns and the intervening trees, we covered the ground at a most
creditable speed with the elephant, now trumpeting repeatedly,
behind us. Being but a short distance from the rock we managed to
maintain our lead and reached our objective about 100 yards
ahead of our pursuer.

It was a low, sloping rock, hardly three feet above ground level
at one end, and about five feet at the other. But there was no other
avenue of escape and we leapt upon the rock almost together. It
may have been about thirty feet long. Without stopping, we ran
up the slope to the higher extremity. There was a fissure in the
rock, from one end to the other. Coarse grass grew in this declivity.

Breathlessly we reached the higher end of the rock and then

turned to see what the elephant would do. The infuriated rogue
made directly for us, and as we stepped backwards and out of
reach of his extended trunk he came to a halt with the bottom
portion of his chest against the stone. In this position he continued
to trumpet deafeningly, alternately blowing blasts of air at us
through his trunk. After a few moments the elephant realized we
were out of reach. His next action was to uproot the shrubs
growing nearby and, holding them with the tip of his trunk, he
tried to flog us with them. Of course, we stepped further
backwards, but it did not occur to him to come around the rock to
its lower end. Instead he found a piece of loose stone and hurled it
at us, narrowly missing my friend.

It took the beast ten minutes to think of reaching us from the

opposite end; then things began to happen in real earnest.
Evidently the idea came to him suddenly, for he abruptly stopped
trumpeting and, with a surprising turn of speed for his bulk,
shuffled around the rock to the other end. There he found the rock
only three feet high. Placing one ponderous forefoot on the
granite, he cautiously tested it for stability and in the next few
seconds had climbed onto the rock and was coming straight for us.

It was now that Rachen exhibited a marvellous coolness of

nerve and thought. For he called in Tamil: ‘Jump down quickly.
The elephant will not attempt to follow us that way. It is too steep
and he will be afraid of breaking a leg!’

Suiting the action to his words, he jumped, and the three of us

followed without delay. My friend then started to run for it, but I
caught hold of him and said: ‘Stop. He won’t attempt to jump five
feet to the ground with his ponderous weight; but if we leave this
rock he will go around and catch one of us in the open.’

The rogue reached the edge of the rock, where he towered above
us—a truly awesome sight! Once more he tried to reach us with his
trunk and then waved one forefoot in space as if to try a leap. But
he thought better of it and restrained himself while he screamed
with hate. We stood beyond his reach and awaited his next move.

After perhaps a minute he swung around and rushed back to the

lower end. Hesitating again, he finally stepped down gingerly and
turned to come around the rock and catch us. So we drew
ourselves up those five feet and got to the top only seconds before
he was below us again, and at the spot at which he had first
arrived.

Twice more the enraged bull shambled around the rock and
climbed up from the lower end. Twice more we leaped down those
five feet and stood just out of his reach at the base. It was a game
of catch-as-catch-can in real earnest, with the prospect of a
terrible death by being trampled upon and torn to shreds if one
was late by a split-second, either in jumping down or climbing up
again. If there had been only one or two of us in this lively bit of
gymnastics, it would not have been so bad. But as there were four,
we kept getting in each other’s way, particularly when it came to
climbing up the five-foot ledge. With an agonizing death as the
penalty for being a fraction of a second too slow, it was every man
for himself.

Worst of all, perhaps, was the nerve-shattering screaming of the

elephant. The very air vibrated with the sound and it required a
mighty effort of will not to become rooted to the spot in terror.
Fortunately, after the third attempt, the enraged animal either
grew tired or came to realize he could not catch us this way. It was
a mistake, however, for had he continued we would have become
exhausted and sooner or later he would have caught one of us.

But he desisted and now started walking around the rock on

which we stood, every now and again rushing up to it and
attempting to reach us with his trunk. Each time he did that, we
scampered in a bunch to the opposite end, where we would wait
till he came around and we scampered back again. While all this
was going on I was cursing myself for my sheer laziness in not
bringing my rifle. The sun was almost directly overhead and
blazed down upon us from a cloudless sky. Waves of heat arose
from the rock and shimmered in the still air. Hastily I glanced at
my wristwatch. It was almost noon.
 Eventually the heat and the sun began to be felt by the elephant
himself. He ceased his strenuous tactics and stood in the shade of a
tree just a few yards away. There he stayed put. An hour passed in
this manner. The granite rock on which we stood became
unbearably hot. The heat penetrated the rubber soles of my shoes,
so that I could stand on two feet only with difficulty. It was even
worse for the two Sholagas, for they were both barefoot; they
fairly hopped on the rock as the heat burned the bare soles of their
feet.

A crazy idea came to me to try to frighten the monster away. I

told my three companions to start shouting for all they were
worth, and I joined their chorus of discordant yells. But far from
alarming him, our voices caused the elephant to charge us once
again, and this time he came straight onto the rock from the
three-foot end. In a group we jumped down from the other end and
stood out of his reach once more, while he literally danced with
rage at the brink above us. All four of us knew that if he but made
the leap, one at least of our number would not see the light of
another day. But although furious, the elephant was cautious and
did not jump. He remained on the rock and screamed and blew air
in our faces with his extended trunk.

It was very likely that after a while the heat from the stone
began to penetrate even the thick soles of his mighty feet, for he
kept lifting his legs up, one at a time, in quick succession. Then he
turned and lumbered off the rock from the lower end. In a bunch,
the four of us scrambled up the burning stone again. This time we
remained silent, watching the brute who was also watching us.

This stalemate continued for another few minutes, then the

rogue turned abruptly and shambled over the hillock from which
he had come and disappeared from view. I began to congratulate
myself that we were well rid of him when both the Sholagas said
they thought it was a ruse and that the elephant was only trying
to draw us off the rock. So to test this theory, all four of us
descended and walked about fifty yards away. Suddenly came a
crack and crash of breaking wood, a scream of hate, and there was
the rogue charging down upon us from quite another direction. Up
the rock we scrambled once more.

The elephant kept us another half hour. Then he walked off

again, this time heading for the stream where the bison herd was
sheltering. Being downhill, we could see him for some distance till
his black form was finally hidden by the intervening trees.
Suspecting he was up to his old game, we did not leave the rock,
but asked the Sholagas to climb two of the highest of the trees to
see if they could catch a glimpse of him if he made a detour and
tired to approach from another direction. They did this and after a
while signalled that the coast was clear.

When the Sholagas rejoined us, Rachen said that the pachyderm
had probably felt the heat and had gone off to the stream for a
drink and a bath. After that, he said, it might return and stay by
the rock till night fell.

The idea of playing that ghastly game of hide-and-seek with this

black monster in pitch darkness terrified me. Handicapped by
being unable to see him clearly, I was sure one or other of us
would eventually be caught. I suggested we run for it before the
rogue came back, a plan which met with unanimous approval.

I asked Rachen to retrieve the American’s camera, which he did

at once. Then the four of us stepped off the rock and headed for
the village. Many were the glances of apprehension that we threw
behind us to see if we were being followed as we ran at a jog trot
towards Honathetti. But clearly the elephant had really gone for
water, for he was nowhere to be seen. Streaming with perspiration
and panting from our exertions in the terrible afternoon heat, we
reached the village at a quarter to three, glad to have escaped
with our lives from a ghastly death.
 I was tired and angry. Above all else, I was ashamed. For nearly
three hours my companions and I had been engaged in a cat-and-
mouse game wherein we had most definitely been the ‘mice’. Now
that I had my rifle in my hands, weary as I was, I determined to
return immediately with the Sholagas and try to find the black
elephant once again and continue the game, but this time with
the position reversed. I would very soon show this arrogant
pachyderm that he was going to be the mouse.

My American friend wanted to come back with us, and if

possible take pictures of the elephant’s discomfiture. But his
presence would have been an unnecessary responsibility, apart
from hampering my movements. Very politely, but firmly, I
reminded him that he was a photographer and not a hunter. Good
sportsman that he was, he understood and did not take offence,
although chagrin was written large on his countenance.

Walking fast, and sometimes trotting, Rachen, the second

Sholaga and I made for the rock. This time we moved boldly
forward through the park-like belt of jungle that surrounded the
place and reached it within the hour. There was no elephant to be
seen. It was just four o’clock and we had a little over two hours of
daylight in which to find the elephant, something that is easier
said than done, considering he had the whole jungle before him.
But I remembered I had two Sholagas with me. The aborigines,
who have lived in the forests for generations, are among the finest
trackers anywhere in the world, so there was a reasonable chance
of coming up with our quarry.

We moved in the direction in which the pachyderm had

disappeared. The jungle was dry, and he had not been feeding but
moving directly towards the stream, so that, in spite of his great
bulk, his passage through the undergrowth and long grass would
not have been evident to an inexperienced eye. But Rachen and
his companion had no difficulty in finding it. It was interesting to
observe how their trained sight detected every stem of grass that
had been bent or broken by the passing animal, and every leaf or
twig that had been stamped flat under those giant feet.

Following this trail, it did not take us very long to arrive at the
point where the black elephant had reached the stream. Lank
reed-like grass grew there and we could clearly see where he had
forced his way through it to the water’s edge. Rachen strode into
the stream, which reached to just above his knees, and at the spot
where the elephant had drunk water he turned and began to walk
upstream along the trail marked by the crushed reeds and water-
plants, while the other Sholaga and I walked parallel to him along
the bank.

For some reason the elephant had not crossed the stream, but
after wading in the water for about 100 yards had come back to
the side on which we stood. Evidently he had drunk his fill, for his
plate-like spoor, imprinted at the edge of the bank and still
clouded with the muddy water that had seeped in, left the little
rivulet after a short distance and led back into the jungle.

We followed this trail closely, knowing that the rogue would

now be feeding and that we could expect to hear him before long
if he had not already travelled too far inland. It was hot and he
might even make for the water a second time for another drink.
But that would be a little later, towards sunset, when elephants
usually drink. We had more than an hour before us and could
expect to find our quarry feeding inland and at a considerable
distance from the river.

As we surmised, the trail turned into the jungle. The elephant

had been in no hurry, for he had halted now and again under some
of the shadier trees and had evidently been lazing about while
sheltered from the sun.

Nearly a mile was covered in this fashion when we first heard

the unmistakable crack of a bough being torn down. The branch
evidently had a thick layer of bark, for the crack was followed by
a twanging sound as the elephant tore the wood from the tree,
stripping and pulling the bark from the main limb when it did not
break easily. From the volume of the sound and its direction, our
quarry was easily a couple of furlongs distant.

If you should ever want to approach anywhere near a wild

elephant, the most essential thing is to test the direction in which
the breeze is blowing. Having done that, you must work your way
into such a position that the wind is blowing from him to you.
Should you neglect to do this and approach downwind instead, or
even partly downwind, the elephant’s keen sense of smell will
make him aware of your coming. Then one of the two things will
happen. A normal elephant, and often a rogue too, when his
instinct warns him that you are no ordinary passing peasant but
an enemy, will just fade noiselessly from the scene, and when you
reach the spot where he was standing you will find nothing.
Alternatively, the elephant may ambush you by waiting silently
behind rock, a tree, or a clump of bamboo, till you are very near
him, when he will charge at you screaming, flattening every
obstacle in his way. This is a favourite habit of rogue elephants,
particularly one who has already killed a number of people and
has come to realize the utter helplessness of that most obnoxious
biped, man!

I tore a handful of grass from the ground, held it aloft in my

hand, and then slowly released the broken blades and stems,
allowing them to fall to the ground singly. They all drifted from
right to left. That meant the wind was blowing from the right and
that I was in a midway position, being neither up-wind nor down-
wind from my quarry who was directly ahead of us. This was not
good enough, so we all turned to the left and made our way
forward in single file, as silently as we were able, around the
intervening bushes and tree-trunks. We covered over two furlongs
in this way when the sound of another crack came to us from a
half-right direction. It was fainter this time.
 Once again I tested the wind to verify that it had not changed
its course. Then we all turned to the front and crept stealthily
forward in single file and at angle of ninety degrees to the
direction which we had just been following. We might have
covered anything up to 200 yards in this fashion when the
elephant broke a third branch. This time the sound came from due
right. We had detoured enough and were now directly upwind. He
could not possibly get our scent unless he himself moved to some
other place. Now we had only to be sure we made no noise
approaching him, and then he would be at my mercy.

In single file we moved forward, Rachen leading, with me in the

centre and the Sholaga from Hanathetti behind me. Judging by the
last sound we had heard, the elephant was at least a quarter of a
mile or more away. We covered that distance slowly, but heard no
further sound. Probably the rogue had already brought down
enough branches to provide him with a succulent repast of green
leaves and was busy eating them.

A few paces further forward and the ground dropped into a

small valley, formed by two low hills. The elephant was clearly in
the valley. But such places are unfavourable for stalking an
animal with such an acute sense of smell as an elephant, because
the hills on either side often cut off any breeze, so that in the still
air the smell of human being, particularly when there are three of
them together, is carried to the elephant in the motionless
atmosphere. That is just what happened, for the elephant got
wind of us. Instinctively he knew his enemy was approaching and
he slunk stealthily away.

When we came to the place where he had been feeding we found

the broken branches and his fresh dung, but of the elephant itself
there was no trace. Working together now, the two Sholagas began
to follow his track, with me close behind to cover them. It was an
easy task. The pachyderm had moved along the little valley which
soon ended in the dry bed of a rather big nullah. His large
footprints, clearly visible in the powdery earth, showed that he
had turned down the nullah, which obviously led back to the
stream from which we had lately come, now well over a mile
away. We knew that if he reached the stream he would cross it and
probably escape on the other side. Evening had already set in and
there was scarcely an hour of daylight left. The only course left to
us was to cast caution aside and chase after him to get in a shot
before it was too late. So we began to run down the nullah.

No doubt the rogue, hearing us and by now thoroughly alarmed,

started to increase his pace as well. After half a mile or so I was
fairly blown, although the two jungle men with me showed no
trace of their exertions. The nullah turned in its course and then
straightened out. Far ahead of me, and shuffling away for all he
was worth, I could see the black rogue—or rather the hind portion
of him—heading for the stream. I did not want to fire, as the most
I could do was to wound him in the hindquarters, and I do not like
wounding any animal, even a rogue elephant, deliberately. So,
puffing and blowing and badly out of breath, I followed as best I
could.

The elephant disappeared around the next curve. In due course

we reached the same bend, turned it, and saw the stream a couple
of hundred yards ahead. But just before the stream was the
elephant, or rather half of him, for his back was still turned
towards us, while his body was twisting and turning, without
seeming to make any progress.

Struck with surprise and wondering what could be delaying

him, we put on a spurt, or rather my companions did. As for me—
well, I could not have put on a spurt even if the elephant had been
behind me! However, I drew abreast of them at last, and found
that the elephant was stuck fast in a quagmire which reached up
to his belly. The explanation was simple enough. The spot where
the nullah met the stream had become a bog, due to the soft sand
in the nullah being saturated with the water that seeped into it
from the stream. The elephant, scurrying away in fear, had
blundered straight into it.

Quicksands, in the true meaning of the term, are I believe,

unknown in southern India, although conditions almost
approaching them are to be found in some places. For instance, in
the upper reaches of the Secret river, above the hamlet of
Anchetty in the district of Salem, there is one particular spot
where it is positively dangerous to cross at a time when the river is
almost dry. I know this to my cost, for I once had tried to cross and
had suddenly found myself waist-deep in the ooze. But for the help
of two Forest Guards, I think I might have remained there for an
indefinite period or even have been drawn under. Very vividly I
can still remember how I struggled for all I was worth, but could
not succeed by my own efforts in shifting either of my feet an inch
out of that clinging slime.

For the elephant, now struggling madly before us, conditions

were infinitely worse. His tremendous bulk and weight, coupled
with his desperate exertions, made matters worse each moment.
Slowly, little by little, he was being drawn down into the ooze
before our very eyes. With his trunk he lashed the mud before him
to right and left as he tried to find a way to lever himself out. He
screamed in sheer terror, while his little eyes were dilated with
horror as instinct told him he was doomed. And every moment,
inch by inch, he sank lower and lower, while his screams, that had
been filled with dread, now took on a piteous note of appeal.

Killer though he had been, his dreadful plight filled all three of
us with acute distress. As if it had been yesterday, I remember my
own feelings when I had sunk in the wet sand that day on the
Secret river. To shoot him in this terrible plight, while struggling
for his very life, appeared to be the act of a coward and murderer.
A strange and powerful yearning came over me to try to succour
him if possible.
 But there was just nothing we could do. He was, after all, a wild
elephant and to come within reach of that threshing trunk would
be certain death. Even as we watched, the spectacle became more
and more harrowing. The poor beast was now literally up to his
neck in the liquid sand and his back was almost level with its
surface. To make the scene even more dramatic, darkness was
setting in apace. Escape for the poor animal was clearly
impossible. Either he would soon be drawn under and suffocated,
which was really the less evil fate, or if his feet found solid ground
at the last moment, he could only remain stuck till he starved to
death. I could not save him, but I could put an end to his
sufferings. And I would have to do that at once, as it would soon
be too dark to see.

There is a fatal shot which, if taken correctly, will drop even the
largest elephant in his tracks, although it is one that is rarely
achieved because of the obvious difficulty of getting the chance to
take it: a shot behind the ear, where the bullet will penetrate the
brain from an angle unprotected by the enormously thick bones of
the forehead. Kneeling down, I aimed carefully behind the left ear,
waited for it to stop moving, held my breath, and gently squeezed
the trigger.

The explosion had hardly died away when the elephant

quivered as if in an ague. The trunk hit the mud with an inert
flop, although the tip of it still searched questioningly, like some
giant caterpillar groping for a leaf. I ran a few paces to the right,
knelt again, and repeated the shot, this time behind the right ear.

A sigh of relief escaped all three of us. At least the poor beast
could suffer no more. It was dead.

We came away from that dreadful place and groped our way
back to Honathetti in darkness. But the Sholagas, whose village it
was, led us there unerringly. Eventually we were back, and I told
my American friend of our harrowing experience. But he, not
having seen it himself, said he wished he had been there to take
photographs, and that he would like to go to the spot the next
morning to see if any could be taken.

Filled with a morbid curiosity as to whether those evil sands had

finally claimed their victim or not, I accompanied him the next
day. We reached the spot, but all we could see was a placid surface
of undisturbed wet sand, glinting innocently in the rays of the
early morning sun. The elephant had disappeared completely, and
the soaking sands held their dark secret.
 5

Jungle Days and Nights

URING the many years I have lived in these isolated places,

D off the beaten track, various little incidents have taken place,
not themselves amounting to adventures, but milestones
nevertheless on the long road of memory which often come back
to me in my quieter moments. I would like to recount a few of
them, some of them rather tragic, others humorous, and even one
incident in which I behaved in a downright shameful way.

It took place many years ago, but the memory of that incident
still haunts me to this day and I cannot live it down. It is said that
making a confession of one’s sins will relieve a troubled
conscience. So I am going to do that now.

But every evil doer should be allowed to defend himself, and my

defence lies in a prologue, an incident that took place earlier, the
result of which was very strong in my memory and powerfully
influenced me when the second incident occurred.

This first incident took place about twenty-five years ago. My

friend, Deva Sundram, and I had gone out in my Ford to a place
named Gummalapur, about twenty-eight miles south of
Bangalore, for khubbar about panther. Do not let the word
khubbar alarm you; it is just a simple Hindustani term for news or
information.

Gummalapur lies in the Salem district of Madras state and is

scarcely three miles beyond the Mysore state border. Two miles
west of Gummalapur are many rugged, broken hills, covered with
heavy scrub on their lower slopes and granite boulders and little
caves at the top. In between these hills winds a narrow stream
bearing the somewhat difficult name of Muthiyalamma Holay. It
holds water only during the rainy season, is rocky in places, while
at others it is full of marvellously soft sand. On both banks the
jungle becomes dense and the trees lofty and verdant.

In the days when my father was a lad, and even when I was very
young, this forest harboured tiger, elephant, bison and panther, in
addition of course to all the normal game animals to be found in
this part of the country. But after that the tigers and bison
disappeared, shot out by the many hunters who came from nearby
Bangalore. The elephants, protected by the government, are still
there, but fewer, and are only to be seen during the monsoon
months when they trek northwards from the Cauvery river. The
panthers remain for a variety of reasons. Firstly, they are common
wherever hills occur. Secondly, there is abundant food for them in
the many herds of domestic cattle that are driven into the jungle
from Gummalapur to graze. Thirdly, people are not as keen to
hunt panthers as they are to kill the larger varieties of game.

Deva Sundram and I had gone there to inquire from the local
herdsmen whether they had recently lost many of their animals to
panthers, and we had also come for a morning stroll in the scrub-
jungle in the hope of picking up some feathered game, or a jungle-
sheep or pig, to roast for dinner that night.

I forget now what information we got from the herdsmen, but

we had crossed the river and walked up a slope in the scrub that
soon brought us to the crest of a little hillock. From this eminence
we looked across the carpet of jungle below us and scanned the
wooded slopes of the higher hills.

Then we saw something, perhaps about a mile away and close

to where the border of Mysore state fringes the jungle. Vultures
were circling in the sky, many of them. Every now and then one
would plane to earth, gliding with outstretched wings to disappear
into a small valley in a fold of the hills. It was too far away to hear
the rushing, rattling sound made by the wind as it beat against
those outstretched pinions. There could be only one explanation.
Something was lying dead in the valley. The vultures had located
it and were hastening to the feast.

Could it be a panther’s kill? Perhaps one of the many cattle that

had been taken out to graze in the scrub, and as yet had not been
missed by its owner.

With one accord, Dev and I made for the spot. It was not
difficult to locate. The hissing, occasionally squawking horde of
vultures, struggling and jostling each other on the ground, led us
directly to the body. But a very big surprise was in store for us as
the huge birds flapped away heavily and took to the air with
difficulty. Certainly, a dead body lay there, but it was not the
remains of a bull or a cow that had been killed by a panther. It
was a human corpse, and as we approached we saw it was the
body of a woman.

She had evidently been murdered and then tied to a bamboo

pole by her hands and feet, lengths of jungle-vine being used for
the purpose instead of the more conventional rope. Then she had
been dumped in the jungle, close to the trunk of a large
sandalwood tree. The vultures had evidently been feasting for
some time, for they had torn chunks of flesh from the body. The
eyes had been picked from their sockets, the nose was gone, and
holes had been made through the skin of the cheeks and throat,
laying bare the bones beneath. But most of the scalp remained,
with the long black hair still adhering to it.

The corpse was naked, the birds having torn the thin saree and
jacket to shreds. The entrails had been drawn out and devoured,
laying bare a deep cavity in her abdomen, and a large part of the
flesh of her arms, thighs and legs had also been eaten, so that the
white bones could be seen. Had we arrived an hour or so later, we
would have found nothing but the bones, picked clean. The
vultures would have seen to that.

Dev and I bent over the body, trying to discover how the woman
had died. But we gave up that task in a few minutes. The vultures
had been at work too long and had effectively destroyed any trace
of the manner in which she had been killed; that is, if the
murderer or murderers had left any traces at all.

One thing was certain, however. Robbery had not been the
motive. A pair of heavy silver anklets still encircled the ankle-
bones where the flesh had been eaten away; a ring, which
appeared to be of gold, was still on one of the fingers of the right
hand; and earrings, undoubtedly of some value, were on the ears.
Perhaps she had worn a nose ornament also. But that was gone
now—along with the nose! She had a number of glass bangles,
multi-coloured and of fancy design, on both arms right up to her
elbows.

The smell of decay and putrefaction hung heavily on the still air
and Dev, who was essentially an office man, unused to such sights
and odours, was on the verge of retching. He clapped a
handkerchief over his nose and mouth and backed away.

Our cursory examination proved of no value whatever.

Obviously, after murdering the unfortunate woman, the culprits
had brought the corpse to this remote spot at night rather than
risk the trouble and danger involved in digging a grave and
burying her. They knew quite well that within a few hours of
daylight the vultures would completely obliterate all evidence of
the crime. If a bone or two remained, the jackals and any hyena
that passed that way the next night would complete the job. All
had gone according to plan, except for the most unfortunate and
unforeseen fact that that day, of all days, Dev and I had decided to
take a walk in the jungle.
 Now what were we going to do about it? Obviously, as public-
minded people, report the matter to the police. With this in view,
we set off on our walk back to Gummalapur. At the top of the first
hillock I looked back to fix the location of the valley in my mind
in case I should be required to find it again. That done, we hurried
on. We reached the village only to find that the one and only
policeman had fallen ill and been taken to hospital at the town of
Hosur.

Now, as I have told you, this area lay in the district of Salem,
belonging to Madras state. Hosur town was the immediate
headquarters, but it was also considerably out of our way. Both
Dev and I were due back on duty at our respective jobs that
afternoon. So we decided to inform the patel or headman of
Gummalapur village of what we had found and where we had
found it, return to Bangalore and send a written report to the
Police Station at Hosur by post. As Bangalore itself is in Mysore
state, such a report, if made to the police at Bangalore, would be
returned with instructions to forward it to the Madras police.

So we told the patel and next morning posted a report from

Bangalore. Two days later things began to happen in real earnest.
A police van turned up at my house with three varieties of
policemen in it, all wearing different uniforms. There were police
from Hosur, in Madras state, with their tall red turbans. There
were police from Bangalore Cantonment, at that time a British-
administered sector under Central British government control, in
blue and white turbans. And there were Mysore state police in
blue turbans with red and yellow tabs.

Then began a perfect avalanche of questioning. Was I Mr

Anderson? What was my full name, occupation and income?
Where was Mr Deva Sundram? What was his full name,
occupation and income? Why had we gone to Gummalapur? How
had we found the dead woman? Was she a close friend or merely a
casual acquaintance? Why should we have gone to that particular
spot? Was the woman alive when we found her? Was she dead?
How had she died? Was I sure that one or other of us did not know
her before? What was her name? Where had she come from? Was
she a young woman? Now came a very important question that I
was to answer very carefully; did she bear gunshot wounds? Why
did we not report the matter to the policeman at Gummalapur?
Why had we failed to do our duty by not proceeding in person at
once to Hosur to report the matter there? Where had we been all
that day and the previous one? Were we in the habit of visiting
Gummalapur frequently?

It took me some time to stop the tide of questions. I pointed out

that, in our joint statement, Dev and I had clearly written down
all the relevant facts. I went over those facts again.

The inexorable questioning continued. How had we known the

woman was really dead? Might she not have been alive; perhaps in
a faint? Had we taken steps to render first-aid? Why should the
murderers (according to our version and if such ever existed) take
the trouble to bind the body to a pole and carry it deep into the
jungle? Would it not have been more easy to bury her?

I found myself becoming annoyed. I pointed out that I was not a

detective and had made my report as a public-minded citizen. I
told them it would have been very easy for us to have said
nothing. It was all to no avail. Then came an order veiled in the
form of a request. Would I please lead them to Deva Sundram’s
residence, after which we would both have to proceed to the
police station at Hosur.

Now I became really annoyed. I told the three varieties of

policemen that I would certainly lead them to Deva Sundram’s
house, but after that I would not go to Hosur unless they cared to
take me under arrest, for which they would require a warrant.
 We compromised for the moment by going to Dev’s house, where
it started all over again. During these questions and answers we
suddenly discovered, and with considerable surprise, that the
Hosur police had not yet gone to the spot to locate the body. We
suggested they do so without delay, giving them explicit
directions.

There was some hesitation and much consultation between the

three varieties of representatives of the law as to what should, or
rather could, be done with both of us. The contingent from Hosur
wanted very much to take us back with them, but the element
from Bangalore Cantonment did not think it could be done
without warrant. The Mysore state policemen remained neutral,
ready to assist either way. At last the party drove off after warning
both of us to hold ourselves available for further questioning.

Two days later they were back again. They had failed to find
any corpse! Not even bones! Not even the bamboo pole to which
we had said the body had been tied. Had there really been a body
at all?

The result was that I said I would lead them to the place. Dev
was busy and could not come. I went in the police van to
Gummalapur. From there I set out with the party along the route
Dev and I had returned that morning. We climbed the last hillock
and I located the valley from it. Finally we reached the large
sandalwood tree beneath which we had found the dead woman.

There was no body to be seen; no bones, not a shred of torn

saree, and above all, no bamboo pole. Nothing! All the varieties of
policemen glared at me with concentrated suspicion. Was this a
joke? Was I trying to make monkeys out of them?

I approached the very spot on which the corpse had been lying
and searched it closely. There I came across the half of a broken
glass bangle and, in a little while, a few strands of long, raven-
black hair — undoubtedly hair from a woman’s head. I pointed
these things out to the policemen in proof of the veracity of our
report. I suggested that the murderers were in Gummalapur and
had come to know of our discovery when Dev and I had been
inquiring for the village policeman on our return that morning.
Also they must have heard about our report to the patel.
Obviously they had returned and removed the remains in order to
baffle investigation.

The policemen’s reaction to my theory was more unexpected

than ever. They wanted to know how I had been able to find my
way back and lead them to the exact spot. They also wanted to
know what had made me search so as to find the piece of the
broken glass bangle and the strands of hair.

I took a deep breath upon hearing these questions and counted

up to ten, very slowly. I then told them I would answer through
my lawyer. But that made them more suspicious than ever. To cut
a long story short, it took nearly three months of correspondence
with higher officials, plus two visits to the police station at Hosur,
before Dev and I ceased to be regarded as murderers. The solution
found by the Madras Police was certainly a neat one. They said
the murder must have been committed in Mysore state
jurisdiction and the body then brought across the frontier and
dumped in the Madras jungles. When it became known that the
corpse had been discovered, the culprits had taken it back again.

The Mysore Police strongly rejected this view. Nobody had been
murdered their side of the border, they said, adding that the
Madras theory was an invention to cover the truth. Wherever the
crime was committed and whoever did it, the fact remains that
neither victim nor culprits were ever traced.

This was the second time I had suffered from officialdom

through making a report of what I had found in the jungle. Once
before I had come upon a dead elephant that was only half-grown.
It had been shot behind the ear by a ball from a musket. The
wound was clearly discernible. I had reported that find to the
local Forest Department, accompanied by a photograph I had
taken of the dead animal, showing the wound. I almost lost my
game licence because of that report, because I was suspected of
having shot the elephant myself, after which it was said I had
made the report to cover up my own misdeed. That case also
involved a lot of correspondence. I had to interview a very high
official and tell him my story. I still feel he did not believe me. But
as the local Forest Guards had placed dry wood upon the carcass of
the dead elephant and burnt it because of the stench that spread
for about a mile around the spot my guilt could not be proved. So I
was graciously given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to
retain my game or shooting licence, but under strong suspicion.

Having recounted these two incidents as a ‘prologue’, I will now

go on to tell you about the main occurrence which took place
about five years ago, and in which I feel I behaved so very
discreditably. Four of us were returning from a visit to a planter
friend named Alfie Morrison, the manager of a couple of large
coffee estates on the Biligirirangan Mountains. There was the
owner of the car we were travelling in; my son’s friend, Rustam
Dudhwala; another friend named Willie Wollen; my son, Donald,
and myself. We had dinner with Alfie Morrison followed by coffee
and snacks and a little of his excellent whisky, after which we had
been talking for some hours. It was long past midnight when we
left his estate, and we had to cover over twenty miles of dense
jungle before we reached a place named Punjur. It was a narrow,
tortuous road, dropping steeply in places, with bamboo jungle on
both sides, the haunt mainly of elephant, bison, and sambar, with
an occasional tiger or lesser species of carnivore. Rustam was
driving and I was next to him. The other two were behind.

We were about half-way to Punjur. The jungle was particularly

dense and heavy. The time was 1.15 a.m. Suddenly, as Rustam
turned a sharp bend in the road, we saw a human figure stretched
across it, clearly visible in the bright light of the car. He braked
hard to prevent running over the man, and we all got out to see
what was the matter.

We found that the figure, lying in the middle of the road, was
not that of a man at all but of a woman; in fact, of a girl who
might have been about eighteen years of age. She was evidently
poor, judging from the cheap quality of her red and black saree.
Both her saree and her jacket were torn in many places and much
of the former was covered with blood. This had not been visible in
the lights of the car because, as I have told you, it was a black and
red saree and neither colour will show up blood by artificial light
at a distance. A closer examination showed the girl had been
violently molested and raped. She was quite unconscious,
probably from the effects of a blow or other injury. Her bare bosom
moved only slightly as she breathed, and her pulse was very weak.

What should be done? The spontaneous reaction of all four of us

was to carry her into the car, drive the remaining ten miles to
Punjur and report the matter to the police there, and then take her
to the hospital at the town of Chamrajnagar, a few miles away.
But other thoughts began to filter through. Before us lay a young
girl. She had been brutally raped. There were four of us in the car
and we were all men! If we took the girl to the police station at
Punjur, in that condition and with the circumstantial evidence,
including the late hour of the night, the police would probably say
the four of us had done the raping. They might even say we had
knocked her down with the car and raped her afterwards. Of
course, if the girl recovered consciousness, either at the police
station at Punjur or at the hospital at Chamrajnagar, she would
clear us of suspicion. But would she? What if her attackers had
come upon her by surprise? What if she did not know them?
Remember, we had no means of being certain where she had been
set upon. It might have happened elsewhere and the culprits may
have brought her in an unconscious condition in a bullock-cart
and dumped her in the middle of the road. In the confused state of
mind she would be in when she recovered—if she recovered at all
—she might genuinely think we had been responsible and accuse
us. Finally, and worst of all, suppose she had been so seriously
injured that she never recovered. We would be in a terrible plight
with charges of rape and murder against us. We would be in a
court case that might drag on for years. We might be jailed. We
might even be hanged.

We argued the situation there, in the middle of the road, for

nearly an hour, hoping the girl might show signs of returning
consciousness, when we would have spoken to her, found out
what happened and then taken her into the car. But she never
regained consciousness. On the contrary, her breathing became
slower and her pulse almost imperceptible.

It was a difficult decision to take, to desert a human being,

obviously in dire need and at the point of death, in the middle of
an elephant-infested jungle, at dead of night, miles from
anywhere and without aid. On the other hand, I remembered the
incident of the dead elephant and the murdered woman near
Gummalapur. I had been accused on both occasions. Now the
evidence against us, although circumstantial, was certainly much
greater and almost conclusive. The only defence we could offer
was that, had we been guilty, we would have left the girl and not
brought her to safety. But even that action could be interpreted as
a cunning move to cover our guilt. As the oldest member of the
party, I knew I could have persuaded the others to run the risk of
what might happen and take the girl in the car to Punjur and then
to the hospital at Chamrajnagar. But I did not. Instead, I agreed
with them to leave the poor girl where she lay and to continue on
our way.

Of course, we never heard what befell that unfortunate young

woman. But the action of deserting her and leaving her to her fate
is one that fills me with guilt till this very day.
 I will now change the mood of these reminiscences by telling
you two short stories against myself, stories that show what effect
the appearance of a tiger has on the nerves of a tyro.

The first incident took place when I was fifteen years old. My
father had taken me to a place named Lingadhalli, in the Kadur
district of Mysore state, on a duck and snipe-shooting trip. Dad
was never a big game wallah , although it was he who taught me
how to use a gun at a very early age. He was an excellent snipe
shot, at which I am a complete failure even to this day, and was
fond of duck-shooting particularly and also other small game.

There are two or three tanks near Lingadhalli which, around

Christmas time, hold quite a number of wild-duck and teal, with
occasional geese. There are also reserved forests surrounding it
which hold tiger and panther. Our armament consisted of Dad’s
favourite .16 bore double-barrelled shotgun, and an old hammer
.12 bore double-barrelled shotgun which he had given me for my
birthday that year.

It was reported to me on the afternoon of the second day that a

tiger had killed a bull in an areca-nut plantation adjacent to the
tank where we had gone to shoot duck that very morning. The
owner told me about it, but I kept the matter a secret from Dad. I
knew he would not allow me to go after a tiger. My knowledge of
big game shooting at that time was practically nil, but when the
owner offered to tie a machan for me if I made an attempt to shoot
the tiger that had killed his bull, I resolved to do or die in the
attempt and told him to go ahead.

I told Dad a lie that evening, saying I was going out with a
villager to shoot ‘flying fox’, which is the name given to the large
Indian fruit-bat, and said that I would return about eleven
o’clock. I fondly imagined I would bring the dead tiger back with
me. Leaving Dad in the little Travellers’ Bungalow on the plea
that I wanted to try my luck at shooting peafowl and hare
(rabbits) before going on for the flying fox, I started out a little
before 5 p.m. In less than an hour I was alone in the machan in the
midst of the tall, swaying areca-nut trees, with the dead bull
stretched on the ground beneath me.

To this day I can remember that machan. It could not have been
much more than twelve feet above the ground; a rough, scraggy,
unprotected affair. Certainly the kind of machan a tiger would
easily detect and therefore not visit or come anywhere near. But
we have all heard of beginner s luck’, and it was with me on that
memorable evening.

It was dusk when the tiger came, and almost the first thing he
did was to look up and see me sitting on that very obvious
platform. He snarled and stopped in his stride. I was petrified with
terror. Not a muscle would move or obey my command. I wanted
to scream aloud in fear. But even that I could not do. The tiger
took off with a grunt of alarm and anger as the .12 slipped from my
nerveless fingers and rolled off the platform to fall with a thud on
the ground beneath. Fortunately the soil was wet and soft, and the
gun fell stock-first, so that nothing happened to it. But I was
thoroughly disgruntled and hated myself for being an arrant
coward, nor did I tell Dad anything about it when I got back to the
travellers’ bungalow before 8 p.m. that night.

Mortified at what had happened, it was not long afterwards that

I went on a hunting trip with another boy, slightly older than
myself, named Jerry Barrow. We went to a village a few miles
away from the town of Sagar in the Shimoga district of Mysore
state. Once again our luck, as novices, was excellent, for within a
day of our arrival two tiger kills were reported at two separate
spots in the jungle, both scarcely a mile from the village. We
tossed a coin and I remember I got the kill to the west of the
village. There a fine full-grown cow had been destroyed and partly
eaten in the bed of a nullah or stream. As fortune would have it, a
sapling grew nearby, and, remembering what had happened at
Lingadhalli when I had sat on a machan twelve feet up, I saw to it
that the platform was tied at a crotch in the tree at least eighteen
feet above the kill on the bed of the nullah. The sapling grew
straight up from the bed of the stream and at a right angle to the
bank of the nullah, which itself at this spot was steep and at least
a dozen feet higher than the sandy bed.

I took up my position early and was intently, nervously

watchful. All tyros do that. Eventually it began to grow dark, and
along with dusk came two tigers—or rather, a tiger and a tigress—
walking one behind the other. The only trouble was that they
were walking along the high bank of the nullah, whereas my
present machan was about eighteen feet above that same bed.
And so it came about that I found myself only six feet above the
tiger and his mate. I had sought to improve conditions, but had
inadvertently worsened them. At least at Lingadhalli I had been a
dozen feet above the first tiger I had ever seen in a wild state. Now
I was looking at two of them, and at half that distance! However, I
had made some progress by this time, at least so far as my nervous
reactions were concerned. I did not let the gun drop out of the
machan , although sheer blue funk restrained me from attempting
a shot.

By a strange coincidence almost the same experience befell a

friend of mine, at a place very close by, but many years later. And
he, too, behaved like me—and he too was a beginner.

Often, in the course of conversation with other hunters, I hear

disparaging remarks about the actions of some novice or
greenhorn: of how he would not shoot because he could not shoot,
or missed badly because he was trembling like an aspen. Then I
confide to my hearers my own reactions on two occasions, in
sympathy with those unknown tyros and novices. I can assure you
that the mere sight of the king of the jungle in his wild state and
in all his majesty, at close range and in darkness, is something
awe-inspiring. It is a very different spectacle from the docile, half-
starved tigers one sees in zoos and circuses.

Some of our trips have resulted in little incidents with an

element of comedy in them; others, which might have ended
rather more seriously, turned out rather funny.

I have been out with all sorts of people. Some have been morose
companions, grumbling and complaining at the least
inconvenience. Others have been extremely exacting, such as
those who insist on eating only home-prepared and cooked food,
drinking only boiled water or soda-water, tea and coffee, or
sleeping on camp cots under mosquito nets. A third variety,
although rare, are of the other extreme; they are so enthusiastic
that they want to be on the move right throughout the twenty-
four hours. In rain or sunshine, with little or no food at all, and no
rest.

That is why, on all serious shikar trips, I prefer to be on my own.

I have accustomed myself to sleeping anywhere, even in the open
under a tree, and to eating anything that may be available, from
cooked European or Indian food to an aboriginal diet of berries,
roots and even half-cooked meat. As for water, I have had to dig
holes in sandy riverbeds, wait till water collects in them, and then
lie prone and suck it from the hole I have dug, holding a corner of
a handkerchief across my mouth to strain out the finer grains of
sand and sometimes the green slime in the water itself.

On one occasion a friend of mine, a major, and two other

friends, a doctor and his son, had planned a three-week tiger shoot
in a very remote corner of the jungles of Shimoga district in
Mysore state. There was a tiny forest bungalow far from any
motorable road, and a small village nearby. We had taken along a
huge store of provisions, but as three weeks is a long time and we
were all permanently hungry and eating heartily, together with
the fact that feathered game was not too plentiful and we did not
want to alarm the tigers in the vicinity with indiscriminate
shooting, our food-stock began to run out soon after ten days. Half
rations for everyone was the result.

One night, during the period of scarcity, I heard peculiar sounds

coming from the part of the bungalow we had been using as a
dining-room. I could just detect a faint rattling and scraping noise.
I reached for my electric torch, tiptoed to the door leading to the
dining-room, and switched on. There was the doctor’s son,
stealing food. He had buttered a slice of bread, spread condensed
milk over it, and finally sprinkled that with sugar.

I then did an unsporting thing. I ‘sneaked’. Feigning alarm, I

yelled loudly: ‘Doctor, Doctor; there is a thief in the dining-room.’

Out came the doctor, to catch his son red-handed. The lecture
that was given the lad was so loud and so long that it kept me
from falling asleep for another hour.

Food became scarcer than ever at that camp, but we were loath
to abandon it as the tigers had just begun to kill the live baits we
had been tying out for them, although we had not had the luck so
far to shoot one. It was decided that we should go to the villagers
and offer to buy any kind of food from them at any price. The son
went first, and returned with one egg. The next day the doctor
tried his luck. He came back in a very bad temper. The villagers
had told him that the previous day they had sold the young sahib
seven eggs. The boy had brought back just one. Confronted by his
father he confessed he had been very hungry and had eaten the
other six eggs, raw, on his way back. The villagers had also told
the doctor they had no spare food to sell, for it was scarce and they
needed it for themselves.

On the third day, I went. The villagers told me the same thing.
They had no chickens to sell and no ragi grain either. Everything
was required for their own consumption. When the major’s turn
came to go begging, he decided to do something novel. He invited
the whole village to come to the nearby forest bungalow that
afternoon to witness a very grand entertainment including
dances, such as they had never seen before, performed entirely by
himself. It would be a free show, he told them; but a collection
would be taken at the end—of food, in any shape or form.

That afternoon a few ancient yokels trickled in and a few young

ones. These spectators proceeded to squat on the floor of the
verandah. It was an hour before some thirty persons had collected.
When he judged that that was about all the audience he would
gather, the major went inside and came back with a towel tied
around his waist. Then, humming through compressed lips in a
very fair imitation of a bagpipe, he executed the highland fling
and some reels. Finally, laying two crossed rifles on the floor, he
did the sword dance.

I am not sure how much the audience appreciated the show, but
for all his efforts not one of them had brought any foodstuff, and
the bag Robbie took around for the collection was as empty after
his strenuous efforts as it had been before.

Another little incident of another sort happened at

Yemmaydoddi, in the Kadur district. Don and I, with a young
friend of his, Sonny, had gone there for a few days to show Sonny a
tiger, which he was going to shoot. He awoke at 3 a.m. on the first
morning of the trip, and I heard him trying to awaken Don and
arouse enough interest in him to go for a torch-shining walk in the
jungle. It was bitterly cold, and to make matters worse there was a
slight drizzle. Don preferred his warm bed, and in no uncertain
terms he told Sonny this. I felt sorry for the boy, so in a fit of self-
sacrifice I said I would accompany him.

We set forth, Sonny carrying my .405 rifle, which he had

borrowed, while I swung the beam of a five-cell torch from side to
side in the hopes of picking up the eyes of a tiger. Quite soon we
reached a narrow track which runs parallel to a water-channel
coming from a big lake, known as the Madak Tank, about four
miles away, and started to walk towards this lake. Fortunately it
had stopped drizzling, but it was colder than ever, and pitch-dark.

About halfway to the lake I caught sight of twin spots of light,

coming from somewhere in the jungle on the other side of the
intervening water-channel. They were fiery red. What animal was
this? The eyes were so very red. I used my torch-beam to make the
creature move or turn its head to reveal its identity. The twin red
lights never as much as flickered. For a moment I swung the torch-
beam off them, so as to allow the animal to see us and move, but
the red lights glowed on. That solved the problem. They were not
the eyes of an animal at all, but the embers of a fire. Some jungle-
folk were camped there.

It is a popular, but entirely false notion, that the eyes of wild

animals glow in the dark with their own luminosity. They do not.
It is only when a bright light is directed on them that the inner
surface of their eyes, through the open pupils, reflect the light and
the eyes ‘shine’ with different colours, green, whitish-green,
whitish-red, or reddish-white, according to which animal is there,
and according to the angle of the light. But the eyes do not shine
of their own accord. Therefore, if there is no torch-light no
reflecting ‘shine’ can come from any animal’s eyes. Conversely, if
there is a ‘shine’ when there is no torch-light, it cannot come from
the eyes of any animal.

As I have said, the solution was simple. We were confronted by

the embers of a fire and not by a wild beast. Sonny was standing
beside me when I said, carelessly and casually, ‘Fire’. The next
moment there was a violent explosion, as he fired my rifle.
Luckily he missed hopelessly.

There were wild cries of alarm from the rudely-awakened

sleepers. ‘Aiyo! Aiyo!’ they yelled in consternation.
 ‘What the hell are you doing, you fool?’ I shouted at Sonny. ‘I
told you it was a fire.’

‘You did nothing of the sort,’ he replied. ‘You just said “Fire”
and I fired.’

Incidentally, this little incident shows with what apparent

contempt jungle-folk regard tigers that are not man-eaters. These
men were sleeping out in the open, quite unprotected, in an area
well-known to harbour tigers.

This fellow Sonny was a dangerous sort of person to go out with.

One of those regular Jonahs, if you know what I mean. Once we
were driving through a particular belt of scrub jungle near
Tarikere, trying to shoot a wild pig for the ‘pot’, as meat was
running low at our camp at Yemmaydoddi. It had rained heavily
that afternoon, and as the area was noted for pigs, we were almost
certain of coming across one at any moment. It was about 10 p.m.
Sonny was seated on the left-hand mudguard of my car with an
old .12 gauge shotgun he had borrowed. A friend named Basil
Jones was sitting up on the back with another shotgun. Don was
next to me, while I was driving. We did not have a spotlight, as
that was against the rules, but it was conceded that if a pig ran
across the road in the glare of the headlights it could legitimately
be shot at.

Suddenly, a boar dashed across the road a few yards in front of

the car, brightly lit by the headlights. But Sonny did not see it. He
must have been dreaming. We all yelled, ‘Shoot’, but the pig by
that time had gone. We called Sonny all kinds of names and told
him to be ready for the next one.

A mile or so later another pig ran across the road. Sonny saw
this one all right but was too slow to fire. Basil Jones stood up in
the dickie-seat and fired over our heads. Perhaps because of the
lurching of the car he aimed short. There followed a sharp crack
and the metal aeroplane that decorated the radiator-cap of the
Studebaker disintegrated under a shower of pellets.

Just then Sonny began making frantic gesticulations for me to

stop. I thought that perhaps Basil had hit the pig and

Sonny had seen it fall. So I braked sharply. Sonny jumped off his
seat on the mudguard, ran around the front of the car, and came
towards me holding his .12 bore at arm’s length.

‘Here, take this damned gun,’ he said in disgust. ‘Something is

wrong with it. Before I could press the trigger it went off and
smashed your radiator cap to pieces.’

‘Let me have a look at it,’ I suggested. I took the weapon from

him and opened the breach. There were cartridges in both
chambers and neither of them had been fired. The explosion of
Basil’s gun, together with the noise made by the disintegrating
radiator-cap, had made Sonny think that it was his weapon that
had gone off.

The third incident in which this youngster figured was the

funniest of the lot, although it might very easily have ended in a
tragedy. This time we were conducting a morning beat for pig in
scrub jungle at Bannerghatta, about fifteen miles south of
Bangalore. There was an interlude in the beat. Sonny was
standing on the bed of a small dry ravine. Another fellow, named
Arthur Stanley, was standing at the top of its bank, perhaps ten
feet above Sonny and as many feet away. They were talking, and
to emphasize some point, Sonny banged the butt of the same .12
bore shotgun, which he had once again borrowed, on the ground.
There was a crash as the gun went off, leaping out of Sonny’s hand
with the force of the recoil, while Arthur Stanley’s sun helmet
sailed away, its brim shot off at the front by pellets from Sonny’s
gun.
 Arthur promptly fainted with shock. We rallied around and
revived him, while we cursed Sonny for a congenital and
prodigious idiot. He remained rooted to the bed of the ravine
looking at all of us in surprise and wondering what it was all
about. Arthur soon recovered from his faint and was still standing
at the edge of the ravine, almost at the same spot as when the gun
had gone off.

‘How could it have happened?’ Sonny was asking. ‘I had only

loaded one cartridge in the right barrel and was gently tapping the
butt on the ground when, for no reason at all, the gun just went
off.’

And having uttered these words, Sonny began to demonstrate

how he had been gently tapping the butt of the gun on the ground
when suddenly, unexpectedly, his gun went off a second time.
Arthur fell back in another faint as the shot swished past his head.

‘I thought you said you had loaded only one cartridge in your
gun?’ Don asked, in a highly sarcastic tone.

‘That’s true,’ Sonny replied. ‘Have a look for yourself.’

With these words he opened the breach of his shotgun. Then his
eyes grew wide in amazement. There were two shells in the
breach, one in each barrel. And they had both been fired.

We had an amusing experience once in a Model A Ford

belonging to Rustam Dudhwala. It happened about thirty miles
from Kollegal, in Coimbatore district, in the middle of the
afternoon. The nut anchoring the fan worked loose and without
warning the fan cut a neat, circular hole in the radiator from
which every drop of water soon leaked out. We were in the middle
of the jungle and it was evident we would somehow have to get
the car back to Kollegal for repairs.
 Rustam then had what he called a brain wave. Removing the
bonnet completely, he loosened the metal clamps that held the
hose-pipe connecting the radiator to the cylinder head. Then he
cut one of the spare inner tubes he was carrying right across near
the air-inlet nozzle and fitted one of the open ends of the tube on
to the metal neck protruding from the cylinder-head, folding the
excess rubber around it and fixing the tube to the neck firmly with
the metal hose-clamp he had loosened. Down the neck of the
hollow tube he poured water from the two-gallon tin he had at the
back of the car, till the cylinder-heads and half the rubber tube
were full. A friend named Willie Wollen was commissioned to sit
on the mudguard and hold the free end of the half-filled inner tube
in his two hands, while Rustam turned the car around and headed
back to Kollegal.

Soon things began to happen. The water grew hot and began to
steam. The tube started to swell alarmingly and seemed in
momentary danger of bursting. In order to release the pressure and
allow some of the steam to escape, Willie loosened his grip at the
end of the tube. But he had forgotten that the water-pump was
working. Out came not only steam but scalding hot water, all over
his hands. With an oath he dropped the whole contraption and
away went all the water again. We had a good laugh at his
discomfiture, but ceased laughing when he flatly refused to hold
the tube any longer. Anyhow, we poured some water down the
tube and took turns at holding it while Rustam drove a few miles
at a time, stopping occasionally to allow the water to cool.
Meanwhile we refilled the two-gallon petrol tin at every stream,
tank or well we passed. And so we reached Kollegal at last.

I well remember a certain gentleman I took out with me. He was

a bit of a crank. He had read somewhere that condensed milk was
rich in food value and provided all necessary vitamins; so he said
he would bring no other form of food with him but tins of
condensed milk on which he proposed to live for the whole week
we remained out. His theories of food value might have been all
very well, but he ran into difficulties on the fifth day. Condensed
milk itself is constipating. Further, his system was dehydrated by
the heat (it was midsummer) and the salt he had lost in
perspiration. That evening he suddenly collapsed, saying he was
feeling very ill. His temperature shot up and severe stomach
cramps set in. But try as he would, he could not relieve himself.
The situation became very serious. It was then we thought of
using what materials were available. The rubber lead of the foot-
pump belonging to the car with the metal connections at each end
cut off, and the bulb of the horn filled with lukewarm water and
then pressed on to one end of the rubber lead, served as an
effective enema. The procedure of refilling the bulb and then
emptying it by pressing had to be repeated twice or thrice, but it
achieved the required result, thus perhaps saving the man’s life. A
spoonful of engine oil, grade 40, administered orally, also helped.

I used this treatment once again, years later, at a place named

Gerhetti in Salem district, when a rather elderly gentleman named
Sells who had come out with me to photograph elephants,
suddenly collapsed with sunstroke. We had been out all day in the
blazing sun, and when we got back to the forest bungalow at dusk
he complained of a very severe headache and giddiness. Soon high
fever set in with violent vomiting, and he became unconscious.
Treatment with the pump-nozzle of the car, together with hourly
cold-water sponge baths, lowered his temperature, and by next
morning he was on his feet again.

I had an interesting experience myself when I went out into the

jungle several years ago, for a whole week, with my friend Byra
the poojaree, an aborigine I had met in the forests of the Salem
district in Madras state under rather unusual circumstances.* For
the fun of it I had determined to carry no gun nor take any food. I
wanted to live on the jungle for these seven days, and on such
things as Byra himself could procure from the forest by the
primitive means at his disposal. I had stipulated that Byra himself
should not bring his much-prized, but unlicensed, matchlock.
 The outstanding thing about this excursion was that I seemed to
be always ravenously hungry, every hour and day of the whole
period. I am sure Byra found his hands full in having to feed me
and himself. As it was, I ate about thrice what he consumed. We
swallowed various berries and the yam-like roots of different
creepers he dug up; we devoured the combs of wild bees; we ate
the small mud-crabs that lived by a pool near the Chinar River;
we chewed snails and locusts; we ate the large, long, fat queen-
ant from a termite hill that we dug up together. Byra caught two
oodumbus (a species of lizard over a yard long, properly called the
iguana), which we cooked and devoured; I found it very tasty and
very tender.

Yet I was still hungry. With the aid of an ingenious trap, having
a noose of plaited horse-hair, Byra caught a jungle-cock. After
wringing its neck, he proceeded to make what is known as a ‘mud-
roast’. I give the procedure, which is really quite simple in case
some venturesome boy scout or other person would like to try it
out for himself.

There are two ways of preparing a roast without utensils. Of

course, whichever way you use it you must first remove the
feathers of the bird or the outer skin of the animal which you wish
to roast and also its entrails. Thereafter, you can do a ‘stick-roast’
or a ‘mud-roast’ as you prefer. A stick-roast is done by driving a
long sharpened stick right through the bird or beast. Then two Y-
shaped sticks are cut and their ends planted in the ground at such
a distance from each other that the ends of the stick which
skewers the meat rest on the Y-shaped supports. The stick and its
burden can then be rotated. A gentle fire of embers is made
beneath, and the skewer-stick slowly rotated by hand to keep the
meat from being burnt. No leaves should be used in the fire, as
they will only blacken and smoke the flesh.

This method has several drawbacks. Firstly, it requires constant

attention. Secondly, the skewer has to be turned all the time.
Thirdly, however careful one may be, the finished roast always
turns out dry and partly-burnt, while the inner parts are almost
raw. The one advantage is that it can be prepared anywhere in the
jungle at short notice.

For a ‘mud-roast’ the bird or animal is similarly prepared. Then

a layer of mud, either from the edge of a stream or pond, or made
with the aid of earth and water, is plastered all over the carcass
till it is a little over an inch thick. The result is a sort of mud ball
encasing the flesh completely. A fire of embers is next prepared
and the mud ball placed in it. Then the ball is covered with more
embers till it is completely hidden from view except at the top,
where the mud should be partly visible. The moderate heat is
maintained till cracks are seen in the mud. Another ten minutes is
allowed after that, then the mud ball is removed from the fire,
taking care it does not disintegrate while doing so. Alternatively,
the embers around and beneath the mud ball may be removed,
leaving just the ball. Allow this to cool a little and then, with the
aid of another stick, break off the covering. The resulting roast
will be found very tasty and not too dry, and the meat will be
cooked right through.

The disadvantage of this method is, of course, the finding or

making of mud of a suitable consistency to cover the flesh
entirely. If it has too much large-grained sand, the covering will
disintegrate with the heat before the flesh inside has been properly
roasted, which will then be burnt. If the mud is too watery it will
not adhere to the flesh. But if the mud is of the right composition
and holds together, the meat is excellently cooked in its own
juices. It is a very successful method provided the game is the size
of a fowl or a rabbit, but it cannot be employed for larger game, as
the covering of mud will not remain intact in such cases.

Companions who come out into the jungle insisting on drinking

only boiled water for fear of germs and dysentery, and in sleeping
under mosquito nets because of malaria, prove a nuisance. In my
very humble opinion they kill themselves over and over again by
imagining the presence of microbes of all varieties. Most
important of all, they are not ‘mobile’. In a jungle, particularly as
far as serious shooting is concerned, it is essential to be able to
move anywhere and to move fast, and this means eating whatever
is available and drinking and sleeping wherever and whenever one
can. A party of hunters impeded with a load of canned provisions
and utensils for boiling water, plus mosquito nets and camp cots
and regular tentage, becomes cumbersome. Coolies or bearers are
required to carry all this paraphernalia. That means more mouths
to feed.

I remember that I once took a husband, wife and grown son

fishing on the banks of the Cauvery river. I had gone with them in
their car. When night fell—a beautiful moonlight night—I made
my bed on the river’s sandy bank. The cool breezes wafting down
the river were refreshing and lulled me to sleep. But my clients
woke me up, wanting to know if there was any danger from
crocodiles and wild animals. Sleepily, I replied in the negative and
dozed off again. But I was disturbed in a few minutes by the noise
they were making. These people had brought mosquito nets and
poles and were planting the latter in the sand. Cross pieces were
tied to the framework, then a snow-white curtain was brought out
and tied to the poles at the four corners. Eventually the three of
them lay down beneath it to sleep.

But instead of sleeping, every little while the older man would
sit up, lift up the mosquito net and shine his torch round and
round. I turned on my side with my back to them and once again
fell asleep. But not for long. For I was startled by a scream from
the lady, followed by much bustling. I rolled over to see the family
trio tangled up in their own mosquito curtain, which had
collapsed, poles and all, on top of them. The lady was shouting,
‘Scorpion! Scorpion!’, and the wavering light of the torch was
directed upon the river sand a few yards away.
 Getting to my feet, I inquired, rather impatiently, as to the
cause of the commotion. The lady said that in the light of the
torch she was sure she had seen a large scorpion crawling across
the sand a few feet away. Taking the torch from her husband, I
walked to the spot she indicated. There was no scorpion there that
I could find, but she affirmed very definitely that there had been
one a few moments before. She may have been right, although I
doubt it. However, the scorpion, if there had been one, had
disappeared. I searched awhile, but finding nothing I suggested we
all might try seriously to snatch a few hours sleep.

But no, they would have none of that. The three of them stoutly
asserted that they preferred to spend the rest of the night sitting in
their car. Then they did an amazing thing. They draped their
mosquito net completely over their car, and, getting under the
net, opened the doors and got into the vehicle. This way, they
said, they would not be bitten by mosquitoes. Fair enough, I
thought; now I will be able to get some sleep. But I was quite
wrong. From inside the car, through the windows and the net,
they kept shining that infernal torch around and around, and on
to me. To make matters worse, after a while they started tooting
the electric horn.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ I inquired testily.

‘We hear noises in the jungle,’ one of them answered. ‘There are
wild animals about. You are asleep and so cannot hear, but we
can.’

With all that commotion, plus the torchlight and the electric
horn, I knew no animal would approach within half a mile. But it
was not worthwhile to mention the fact. At about 4 a.m. their
nerves gave out completely.

‘Wake up,’ the man called to me, ‘and let us get away from this
fearful place. It is dangerous for us to remain here.’
 Once again I said nothing, but arose docilely and got into the
car. Always, when the time comes to leave the jungle and return
to civilization, I do so with regret. This time it was different. I was
more than fed up and felt relieved when the engine started and we
began the return trip to Bangalore.

On another occasion, a very senior officer in a factory where I

was once employed asked me if I would take him out to shoot a
really large crocodile, as he badly wanted the skin. I agreed, and
we left in his car that very night for Hogenaikal, on the Cauvery
river, where these reptiles are to be found in reasonable numbers.
There were four of us in the party. The officer, his lady friend, my
son Donald, and myself.

At about nine the next morning when the sun was becoming
really hot we hired a coracle, camouflaged the sides of it with
twigs, and started floating gently downstream on the lookout for
crocodiles basking on the sandbanks bordering the river. I told the
great man that when we saw one, he would have to make a
landing ashore, detour into the jungle and stalk the reptile
soundlessly till he was close enough to take a neck shot. To
approach it directly in the coracle would be to lose it, as
crocodiles are very cunning and slide back into the water as soon
as danger approaches. Shooting a crocodile in the neck paralyses
the spinal column and prevents the reptile from making that last-
minute convulsive twist of the body whereby it plunges back into
the water, not to be seen again. Either the currents will take the
carcase miles downstream or the crocodile will wedge itself
between rocks at the bottom of the river and perish there.

But the great man contradicted me sharply. He said that he had

read in a book that a heart shot, immediately behind the left
foreleg, was the most effective. I tried to point out that there was
no doubt that such a heart shot would kill the crocodile, but not
before it plunged back into the river and was lost. But he would
have none of this.
 In due course we spotted a large crocodile sunning itself on a
sand bank, and we set our man ashore out of sight and a quarter of
a mile upstream. Then I sat in the coracle and watched the scene
through my binoculars. For a man of his bulk, he did a marvellous
piece of stalking. The bank on which the crocodile was lying rose
to some height, and after quite a long time I saw the stalker
appear at the top of the bank, lie down and aim carefully.
Suddenly the crocodile seemed to rear up on its own tail and then
plunge into the water with a great splash. The next second came
the sharp report of the rifle.

I ordered the owner of the coracle to paddle quickly to the spot.

There my client met me with a wide smile, his face deep red from
the heat and his exertions. ‘I got him,’ he said, ‘right behind the
left shoulder.’

‘I am afraid you haven’t,’ I answered. ‘No doubt you hit him

and he will die. But we will never find him.’

‘Rot!’ he replied brusquely. ‘Get some fishermen to throw their

nets into the river and we will soon pick him up.’

The coracle was despatched to bring fishermen from the village

of Ootaimalai with their nets. These came after an hour and the
nets were duly cast. But no dead crocodile was picked up. The
river was too deep and the nets did not reach the bottom. Besides,
there were the currents to be reckoned with.

‘Let us try for another,’ I suggested consolingly.

‘You don’t know me,’ said the great man. ‘I will never give in
till I succeed.’

The nets were cast till evening, but we caught no dead

crocodile. At dinner that night I suggested that, as we were due
back at work the next day, we should leave at about ten.
 ‘You do not know me,’ I was told. ‘I will never give in till I
succeed. I am not leaving this place till I recover my crocodile.’

Next morning I again suggested we look for another crocodile.

My man glared at me disdainfully. The net-casting was begun
again, but by lunch-time no carcase had been found. The great
man was perspiring copiously and swearing loudly when we sat
down for lunch at the table in the forest bungalow. He took off his
bush-coat and threw it over a chair, sitting down bare to the
waist. Seeing the great personage make himself comfortable,
Donald did likewise, removing his shirt before he sat down, also
bare to the waist.

Suddenly the great man asked: ‘Anderson, how many men work
directly under you at the plant?’ Wondering at the suddenness of
the question, I answered automatically, ‘About 110.’

Much to my surprise and dismay, he rejoined acidly: ‘It indeed

astonishes me how you control them when you cannot control
your own son.’

Seeing the bewilderment in my expression, he went on in icy

tones: ‘You allow your son to sit at lunch-table bare-bodied, with
a lady present!’

Before I could answer, Donald cut in. ‘What about yourself?

Aren’t you also bare-bodied? You should set an example instead of
doing yourself what you don’t want others to do.’

The man’s face changed to deep red, then almost purple with
anger. ‘Damn it man, do you allow this pup to speak to me, your
superior officer, in this way?’ Then, turning to Don, he added
furiously: ‘Shut up before I make you.’

That was rather too much for Donald. He was young and very
vigorous. ‘You old so-and-so,’ he answered. ‘My dad may be
working under you, but I am not. Come outside and I’ll feed you
to your blasted crocodile.’

I do not know how it was that the great man avoided an attack
of apoplexy. Perhaps his friend saved the situation by suggesting
we return to Bangalore forthwith, which we did. This man
remained my boss for over two years after that, but he never spoke
to me again. Don and I still laugh when we think of this incident
and wonder how great men can ever be so silly.

Now let me tell you about my friend, Freddie Galiffe, and the
wild elephant—half-rogue and certainly a killer—that lived in a
corner of his vast estate, and for which Freddie had a soft spot,
because the presence of this old monster and his nocturnal
ramblings largely discouraged the activities of timber thieves who
would now and again raid the more distant parts of his estate for
the valuable timber and bamboos that grew there.

Freddie Galiffe owns quite a large estate, somewhere around 600

acres of land about half of which is virgin forest, just within
Mysore state and its border with Coorg, which was till very
recently a little independent state lying to the west of the larger
jurisdiction of Mysore. The ranges of the Western Ghats begin here
and the country is wild, rugged and densely wooded. It is
inexpressibly beautiful. Large areas are covered entirely with
bamboo jungle, and the stems of the bamboos attain really
magnificent heights and are extraordinarily stout, sometimes as
thick as your thigh.

To the west of Freddie’s estate lies a vast area of bamboo jungle

called Annay Chowk, meaning ‘elephant residence’, which is
government Reserve Forest and has for long borne an evil
reputation for elephants and been the birthplace of many rogues
for as long as anyone can remember.
 ‘Freddie’s Rogue’, as I have called this particular elephant,
evidently came from Annay Chowk, but for some unknown reason
it migrated to Freddie’s estate and lived almost permanently in a
corner of his land to the west, where heavy jungle and tender
bamboos, the favourite food of elephants, prevail. From the
description my friend who has seen this elephant many times has
given me, the rogue is a very old animal, for the uppermost ends of
his ears turn over. Apparently he is over nine feet in height, which
is quite big for an Indian elephant.

Not far from the little shack in which Freddie lives is a natural
lake, known in India as a ‘tank’. Freddie has taken advantage of
this tank to build a ‘bund’, or ridge, on one side, and through a
sluice gate he draws water for cultivating several paddy fields
where he grows very good quality rice.

Robbers came one moonlit night to rob his paddy. They arrived
in a bullock-cart in which they intended to load and carry away
the paddy. And they did just that. They stole his paddy, loaded the
cart, and drove it away. But by bad luck they met ‘Freddie’s
Rogue’ a mile away. He killed one of the thieves, demolished the
cart and, strange as it may seem, did not touch the paddy.

On another occasion timber thieves felled a teak tree growing

on Freddie’s land, lopped off the branches and carried away the
straight trunk. There must have been six or eight of them, for the
trunk was heavy. Once again ‘Freddie’s Rogue’ appeared around
the corner. He squashed one of them flat. Another he playfully
tossed away so that the thief’s thigh was broken when he hit the
ground. The next morning it was his calls for help that brought
Freddie and his men to the spot. There they found the heavy teak
log, the crushed thief and his injured comrade.

There was a third robbery. This time one of Freddie’s sturdy

bulls, which he kept for drawing the plough, was the victim. It
had been stabled with others behind Freddie’s shack; the thieves
untethered him at dead of night and led him away. But not very
far. Perhaps they had gone half a mile when, like avenging justice,
‘Freddie’s Rogue’ appeared. He chased one of the thieves who, to
save his life, came to Freddie’s hut for safety, banging frantically
upon his door. He gave himself up after confessing his crime.

One day an adventurous couple, who were friends of Freddie’s,

came to his estate. They said they had decided to live in the wilds
for a year and asked Freddie’s permission to build a cabin for
themselves in some remote part of his estate. It was a strange
request, but having nothing to lose by granting it, Freddie good-
naturedly consented. But he warned them about the rogue
elephant, but nothing daunted, they set about constructing a
shack, Tarzan-fashion, among the boughs of a banyan tree and
just about twenty feet off the ground. It was really lucky for them
that they chose this height.

During the two months or so that it took to construct their hut

of split bamboos and leaves, and a ladder for vines by which they
could climb up and down to their strange home, they shared
Freddie’s humble hut. Then at last came the house-warming
occasion. The home-in-the-tree was ready. Freddie climbed up
into it and pronounced it excellent. That night the adventurous
couple spent their first night in their love nest on the banyan tree.

At some time during the dark hours they were awakened by

strange noises from below. They peeped down from their front
door to see a huge elephant standing on the ground beneath, his
extended trunk waving in the air a few feet below them.
Fortunately they made no sound whatever, while the pachyderm
was not angry but only mildly curious. Without doubt he scented
them but failed to discover exactly where they were. He remained
below for over an hour, sniffing with outstretched trunk. Had he
thought of raising himself on his hind legs, circus fashion, he
could have reached them with the end of his trunk and brought
their flimsy home crashing to earth. Providentially he did not do
so. There is no doubt that by remaining quiet the couple saved
their lives, for eventually the elephant lost interest in the
structure and wandered off. With daylight they descended, nor did
they spend another night in the little tree-hut they had so
painstakingly built.

Freddie professes to have a fondness for ‘his rogue’, as he calls

this elephant, and he consistently refuses to send a report to the
authorities about him, or to try to shoot the elephant himself on
his own land—which is permissible. Freddie claims the pachyderm
is an unpaid watchman. It is significant that the thieves now
leave Freddie’s lands alone at night. It is also significant that
Freddie himself will not venture out after sunset. Indeed, the
unpaid watchman is doing a fine job! He keeps both intruders and
owner behind fastened doors!

_____________

* See Nine Man-Eaters and one Rogue

 6

The Creatures of the Jungle

UCH has been written about the big game and carnivore of
M Africa, and a great deal about tigers, panthers and elephants
in India. In this wealth of literature the smaller animals tend to be
forgotten.

One of them, the Indian wild dog, which goes under the Latin
name of ‘cyon dukhuensis’, is a most interesting animal, very
closely resembling and related to the domestic dog in appearance
and habits. In colour it is reddish brown, turning to white on the
belly. The hair along the back is dark brown or even black, the tips
of the ears often black, with a short bushy tail, having a tuft of
black hair at its extremity. Sometimes within and at the end of
this black tuft is a smaller tuft of white hair. A male dog weighs
over forty pounds and stands almost two feet high. The neck and
jaws are massive, the chest deep, but the waist narrow, indicating
that the animal is built for speed. It has structural differences from
its domestic cousin in its skull and teeth, and it has more
mammae. The feet and toes are hairy, and the tracks rather more
pointed than those by domesticated dogs.

Wild dogs appear to congregate in packs to a greater extent

during the hot weather. Perhaps this has some instinctive
connection with the fact that water is scarce in the jungles at that
time and the deer upon which they feed are more concentrated in
the vicinity of water holes at which they are compelled by
circumstances to drink. About October these packs dissolve into
pairs; this is the breeding season and the pups are born during the
cold weather. They may number about five to a litter, their home
being a cave between rocks or a hole in the ground. At weaning
the bitch feeds her pups on raw meat that she eats first from a kill,
partially digests and then regurgitates for the benefit of her
offspring. The young grow rapidly in intelligence and sagacity.
From an early age they evince great ferocity at the smell or sight
of blood and raw flesh.

Wild dogs have keen senses of sight, hearing and scent,

particularly the last-mentioned, which helps them to find their
quarry. They attack any living creature in the forest, including
adult tigers and panthers, and the calves of bison, but avoid
elephants, men, hyaenas and jackals, probably considering the
last-mentioned as near cousins. An exception to this general code
of behaviour occurred, however, when the six wild-dogs attacked
and killed a hyena—Jackie’s mother—as I have already related.
This proves that there are no hard and fast rules with wild
animals. The unexpected often takes place.

I have known of more than one case in the Chittoor district of

Andhra Pradesh where these dogs have torn a tiger to ribbons after
suffering a considerable number of casualties themselves. It is
probable that the tiger, accustomed always to be the aggressor and
to terrorizing the animals he hunts, is quite at a loss when hunted
himself and psychologically defeated even before the dogs drive
home their attack in numbers. Panthers and monkeys escape by
climbing trees or rocks, but the confused tiger is overwhelmed
before he knows what is happening. Wild dogs hunt by day,
favouring the hot hours between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. They will also
occasionally hunt at other times and on bright moonlit nights. I
have never known them to hunt on a dark night. While on the
chase they make a peculiarly sharp, high-pitched yelp which
might be mistaken for a bird-call. Should they be hunting a large
animal, like a sambar, the main body of the pack will gallop
behind at a leisurely pace while ‘flankers’ will run ahead to
ambush the quarry. Their method of attack is very cruel, as they
fasten on to the hunted animal and literally tear him to bits alive.
The eyes, nose, throat, ears, abdomen and testicles are favourite
points of attack.
 Once, when I was sitting on the bank of a dry stream, a full-
grown sambar doe broke cover and ran across pursued by wild
dogs; her intestines were dragging in the sand and for about
twenty feet behind her. Both her eyes had been bitten out, her face
was torn in a ghastly manner, and two dogs had their teeth
embedded in her flanks and were being dragged along by the still-
galloping sambar. There have been quite a number of instances
where deer hunted by these dogs have run into a village to try to
save themselves from their relentless foes, preferring the company
of men to the ruthless destroyers. Unfortunately the villagers, who
are only interested in meat, fail to appreciate this and kill the deer
for themselves, driving the dogs away.

I was once resting from the noon-day heat beneath a tree at

Mamandur when I heard the peculiar yelp of wild dogs. Hastening
towards the yelps, I found a full-grown sambar hind standing up to
her chest in a pool of water into which she had galloped to try to
save herself. Several dogs were swimming out to her, while two
had already reached her. One of them had climbed onto her back
and was biting her neck. Four rapid shots from the Winchester
disposed of four of them, while the remainder ran back into the
jungle. The sambar hind still stood in the water, gazing at me with
wide, terror-striken eyes. I waded into the pool and went up to her.
Then I touched her, expecting she would gallop away. The poor
creature was trembling with fear and did not move. I stroked her
neck, but she did not even look at me. Her head and large ears
were turned towards the spot where the dogs had disappeared.
Finally I started pushing her out of the pool in the opposite
direction. Even when she reached the bank she did not run till I
gave her two sharp slaps on her rump. That seemed to bring her to
her senses and she galloped off. She had been badly bitten and
several strips of flesh and skin were hanging from the wounds. The
canine teeth of wild dogs are curved backwards to a greater degree
than those of their domestic cousins. This not only enables them
to retain their grip on a running quarry, but helps them to tear out
great chunks of flesh when attacking or feeding.
 These animals are great killers. They will not eat carrion or
decayed meat, nor touch the kills of other animals. Their practice
is to slay for themselves, and slay often, so that they may enjoy
the warm, red blood and hot fresh meat. They are by far the most
destructive creatures of the jungles. For this reason, rewards are
paid all over the peninsula for their destruction, with a higher
reward for bitches and puppies. The skin and skull must be
produced when claiming the reward.

With all their ferocity, wild dogs exhibit a strange friendliness

towards a domesticated cousin should they meet one in the
jungle. Several times, when out with my dog Nipper, he has come
tearing back to me with one or more wild dogs gambolling
playfully at his heels—not always puppies, but fully grown
animals too. On such occasions I have not had the heart to shoot
them, but have stood still to watch what would happen. They
have approached to within a yard of me, wagging their tails and
fawning at Nipper, making the whining sound that any dog makes
when he wants to be friendly. I have remained motionless and
they have continued to run round in circles, just out of reach,
ignoring me completely but trying to make friends with Nipper.
Unfortunately he would never respond but appeared very afraid.
Even when I walked away, with Nipper literally between my legs,
they would follow closely, wagging away their tails and whining
in a friendly manner.

I have never known or heard of a single instance of men being

attacked or bitten by wild dogs, but they are strangely fearless of
the human race and will stand and look at man without running
away when a tiger or panther or elephant would have bolted. I
have fired at wild dogs and shot one or two while the rest of the
pack lingered in the vicinity. On other occasions, from behind
cover, I have shot a dog and, instead of running away, the pack
have approached and sniffed at the dead animal. I have been told
that under such conditions they will even eat their dead
companion.
 Once near Dimbum, in North Coimbatore district, when
turning a corner of the road in the Studebaker, I came upon a wild
bitch crossing the road followed by three half-grown puppies. Not
wanting to shoot the mother or the pups, I stopped the car
abruptly, sprang out and gave chase. But I had scarcely passed a
few yards into the jungle when the three pups left their mother
and came yelping around me, wagging their tails but keeping just
out of reach. It was evident from

the expressions on their faces that they were just dying to make
friends but could not screw up sufficient courage to come any
closer. The mother stood aloof, calmly regarding me and her
offspring with dispassionate eyes. I am told they can be easily
tamed if caught young and make good pets, but I have not, so far,
had the opportunity to prove this for myself.

It is a strange fact that the number of wild dogs in any part of

the forest is subject to extreme fluctuation. At times a section of
jungle will literally teem with them. At other times, not one is to
be seen and no tracks are to be found. Some of the aborigines have
told me that they are prone to some strange disease, and that at
such times they have come upon the dead bodies of a number of
wild dogs rotting in the jungle. No animal will go near a dead wild
dog to eat it; not even a hyaena or jackal. Vultures are the only
creatures that will clean up such carcases if they find them.
Personally, I have never come across the dead body of a wild dog
that has not been killed by some other living creature, and my
own theory is that nature has provided that these animals should
be extremely restless and constantly on the move. If they
remained permanently in any one locality soon hardly a creature
would be left alive there.

I have never heard of wild dogs or hyaenas contracting rabies,

but have known of several instances of jackals getting
hydrophobia and biting human beings and other animals.
Probably due to their excursions into villages in search of offal
they have contracted the complaint from a rabid village dog, after
which they have spread it among themselves.

There is a village named Jowlagiri at the edge of the jungle in

the Salem district, only about forty-three miles from Bangalore.
South-west of Jowlagiri and about three miles away is a silent pool
in the forest surrounded by rocky hills with heavy bamboo
growing in the intersecting valleys. It is a place where panthers
often come to drink. The full moon was due one night when I ate
an early dinner and motored to Jowlagiri, taking a few sandwiches
and Nipper, my dog, which I had procured under unusual
circumstances from the village of Devarabetta, only about nine
miles from Jowlagiri.1 My intention was to sit at this water hole
till about midnight on the off-chance of a panther coming along,
but more to enjoy the solitude and the moonlight. I reached
Jowlagiri by 7 p.m., and the water hole less than an hour later.

But I had been forestalled. Poachers, who had come to shoot an

unwary deer that might seek water, were already there. In the
bright moonlight I saw two figures wrapped in black blankets
scurrying away through the jungle, bent double, one of them
carrying a gun. I approached the spot from which they had fled. At
the foot of a large tree I found a well constructed ‘hide’
overlooking the water hole. In their haste to escape the poachers
had left an electric torch behind, also a small flask of black
powder, a tin box of percussion caps and a cloth bag containing
pieces of lead which was the ammunition they used for their
flintlock. Considering these articles as the ‘spoils of war’, I sat
down with Nipper in the hide. Just after 10 p.m. Nipper scrambled
up alert. Then around the corner came a spotted doe at full gallop,
with half-a-dozen wild dogs in pursuit. She ran headlong into the
pool to save herself, while the six dogs halted momentarily on the
bank.

That was when I opened fire and shot three of them. The
remaining dogs began to run away and I was about to fire a fourth
round when things began to happen. Something huge crashed
down the tree and fell beside me, almost on top of Nipper, who
leapt into the air in alarm. It was a human being. For a moment I
was so surprised that I failed to grab him. Like lightning he
scrambled to his feet and fled.

Then I realized what had happened. There had been a third

poacher fast asleep in the tree above me. He had been oblivious to
the departure of his two comrades and my arrival. My three rifle
shots had so startled him that he had fallen off his perch. But this
was not the end of it. Not by any means. The wretched man had
run into the jungle instead of towards a village that was hardly a
mile away. From somewhere in the jungle I heard him screaming
to his village for help, voicing the most extraordinary falsehoods.
He said that someone had come to the water hole and had shot
him. He said that he had run away, but was in danger of being
followed and shot again. He was imploring his friends to come and
rescue him.

Soon I heard answering shouts from the village. In the midst of

all this pandemonium I knew there was no chance whatever of a
panther or any other living creature coming to the water hole.
The spotted doe which the dogs had chased had also run away. I
came out of hiding with Nipper and looked at the three dogs I had
shot. It was impossible for me to carry three carcases and my rifle,
so I decided to skin the dogs and take only their pelts.

I had already begun this task when Nipper began to bark

frantically, and before I quite knew what was happening a large
party of men rushed out from the jungle towards me. In the
vanguard I counted five musketeers, all pointing their muzzle-
loaders straight at me. There were other men behind them, armed
with hatchets, knives and staves. Quickly I realized the only thing
to do was to appear nonchalant and put up as brave a front as
possible. So I continued to skin the wild dog, as if the group’s
appearance was of absolutely no concern of mine. They crowded
round. Then one of them spoke to me roughly:

‘Where is the body of our companion whom you have shot?’ he

demanded.

‘Shot?’ I feigned great surprise and indignation. ‘Your friend

jumped down from the tree and ran away. I never shot him.’

‘We heard three shots,’ he stated emphatically.

‘Are you quite sure?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely certain,’ he replied testily, and then repeated,

‘three shots.’

‘You are quite correct,’ I concluded. ‘I fired three shots, and here
are three dead wild dogs. How could I have shot your friend?’

The logic of this argument sank into them slowly. ‘But he called
out to us that he had been shot and you were going to kill him.’

‘I know,’ I answered. ‘I heard him too. Your friend is a fool, a

coward and a liar. He is hiding somewhere in the jungle. Call out
to him now and he will probably answer you.’

All together they began calling and whistling. Soon he answered

them. The party of men who had been so belligerent a moment
before now looked at each other sheepishly. I knew they were
defeated and that I had them in my hands. I determined to press
home my advantage by staging a counterattack.

I had left my Winchester in the hide and was unarmed. Slowly I

got to my feet and addressed their leader: ‘You have dared to
accuse a sahib of murdering your idiotic friend,’ I thundered.
‘Remember, I am a licence-holder in this forest and am entitled to
shoot here, while he is a poacher, caught red-handed.’
 Then, before they could interrupt, I continued: ‘I will now make
you a sporting offer, because I am a sportsman myself. Either you
will soundly beat this man for telling lies, or I will beat him. In
addition he will have to carry these three dead dogs to my car at
Jowlagiri. If you agree to my terms, I promise you on my word that
I shall forget the matter and say nothing to anyone. If you do not
agree, I shall not only report him, but your whole village for
threatening me with weapons, and shall have your firearms
confiscated.’

There was silence while they looked at one another. Then each
man told the other to speak. Finally the leader began hesitantly: ‘I
shall beat the fool myself,’ he said, ‘and will make him carry the
three dogs for you. But will you promise not to report us?’

‘I have already promised,’ I replied. Then, indicating the hiding

place beneath the tree: ‘Someone’s torch is there, and powder-
flask, tin of caps and bag of pellets. Take them, and bring me my
rifle.’

A man scampered off to carry out this command. Just then the
man who had been the cause of all the uproar walked boldly out
of the jungle and jauntily approached us. The poor fellow did not
know what was in store for him. As he came within reach, the
leader struck him full in the face. He fell to the ground, when
another man kicked him viciously. His surprise soon gave way to
yells of terror and pleas for mercy. The leader hauled him to his
feet by seizing his hair.

‘Show me where you have been wounded?’ he hissed.

The man timorously answered, ‘I heard three shots and I

thought I had been hit.’

Eventually they stopped beating him and he was a sorry wreck.

Then they loaded the three dead dogs on his back and invited me
to sling my rifle around his neck as well. But the weight would
have been too great. I knew the three dogs weighed perhaps forty
pounds each, and I did not want the man to fall and damage my
rifle. So I replied that I always made a practice of carrying my own
rifle.

I parted the best of friends that night or rather early morning, as

it was past midnight by the time it was all over, with the group of
men who had come with the probable intention of murdering me.
Then I turned towards Jowlagiri and the car, with Nipper at my
heels and the unfortunate poacher, staggering beneath the weight
of the three dogs, ahead, just in case he should suddenly drop
them and run away.

Another animal about which little has been written is the

Indian wild pig, better known as the wild boar. In former times
there were stories of how the hardy Nimrods engaged in
‘pigsticking’—that is, hunting boar on horseback with spears. A
few of these blood-thirsty old hunters varied the sport by
maintaining packs of dogs, some of them mongrels, but mostly of
bull terrier stock, which they employed to hunt down not only
wild boar, but bears as well and, in one instance, even bison.
When the hunted animal was engaged by the dogs, the hunter
would arrive on the scene and dispose of it, either by shooting or
spearing it from horseback.

As a dog lover, I think this so-called sport was decidedly brutal,

particularly when employed against wild boar. The most
courageous dog has little chance against a fully roused boar, and
many members of a pack were torn to ribbons by the tusks of the
infuriated pig. And even when the gallant boar was eventually
killed, either by shooting or spearing, he was scarcely given a fair
chance to show his mettle, engaged as he was in staving off the
attacks of a host of dogs.

The wild boar is the most courageous animal in the Indian

jungle with the exception, perhaps, of the ratel, a much smaller
quadruped, half-mongoose and half-bear. The quality that I
admire about him is that when he turns to fight he will fight to
the death. There is no running away thereafter, for him. He will
either emerge as victor or sacrifice his life. This does not imply
that the boar is an aggressive animal, ranging the forest looking
for a fight and something to kill. Left to himself he is quite
inoffensive. I have many times met wild boar face to face at close
quarters and unexpectedly, but never have they assumed the
offensive, as a sloth bear would invariably do. They have either
stood still or made off to avoid an encounter. But when pursued,
pushed and harried, or when wounded and followed up, they will
turn about to fight. That means a charge. Even when a wounded
panther attacks, it is not an attack unto death; it is a hit-and-run
affair. But the boar will charge repeatedly until it has disposed of
its antagonist.

On several occasions I have come across the results of a fight

between a tiger and a wild boar. Generally the pig is killed, but it
is only after giving an excellent account of himself and seriously
gashing his opponent. The copious blood-trail left by the departing
tiger has proved this. In a few cases the result has been different:
the tiger has been killed or has given up the fight and run away
after being severely punished by the boar. Once in Tagarthy I came
upon the remains of a dead boar and a dead tigress, about twenty
yards apart. The boar had evidently died first for he was facing the
scene of combat; then the tigress had attempted to crawl away,
but death had overtaken her. The boar had been bitten through
the throat and had died; the tigress’s belly had been ripped open
and her intestines had fallen through the gap, while the artery in
her neck had been slashed by an upward thrust of the boar’s sharp
curved tusks.

A large wild boar can weigh up to 300 pounds and more, while
his curved tusks grow to eight inches in length. He has intelligence
and muscle, and the heart of a fanatical warrior. Left to
themselves, wild pigs are companionable animals, moving in
sounders. They have great love for their young, whom they will
defend gallantly. Pigs have fondness for water and are always to be
found in its vicinity. Their diet is very varied, ranging from roots,
insects, offal and cultivated crops, to lizards, snakes and the kills
made by a tiger or panther, as well as cattle that have died in the
fields from disease. They are also fond of wild fruit, particularly
the acid, jungle-growing mango and figs, and they devour these in
large quantities when they fall from the trees. The sow makes a
proper nest for herself of sticks or grass or fallen bamboo branches,
under which she burrows before giving birth.

The large boars often fight among themselves for the coveted
position of leader of the sounder, using their tusks freely and
fiercely and inflicting terrific damage upon each other. In the cold
weather, and during the rains, they huddle together for warmth,
often sleeping on top of one another like a pyramid. I was once
motoring from Lingadhalli up the Kemangundi Ghat road. It was
pouring with rain. Suddenly the headlights revealed an obstacle
before me: what appeared to be a mass of boulders piled one upon
the other in the middle of the road, I found was a sounder of wild
pigs, huddled together in a pile for warmth from the cold and rain.

Before charging a boar gives two or three loud, sharp grunts.

Then his little tail sticks up behind him and along he comes.
When cornered, wild boar have been known to charge a solid line
of beaters, a feat which even the most ferocious tiger, including a
man-eater, seldom attempts. Instances have been known of a
wounded boar, when being followed up, making a detour and
attacking his pursuers from the rear. I did not believe these
rumours till I experienced the very thing myself when I fired at a
large boar one morning near Panapatti, on the banks or the Chinar
river, but he got away, although I knew I had hit him. Reaching
the spot at which I had shot him, I found blood and began to
follow his trail. It led across the sandy bed to the bank of the river,
and then down a nullah between two low hillocks. I was following
his tracks in this nullah, and could clearly see them leading
ahead, when I heard the two familiar grunts from close behind
me. I turned around just in time to see the boar charging at me
down the bank of the nullah a few yards away and from the rear. I
was able to shoot him just in time. Had he not given himself away
by his grunts, I would not be writing this today. It was clear that
he knew he was being followed, so he left the bed of the nullah,
climbed up the bank and retraced his steps to attack me from
behind. All this shows a high degree of intelligence. After I had
shot him I verified this by following his blood-trail along the
detour he had made.

On another occasion, with my cousin, Stewart Hearsey, and a

friend named Willie Thomas, I was beating for pig at Yercaud on
the Shevaroy Hills. A huge boar passed me. I fired, but missed.
Then Stewart fired, but also missed. Lastly, Willie Thomas fired;
he did not miss, but only wounded the boar. At once the pig
turned and charged. Willie, who fired his second barrel, failed to
stop him. The next instant Willie was on the ground and had been
gashed from chin to temple by a slashing thrust from the pig’s tusk
as he galloped past. Had Stewart and I not been there to put an
end to the gallant old boar, he would surely have returned and
then Willie’s days on this planet would certainly have ended.
Willie Thomas, who has shot many panthers and much big game,
considers this encounter his closest to death. He still bears the scar
to this day.

The sloth bear is a creature that has always interested me

greatly. Perhaps this is so because he is quite common and I have
often come across him, both in his wild state in the forests and in
civilized areas in the keeping of itinerant ‘bear-men’, who lead
trained specimens along and make them wrestle or dance before
an audience. The keynote of a bear’s nature is absolute
unpredictability! You can never know for certain what it may
decide to do next. This is the chief cause of the many maulings
suffered by people who move about in jungles where bears are
numerous. Bears are heavy sleepers, sometimes slumbering in long
grass or in holes they have dug. When they sleep they sleep
soundly, often snoring in the process. A passing man almost
literally stumbles over a bear before it wakes up with a start and
finds an enemy so close. Then things invariably happen—to the
man.

Bears have very poor sight and poor hearing as well. Their sense
of smell seems to be restricted to locating food in the form of
grubs, insects, termites, roots and fruit, and they do not seem able
to scent the proximity of human beings. When startled, they seek
a way of escape. But their reflexes are equally poor and they
perhaps feel that their only hope of escape is to down the intruder
first. They attack with teeth and claws, always making for the
face or chest. I have seen some horribly mutilated faces of people
suddenly attacked in this way without provocation. Often one or
both eyes have been torn out.

When camping at Mamandur, word was brought to me at night

that two men, while carrying honey from the jungle that
afternoon, had been attacked by a tiger when crossing a nullah
and one of them had been killed. I took out a rescue party with
lanterns, accompanied by the man who had escaped and who
insisted that it was a tiger he had seen, to lead us to the place
where the tragedy had occurred. We found the corpse, but one
look at the face that had been torn to shreds convinced us that the
killer was not a tiger. A careful scrutiny of the sandy ground of the
nullah showed that a sloth bear with her young had been sleeping
by the bank. Not only had the sudden advent of the man startled
the mother, but the presence of her cub, whom she instinctively
defended from imagined or anticipated assault, had caused her to
slay without provocation. When confronted with the evidence,
the man who led me to the spot confessed that he had never
waited to see the animal. Hearing a growl, followed by his friend’s
scream of terror and pain, he had started running and had not
stopped till he reached the village of Mamandur.
 On another occasion I was camping in the Chamala Valley with
my son, who was only about fourteen at the time. The valley
abounds in sambar and spotted deer; stags of both varieties with
good heads are common. For some time Donald had been worrying
me to let him shoot a stag. My deer-shooting days had long passed
and I had reached a stage when I had ceased killing these beautiful
and inoffensive creatures, so I tried hard to infect Donald with my
ideas. But being a youngster he was all the more persistent and
continued to pester me, so I eventually gave in.

In those days Donald did not possess his own rifle. He borrowed
mine and set off before dawn next morning on his blood-thirsty
quest. I followed him, but some paces behind, to give him the
opportunity of getting the shot he wanted. The Chamala valley
has some beautiful stretches of park-like country, which I
particularly like. We arrived at one of these spots just as the grey
of dawn was breaking over a large hill to the east, known as
Monkey Hill. Donald was about 100 yards ahead of me, moving
from tree-trunk to tree-trunk in the hope of seeing a stag.

Suddenly I saw him halt abruptly and from the ground,

seemingly at his very feet, reared a shaggy black shape which I
immediately recognized as a sloth bear. It stood on its hind legs,
apparently about to attack him, when mercifully it changed its
mind and just as suddenly dashed away with a loud ‘Woof! Woof!’
Being a mere boy at that time, Donald was as surprised as the
bear. To this day he considers it the narrowest shave he has had.

Bears move about at night. Sometimes they may be met in the

evening or at dawn — as Donald met the bear that early morning!
But once I met one at about two in the afternoon, at the hottest
time of the day. The meeting took place in the Chamala Valley. I
had gone there with my wife on this occasion, taking my old
friend and shikari, Ranga, from the Salem district, along with me.
We had been for an afternoon stroll to a water hole, known as
Gundalpenta, and were returning to our camp near a Forestry
department’s well at a place named Pulibonu. There were three of
us—my wife, Ranga and myself—and Ranga was wearing a black
coat, black shorts, and was bare-legged. I was in front, with my
wife behind me; Ranga was bringing up the rear.

The path we were following turned a corner. There, some yards

away, was a termite hill, and standing up against it and intently
looking down one of the holes in the hill was a black figure. For
the moment my wife forgot that Ranga was behind her, and
thinking my retainer was examining the termite-hill she called
out in Tamil: ‘What are you looking at Ranga?’

The black figure turned around, and of course it was not Ranga.
It was a sloth bear. Surprised at seeing the three of us, he
continued to stare at us foolishly, like a short-sighted human.

Then Ranga—the real Ranga this time—called out: ‘Karadi!

(Bear!). Hai! Shoo!’ Off went Bruin for dear life, muttering an
indignant, if startled, ‘Woof! Woof!’

Bears are very fond of sucking termites out of their hills. They
apply their snouts to holes in the termite hill, or sometimes dig
these holes themselves, then blow air into the earth, and finally
start sucking for all they are worth. The medley of sound emitted
is both curious and amusing. It resembles the buzzing of bees or
hornets, and at times the groaning drone of a bagpipe as it
deflates. They have a curious habit, too, of sucking their forepaws,
which they do assiduously with a persistent humming sound.
Some experienced hunters have suggested that it is to soothe their
paws when hurt or sore from the effect of constant digging, but I
do not think this is so, because our tame bear, Bruno, about which
I have written elsewhere in this book, often sucks his paws,
though they are by no means sore or hurt from digging. I am
convinced there is some sort of secretion from between the toes—
whether it be sticky, sweet or salty I do not know— which makes
this habit attractive to all sloth bears.
 They are very intelligent animals. They have an uncanny
intuition that leads them to the different varieties of fruit-trees in
the forest when those particular fruits are in season. The boram
berry is an example. Especially in the Chamala valley, bears
appear in large numbers just after these fruit have become over-
ripe and begin to fall to the ground. The same can be said for the
wild-mangoes, which are stringy, acid and unpalatable to the
human taste, though they are a delicacy to bears; for ‘jack-fruit’,
that do not grow in jungles as a rule but are planted in the
cultivated areas bordering the forest; for sugar-cane, that is set in
large squares on agricultural ground; and particularly for the
jamun or jumlum, grape-like purple berries that fall in thousands
from the parent tree in July and August each year, to carpet the
ground with a purplish-black, slightly astringent fruit.

Jumlum trees grow densely along the banks of the Chinar river
in Salem district, and bears turn out in large numbers during those
months to gormandize the fallen fruit. In my earlier years I shot a
few, but soon found this a tame and unsporting pastime. I would
visit the trees in the afternoon with my assistants, Ranga and
Byra, and one or two more men if available, and gather the fallen
jumlums into an immense heap at the foot of one of the parent
trees. The more fruit we could gather and the bigger the heap, the
better for my plan.

I would come prepared with a very powerful catapult made of

rubber cut from an old inner tube from a bus or lorry, and a
pocketful of smooth pebbles, gathered from the riverbed. Climbing
into the tree before sunset and on moonlight night, with my rifle
in case of eventualities, I would await the coming of the sloth
bears. Around eight o’clock they would turn up, one by one; large,
black, grumbling, rumbling and lumbering creatures. What a
spread they found awaiting them! I am sure they must have
thought they were in Paradise! Soon the mound of jumlums would
have four, five or more bears tucking into it.
 And now came the time for some fun. I slipped my hand into my
pocket, felt for a suitable pebble, fitted it into the leather sling of
the catapult and took careful aim at the biggest of the bears
beneath me—perhaps only twelve to fifteen feet away. I stretched
the rubber to its utmost and then let fly. The pebble hit the big,
black bear hard on the back of his neck, then all hell was let loose!

‘Damn this fellow at my side,’ he apparently thought, as he bit

viciously his innocent neighbour.

‘You want to fight, do you?’ the neighbour questioned as he bit

his next neighbour in turn. And so it went on, till there was a
mass of fighting bears below me, screaming their heads off, while I
sat as quiet as a mouse in my tree. Somehow they sorted
themselves out with yells of protest, squeals of pain, and many
grunts of indignation. There was much snuffling and shuffling and
huffing, but after some time they forgot the silly incident and
settled down once again to gorge upon the fruit spread before
them.

Then the catapult spoke for the second time, and the yelling,
screaming, biting and tearing black mass of bears went for one
another once more, this time for longer. But finally they settled
down to eat and tried to overlook each other’s nastiness. Then the
catapult let fly a third time! That really was a fight! Eventually
some of the bears broke away and began to wander off. The place
seemed to them unhealthy.

But suddenly one of the bears looked up and saw me. So this was
the nigger in the woodpile! Pandemonium reigned as he screamed
with fear and indignation. His hysteria spread to the other bears
and they all screamed and yelled in unison. Only once did one of
the bears think of doing something about me. He rushed to the
foot of the tree and began to climb up the trunk. I thought I would
have to shoot him with my rifle, which I had brought with me as a
precaution. But I made a final attempt to drive him away. Using
the catapult once more, I hit him squarely in the face. Protesting
loudly to the whole jungle, he fell to the ground with a thud.
Then he scrambled hastily to his feet and, still complaining
vociferously, bounded away.

This habit of biting one another when one of them has been
hurt is common behaviour with bears. Should two be together and
one be wounded by a gun or rifle shot, he or she will invariably
attack the other savagely. Sloth bears can climb trees easily when
they want to. They go up after beehives, which they knock down
to the ground and then devour. They have also been known to
drink toddy from the pots fixed on date palms to collect the fluid.
This intoxicates them to some extent, as do the thick petals of the
mhowa flower when it falls to earth. Although they can ascend
trees without much trouble they find difficulty in descending.
Sometimes they try to slide down backwards. At other times they
just let go and thud to earth. Apparently they never seem to hurt
themselves in that way.

Although they are irritable and get easily excited, sloth bears
are most affectionate towards their young and each other. When
alone and wounded, one will scream aloud in complaint and tell
the jungle all about it. His companions will add to the screaming
out of sympathy. They have known to try to succour one another
and I have heard of the case of a male bear trying to remove the
dead body of his mate that had been shot. Female bears carry their
young—there are generally two cubs born at a time—on their
backs till they are quite big, and will defend them at the cost of
their own lives. All bears, including the males, have a patch or
tuft of very long hair on their backs, just behind the shoulder
blades. Presumably this is to provide a better ‘grip’ for the cubs
when mother is travelling fast.

It is a mistake to think that the sloth bear is purely vegetarian,

confining his diet to roots and yams, together with insects. This is
very definitely not so. More than once, when sitting over tiger and
panther kills, Bruin has turned up and started to devour the
carcass, even when it was getting fairly high. Bruno, our tame
bear, is very fond of all kinds of flesh, especially pork, venison and
the flesh of wild ducks.

The claws, particularly on the forepaws of a sloth bear, are

white, very long (almost four inches) and very powerful. The
tracks made by his hind feet closely resemble a human footmark
without the toes. The body of the animal, after it has been
skinned, looks very much like a human body, and very well
muscled.

Bears must feel the heat to some extent, clothed as they are in
long and thick black hair. They are fond of water and often dig
holes in the sand of dry riverbeds in an attempt to reach the little
that will percolate through. They are noisy creatures and make a
variety of sounds. When moving in pairs, but at a distance from
each other, they maintain contact by a constant medley of very
curious sharp, gurgling cries. Should one of them locate a nest of
insects under a log of wood or a stone, he or she will immediately
call the other bear by a series of squeals and happy squeaks.

A very curious creature of the Indian jungle is the five-toed

pangolin, which goes under the somewhat formidable Latin name
of Manis pentadactyl. Averaging about three and a half feet in
length, of which about half is his tail, he is encased in an armour
of thick, overlapping, sharp-edged scales, and rolls himself into a
ball when touched. The pangolin is very rarely seen and most
people, even experienced hunters, do not know of his existence.
This is because he is entirely nocturnal, to the extent that he
rarely emerges from his hole in the ground before 1a.m., and not
on every night, moreover, but only occasionally. His actual den is
at the end of a tunnel and about ten feet below the surface. It is
useless to try to dig one out, for the deeper you dig the deeper the
pangolin goes. You will never be able to catch up with him, for
nature has provided him with claws particularly suited to
burrowing.

The best way to see or catch a specimen is to look for his tracks
in the mud of a water hole, where they form a peculiar parallel
row of sharp indentations or holes as he approaches the edge to
drink. Having found the water hole you will have to sit up night
after night, and all night, during the period of moonlight, until
you catch a glimpse of him rolling from side to side over the mud
till he reaches the edge of the water. This peculiarly rolling gait is
due to the fact that the pangolin walks upon the knuckles of his
feet, the claws of his forefeet being turned inwards, while the soles
of his hind legs are turned outwards and upwards. The rows of
parallel indentations that betray his passing are formed by the
backs of the inwardly-folded claws.

When he is clear of the shrubbery and is in the middle of the

mud, it is comparatively easy to rush upon him; he will then curl
himself into a ball at once. Although inoffensive otherwise, a
pangolin can cut your hand badly with the edges of his razorsharp
scales by a quick jerk of his body or tail. Should you allow the
pangolin to regain the cover of the jungle, he might escape you,
for he has a habit of ‘lying doggo’ in a clump of thick grass or a
bush till you have passed, when he will crawl out in the opposite
direction and move away at a pace equal to a fast walk.

When caught, a pangolin generally makes a hissing noise, as

does the oodumbu or iguana. In moving, the scale rustle faintly
against one another like the quills of a porcupine. When hurrying
away he will keep the tail off the ground so that it will not
become an impediment. As might be expected of an entirely
nocturnal animal, and one that lives deep underground, he cannot
see very well in bright sunlight. I have noticed the same thing
with a hyaena. Pangolins are said to be powerful swimmers,
although I have never seen one in water. But I have observed that,
when burrowing beneath boulders, they have been strong enough
to move the stone away despite its weight.

An animal for which I have a special affection is the hyaena,

perhaps for no better reason than that most sportsmen appear to
regard him with contempt, unworthy even of a photograph or
bullet. This prejudice is so great that many hunters of my own
acquaintance seem to have closed their minds—and their eyes—to
his very existence, and declare that hyaenas are rare in the forests
of South India. I really do not know how they can be so wrong, as I
know of scarcely a jungle where hyaena tracks are not to be found
in the sandy bed of a river, or traversing ravines and nullahs.

Only one special species of hyaena is to be found in India — the

striped hyaena, Hyaena striata. A fully-grown specimen is almost
as tall as a Great Dane, with a head considerably larger and
broader. It is ash-grey in colour with black stripes, and has a black
patch over the throat. It has large, long, pointed ears, a broad
forehead, an immensely powerful jaw, broad chest and
tremendously thick and strong forelegs, ending in large hairy
paws. The back tapers considerably to a miserably weak haunch
and hindquarters, and inadequate, puny-looking hind legs. Its
spoor is therefore very distinct from that of a panther, although
the pugs are about as big, because the hyaena’s forepaws are about
twice the size of its hind paws and are round, whereas the latter
are elongated. The impressions of a hyaena’s toe-nails, which are
not retractable, are clearly visible in the tracks, whereas the pug-
marks of a panther are quite different. The panther’s front and
hind paws are of about the same diameter, while the ball of the
foot is much larger than a hyaena’s, and the claws are retractable
and therefore do not show.

I am convinced that the hyaena is an extremely unintelligent

animal. He has very poor sight (particularly in the daytime), poor
hearing, and (here I differ from other writers) a sense of smell
which is only mediocre. I have carried out many tests with Jackie
by throwing a piece of strong-smelling meat only a few yards
away, when he has been unable to locate it. There is no doubt he
could faintly smell the meat, for he ran aimlessly about in circles
in his unsuccessful efforts to find it.

A habit I have noticed in Jackie when taking him for a walk is

that every few minutes he will shuffle around in a circle, and
almost always in an anticlockwise direction. But perhaps the most
peculiar of his many unusual idiosyncrasies is that, every now and
again, when he passes a bare stump of a tree, or a pillar or post, or
a bush, he will literally dance around it, anticlockwise, with his
forelegs stiff and hind legs doubled beneath him, hindquarters just
off the ground. Then he will stop and for a few seconds his whole
anus will protrude, as if about to pass a motion. But he emits gas
instead and then straightens up and continues his way. The
purpose may be to enable the wild hyaena to find his way back
again by sniffing at such spots, although the theory is weakened
considerably by the fact that his sense of smell is so poor.

But if his sense of smell is really so poor, how does a hyaena in

the wild state locate dead and putrefying animals in the jungle?
Perhaps the smell has to be brought to him on the wind before he
can locate a kill. I am fully aware I am here entering upon highly
debatable ground, because hyaenas all over the world are credited
with great ability to scent death and decay at a great distance, but
the experiments I have made with Jackie have led to a quite
different conclusion.

There is no doubt that a hyaena is very much attached to his

own den, which may be a hole in the ground or between rocks or
boulders, or a small cave, and that he inhabits the same place for
years. I know of a pair living near Gundalam, on the Secret River,
that have lived in the same small cave for over five years and have
brought up several families there. Unlike all other animals, the
same pair remain together for a long time. To some extent I have
proved a hyaena’s liking for a particular home by the fact that I
had Jackie at my little cottage at Whitefield for several months,
where I had given him a spare bathroom to live in. Though I left
the outer door open night and day to enable him to go outside to
answer the calls of nature (he never once attempted to run away),
he did considerable damage to that small bathroom by breaking
down the brick wall at all four corners to burrow holes, and by
biting at both the inner and outer doors. So I removed him
eventually to my house at Bangalore, after having an island dug
for him in the compound, surrounded on all four sides by a trench
four feet wide by four feet deep. On the island I had a large brick
house built for him, with a roof of zinc sheets. Steps led down from
the island to the trench, to enable him to go down and race
around if he wanted to. But as soon as I put Jackie in his new
home he went completely off his food for almost a fortnight,
although he drank water.

Now it cannot be argued that it was me he missed, for I went

with him to Bangalore. I maintained the same feeding-times, at
midday and sunset, and gave him the same food, beef that was
several days old and crawling with maggots. I even thought he
might be missing the companionship of his playmate, Jill, my
mongrel at Whitefield, so I brought Jill to Bangalore. Jackie was
immensely pleased to see her, wagged his tail affectionately, and
started to romp with her in his usual hearty and rough manner.
But for all that, he would not eat his food. As might be expected,
he lost weight and began to look miserable and thin, so that I was
on the verge of giving in and taking him back to Whitefield.
However, it occurred to me to cut his meat up into small pieces
and to try feeding him a piece at a time. It was fifteen days before
he consented to nibble even a little bit, just as it was becoming
evident he would soon die of starvation. Then, little by little he
began to eat again, although it was another fortnight before he
returned to his normal hearty appetite. There is no doubt in my
mind that this month of self-imposed starvation came about only
because I shifted him from his little bathroom in my cottage at
Whitefield, to which he had become attached since a puppy. He
missed his den.

During my efforts to overcome his total refusal of food, I let him

loose within the bungalow. With my back turned for a minute, the
first thing he did was to chew up Donald’s alarm clock, greatly to
my son’s indignation. Jackie tried to make friends with my wife’s
pet, Ella the jackal, and wanted to play with her; but, although
about one-sixth his size, she began to bite him savagely, though
he did not bite back. I have already mentioned that both Gypsy
and Jill, my dogs at Whitefield, although they used to play with
him freely, at times would lose their tempers when he was too
rough and would bite him. Never at any time did he attempt to
retaliate upon animals that were far smaller than himself and
infinitely weaker.

I have mentioned that the trench surrounding Jackie’s island

was only four feet wide and four feet deep. I had noticed while he
was with me in Whitefield that because of his short and weak hind
legs he was not able to jump more than two feet either up or
across. But I think there is a good reason for this strange
disproportion of the hyaena’s build. I often watched Jackie while
he was eating. He would hold a bone firmly between his powerful
forelegs, doubled his hind legs beneath him, and then use the slope
or slant of his disproportionate body as a lever to enable him to
tear great chunks of flesh from the bone. He could not have
acquired the necessary purchase or leverage with the straight back
of a dog.

Should you approach the den, particularly when there are pups
inside, the hyaena will generally become frightened and utter a
deep-throated growl of a peculiarly vibratory, humming nature,
continued for a long time. If much terrified, for example by the
appearance of a tiger at a kill where he has been robbing, he will
voice a loud, snarling yap, something like the short growl made by
an angry tiger or lion, but not so loud. If you are watching while
he does this, you will notice that he literally trembles with fear.
Often he will pass urine involuntarily. Should the intruder be less
dangerous than a tiger, say a panther or bear, the hyaena may
howl (perhaps ‘yowl’ is a better word to describe the sound) in a
dismal, mournful manner. Should you be sitting-up over a kill or a
water hole and should the hyaena discover your presence, he will
either run off at once, when you may hear him pitter-pattering
away over the dried leaves, or he may become tremendously
agitated, when he will produce a medley of noises that can only
be described as ‘chattering’. Most often, he begins with a hiss of
disdain, a sort of derisive, spitting sound: ‘Cheey! Shee-ay!’ quite
frequently uttering, before or after, a series of surprised and
vehement exclamations: ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ Then, as he warms to
his indignant protest, come other peculiar noises: ‘Garrar! Gurr-rr-
aa! Guddar! Guddar! Guddar! Goo-doo! Goo-doo!’

Weird sounds indeed! But there is nothing whatever to be afraid

of. The poor hyaena is just a bunch of nerves and is hoping you
will end the same way. He is merely trying to drive you away with
his clownish noises. He tries so hard to frighten you that he
succeeds only in frightening himself. He will certainly not attack
you, in spite of the pandemonium he creates.

This brings us to an often-debated question. Can a hyaena drive

a tiger or a panther off its legitimate kill? Or, should he be caught
in the act of robbing a kill, will the hyaena run away when the
tiger appears, or will he attempt to frighten the real killer away?
In my experience, there is only one answer: the hyaena will not
wait a moment, he will just vanish.

But a pair of hyaena will make a cacophony of sound. It is a war

of nerves. Sometimes a panther cannot tolerate the strange medley
of noise and slinks away voluntarily. But should the panther be
determined to hold his ground, a shouting match ensues until the
nerves of one or other gives way. If the panther becomes
threatening, the hyaena or hyaenas hesitate no longer; they bolt.
For after all they are nothing but large, clumsy, unintelligent
dogs, and in a straight encounter a panther would be able to
dispose of them with ease. They are far too slow in their
movements and too stupid to be able to withstand a determined
attack, especially as a panther is an animal that can move like
lightning. Even if two or three hyaenas were there they would
lack the intelligence to coordinate their actions and fight
together.

With a tiger, even half a dozen hyaenas would not stand the
ghost of a chance. Although far larger, heavier and stronger than
the wild dogs, they lack the laters’ keen intelligence, swiftness of
movement and almost suicidal courage. Yet it is strange that wild
dogs do not as a rule molest them. It is a common sight to observe
jackals and hyaenas feeding on the same kill. At such times they
ignore each other’s presence completely, while keeping a sharp
lookout for the sudden return of the rightful owner of the kill, who
would undoubtedly take immediate reprisals.

Despite their ungainly build, hyaenas can in emergency put up

a fair turn of running speed. To an observer they appear to assume
a galloping gait, much like a horse, and run askew. Perhaps this is
because the hyaena holds his head at an angle when travelling
fast, so giving his whole body a crooked appearance.

Hyaenas are the scavengers of the jungle, doing useful work by

devouring kills and dead animals that would otherwise decompose
slowly and pollute the atmosphere. Particularly in dense forest,
where vultures cannot operate, because the heavy vegetation
prevents them from ‘spotting’ the kill, hyaenas, jackals, wild pigs,
and sometimes a bear, all help to clear away a decomposing
carcass rapidly.

Hyaenas eat only dead animals. Occasionally they may kill a

fawn, a calf, dog or goat—always an animal far weaker than
themselves. A hyaena’s way of killing some small, defenceless
animal is to sidle up to it, suddenly dip his head at an angle and
grab the smaller creature by the throat. There is no denying the
tremendous strength of those jaws or the grip that can crack a
bone or bite through it with the greatest of ease. But the hyaena
lacks the courage to attack any living creature unless it be far
smaller than himself and quite defenceless.

A hyaena has a long mane of greyish-black hair from the back of

the neck to the root of the bushy tail. When alarmed or excited or
angry, this mane stands erect, increasing the height of the animal
by about six inches and giving it a peculiarly flattish appearance.
Despite a fierce and hideous face, the eyes have a peculiarly
soulful expression. Although such a vile feeder, the hyaena’s
whole coat is extremely clean and free of any odour. In this
respect they differ from vultures, which really stink. I have also
found Jackie singularly free from ticks, fleas or other vermin, or at
least he carries far fewer than the felines and deer. A full-grown
male weighs over six stones and the bitch about a stone less. She
gives birth to four or five puppies at a time and as usual with the
young of carnivorous animals, no sooner are the eyes opened than
they supplement their diet of mother’s milk with partially digested
raw meat, eaten by their mothers and then vomited out for their
benefit. Although nocturnal in their wild state, I have come upon
hyaenas basking in the morning sunlight at the entrances to their
dens or caves. Occasionally, and especially in the foothills or the
Nilgiris around Segur and Anaikutty, I have found them in broad
daylight, lying up in thick grass or under a thorny bush beneath
which they have made a burrow.

The first story in the book concerned an active partnership

between a jackal and tiger. It may well be asked whether this is a
common occurrence, for the question has been hotly debated for
years by very experienced Indian hunters. My own opinion is—
and it is only opinion and therefore not necessarily correct—that a
jackal, being a highly intelligent creature, first attaches himself to
a tiger or a panther as a parasite, knowing fully well that he is
thereby sure of finding food, because the tiger or panther must kill
to eat, and eat to live. By their very nature and by their habit of
leaving the kill during daylight, the big cats also leave sufficient
pickings for the parasite. During all this time the jackal takes very
good care to keep its distance, and the tiger or panther may not
even be aware of its existence in the earlier stages. As time goes
on, the jackal—always the more intelligent of the two animals—
finds that the habit of following its host about from kill to kill
continues to pay very high dividends. It may therefore happen
quite naturally that the jackal adopts the practice of voicing a call
should it come to discover a prospective victim, thus relaying the
information to its host. The tiger or panther, although not
actually relying upon the jackal to find its food, has by this time
become accustomed to its presence and, being primarily a hunter
after large prey to keep itself alive and provide a hearty meal, does
not worry unduly about a creature which would not provide of
itself nearly enough for a square meal. When the jackal begins to
call, the carnivore knows something is afoot and is made aware of
the presence of a victim.

It is commonly thought that tigers and panthers have a keen

sense of smell, but this is definitely not so. Neither animal eats at
the spot where the kill is made. Invariably it drags its victim to a
shelter of some sort, such as a bush or nullah. When coming to eat
a second time, the killer does follow the drag-mark by sniffing
along the ground. It seems to remember exactly where it has left
its kill, as it may return from any direction quite irrespective of
which way the wind is blowing, and does not necessarily retrace
its own footsteps. Further, I have often sat on the ground for both
animals, in ‘hides’ of one description or another, and by remaining
absolutely still, I have, regardless of the direction of the wind, had
them approach to practically within touching distance without
becoming aware of my presence. Even a half-developed sense of
smell under such conditions would have warned them of my
proximity, but they have remained completely ignorant while I
kept quite still and made no sound. This in itself clearly shows
that neither animal has any sense of smell whatever, although
they possess the keenest sight, detecting the slightest movement,
and the acutest hearing, picking up the faintest sound. The
marvellous night-sight of both tigers and panthers enables them to
conduct a soundless stalk through the densest jungle on the
darkest of nights, an attribute that in itself makes them
formidable enough without additional gifts.

The uninitiated townsman might be tempted to think that the

bold colours of a tiger and the even more vivid coat of a panther
would make them both extremely conspicuous in a jungle. But
they are not. The tiger, which hunts invariably at night or in the
evening, becomes invisible when he ‘freezes’ or crouches
motionless, his skin blending with the background of bushes,
grass, trees and earth. The panther is even less conspicuous, even
in broad daylight; he can lie so flat to the ground, under a bush no
longer than himself, or on a background of dried leaves and grass,
that again, unless he moves, he is quite invisible. This blending of
colours is one of the main hazards in following up a wounded
animal of either species; the hunter is liable almost to tread on it
before he becomes aware of the creature’s presence.

I have often been asked if it is really possible for a man to call

like a tiger with sufficient realism to bring a tiger near. Have
human lungs the capacity to utter such a tremendous sound? The
answer to the last question is a very definite ‘no’. Human lungs
can never equal those of a tiger. But that means only that a man
cannot call loud enough to attract the attention of a tiger some
distance away. If the tiger is near, a well-imitated call can
certainly bring him nearer. The factor that really attracts the tiger
is curiosity. So long as one is experienced enough and skilled
enough to imitate a tiger’s call closely, even if the timbre differs
somewhat, he will be drawn by a curiosity to find the ‘tiger who is
making that funny noise’.
 The same can be said of a panther or many other wild animals.
After all, in America various gadgets are sold that imitate the
cries of moose, deer, wild-buck and various birds. I have a cousin
who, with the aid of a blade of grass, can call exactly like a
junglefowl or a spurfowl, and regularly lures these birds before
shooting them. The only difference in imitating a tiger’s call is
that no instrument is used; but the principle is the same.

Tracking is a fascinating art, and, compared with some of the

aborigines with whom it has been my privilege and pleasure to go
out, I would regard myself as an absolute tyro at the game. An
observant person who has seen many tiger and panther tracks may
be led to ask: ‘Why is it that a tiger sometimes leaves a double
track, one that shows the pug-marks of all four feet, while at other
times he leaves a single track as if he had only two legs like a man?
And why does a panther, particularly the average-sized animals
living close to villages, invariably make a double track only?

I think the answer is that the tiger, out for a casual stroll and
not on the hunt, just ambles along serenely and leaves a double
track. As soon as he becomes aware of the presence of a quarry
and begins stalking, he exercises caution: he slows his pace and
probably ‘feels’ the ground with each forefoot before placing it,
thus making certain that he does not tread on a twig or leaf that
might crackle and betray his presence. As an added precaution, he
brings up his hind foot and places it in exactly the spot that his
forefoot vacates as he takes the next step forward. Of course, he
follows this practice instinctively and not by deliberation.

As to the panther, who ‘creeps’ the last stages of his stalk, with
his belly close to the ground, he perhaps has no

opportunity of placing his hind feet in the spots vacated by his

forefeet. A fact that appears to bear out this conjecture— and let
me emphasize once again that it is, after all, nothing more than
conjecture—is that, whereas one can trail a tiger to the very spot
from which he launches his final attack, it is seldom possible to do
this when following a panther’s spoor. The last few feet of the trail
become indistinct, indicating the panther had begun to creep.

Another question I am asked is whether a tiger can really

imitate a sambar’s call, and if he does, whether it is in order to
ambush a sambar. The answer to the first part of this question is
very definitely yes. I have heard it happen. But to answer the
second part of the question is difficult, for I have heard a tiger call
like a sambar when approaching its kill, a young bull, in a stretch
of jungle near Tagarthy where there were no sambar at all. On
another occasion, in the Chamala Valley, a tiger called like a
sambar when approaching his own kill, a dead buffalo, and when
only a few feet away from it; in that stretch of forest there were
many sambar.2 But this tiger was not hunting; he was returning to
his own kill. Both these examples appear to indicate that the
‘pook’ made by the tigers, although closely resembling the call of
a sambar, more like that of a doe than a stag, were not made with
the object of decoying a real sambar. The call may therefore
express anticipation, contentment, hunger or enjoyment. Perhaps
it is a call inviting a tigress to the feast, or it may be a kind of
mating call, although I do not think so myself, as in neither of the
cases mentioned was a tigress near.

The tiger—and I am now referring to the ordinary male and not

to a man-eater—is generally an inoffensive beast and will do his
best to avoid man. Even should a human being intrude upon his
privacy, the tiger will slink off. So will a tigress for that matter,
although she is more apt to growl or show some degree of
resentment. There is an exception to this general rule, however,
and that is at the time of mating and especially in the act of
mating. Tigers are very fierce then and are apt to attack on sight,
and will persist in their attack till they kill the man who has
intruded upon their privacy. It may be a desire to ‘show off to the
tigress, although I think it is due rather to the high degree of
sexual excitement into which they lash themselves. Anyway, one
can hardly blame the tiger for resenting being spied upon at that
particular moment.

I had rather a narrow escape when accompanying a friend, a

German photographer who wanted to wander into a tiger
sanctuary at night and take flashlight photographs. I tried to
dissuade him on the ground that tigers are far from being
photogenic, but he was adamant. It was early in October when we
went, somewhat ahead of the regular mating season, which
extends from the end of November till the end of January, and we
were both on foot and unarmed, except for the flash-light camera,
since in a sanctuary shooting is strictly prohibited and one cannot
wander with a firearm of any description.

But as luck would have it, we suddenly came upon a pair of

tigers. Fortunately they were not actually mating, but they
resented our intrusion nevertheless. They growled, and side by
side left the little clearing where we had surprised them and
advanced on to the track along which we had just come.

The impulse was very strong to show these tigers what we could
do by way of a sprint. But had we given in to that temptation, I
am sure the pair of lovers would have been equally tempted to
pursue us. So we ‘retreated according to plan’, which means a
pretty fast walk while flashing the torch constantly behind us.
Nevertheless the resentful pair followed us for well over a mile. At
one particularly nasty spot, where the track traversed a deep and
overgrown ravine, they galloped up to about twenty-five yards
behind us. We coughed loudly and began to talk at a pitch that
would have done credit to any public orator. This caused the
enterprising tigers to fall back once more, and so we made our way
out of a situation that was certainly for a moment a matter of
touch and go.

The tigress usually goes into isolation before the cubs are born,
because her mate has an inclination to kill and eat his offspring.
She generally chooses a cave, although occasionally she may litter
in a ravine or other overgrown spot. On an average, three to four
cubs are born. These are fed on milk, and later on vomited meat,
till they can digest stronger food. As they grow older they
accompany the mother on her foraging expeditions. Then, after a
while, papa rejoins them and the parents start teaching them the
art of killing by breaking the neck of their victims. In this process
much wasteful slaughter sometimes takes place; as many as four
or five cattle from one herd are slain merely to give the juniors a
lesson or afford them some practice. The young tigers frequently
make a mess of the job, succeeding only in mauling their victims
rather than killing them outright.

When the cubs are half-grown, one sometimes meets a family

party of tigers, consisting of the male, female and several large
cubs. I myself stumbled across a family of four one night at a place
called Kodihalli near Tagarthy, when I was out for a night walk.
They had just drunk at a stream and ascended the bank. First
mama appeared. She saw me, growled, leapt across the track and
began a peculiar vigorous mewing. This brought out the two cubs,
who were about the size of spaniels. Seeing the torchlight, they
were not in the least alarmed, but advanced a few feet playfully.
At this unseemly behaviour, mama protested loudly by growling.
Papa, who was in the rear, thought this behaviour intolerable. He
sprang on to the path in front of them to block their progress and
roared menacingly. That roar had the desired effect of not only
frightening the cubs back to mama, but myself almost to the point
of shooting him. I was glad I did not do so when I realized his
intentions were merely to admonish his playful offspring rather
than to attack me.

Tigers have certain habits peculiar to themselves, in which they

differ from panthers. Some of them—not all—make a practice of
standing on their hind feet against the trunks of certain soft-
barked trees, reaching as high as they can, and cleaning the claws
of their forefeet by raking them through the soft bark. Their
method of passing their dung is also different. In this respect a
panther is a true cat; he will scratch up the earth beside a jungle
pathway and afterwards carefully cover his excrement up. But not
a tiger; he will scrape a patch of ground bare, about a foot square,
sometimes right in the centre of the path. While doing this he
appears to ‘dance’ in a crouched position with his hind feet
together, trembling visibly. When passing their dung they hold
their tails up ludicrously high. The dung is a sticky, black, tarry
substance, and is left uncovered.

Another difference on which I have had occasion to remark is

their way of feeding. Tigers start on their kills at the rectum, often
biting off the tail of the animal to facilitate proceedings. Then
they make an entrance and, inserting a paw into the carcass,
scoop out the intestines and stomach, which they generally
remove a few feet before eating. Panthers on the contrary are dirty
feeders, and get the stomach and dung of their kill mixed up with
the meat. But a large ‘thendu’, or forest panther, eats in the
manner of a tiger and not like his smaller brethren.

Tigers are intolerant of the heat, which is not the case with
panthers. They delight in lying up in cool and shady places, and
may be seen submerged in a rill with only their heads above the
surface. They are also fond of swimming and frequently cross
rivers. The panther, which is a truer cat in every sense of the
word, detests water even to the extent of curtailing his hunting
expeditions on a rainy night. The only circumstance that will
force him to swim a river might be a pack of wild dogs hot on his
trail, or a forest fire. Under compelling conditions he can swim
quite well.

Another difference in habit between the two animals is revealed

during the series of meals each makes on any large animal he has
killed. In between each gorge a tiger apparently must drink a good
deal of water. Knowing this, it is fairly easy to locate the presence
of the killer at the nearest water hole or stream to the kill and
organize a ‘beat’ accordingly, provided the hunter is the type of
man who prefers beating to sitting up in a machan and awaiting
the tiger’s return. But this is not so with a panther. He does not
require nearly so much water, so he is difficult to locate.

Tigers often get into fights with bison, wild boar, bears and even
members of their own kind. They are fond of eating porcupines,
but they do not always emerge unscathed from such an encounter.
A few miles from Tagarthy I found a dead tigress with a number of
porcupine quills in her face. Tigers will also kill panthers, and for
this reason jungles where tigers are plentiful hold few panthers,
who give way to their larger and more powerful cousins. Panthers
are also not nearly so belligerent or courageous, and instances are
known where even a village cur that has been attacked has turned
on the panther in sheer desperation and the attacker has
decamped.

Tigers are inordinately fond of pork, while panthers appear to

consider monkey-meat a delicacy. Both felines will go to
extraordinary lengths to procure these respective titbits and show
great reluctance to abandon a favourite kill. Indeed, the tiger
becomes really belligerent if one attempts to drive him off a
succulent wild-pig, and a panther will demonstrate violently over
the carcass of a langur monkey. After killing their prey, at least as
far as my experience goes, I have not found a tiger suck the blood
from the animal while retaining his grip on its throat. Perhaps this
is because they kill quicker, the neck of the victim being quickly
broken, while a longer and more painful death by suffocation is
the lot of the panther’s prey. A panther often sucks the blood of its
victim.

Tigers are far more fastidious in their food than panthers, and it
is therefore a great mistake to tie up a very old, emaciated or
diseased bull or buffalo as bait for a tiger. Once, while at
Anaikutty, the only bait I could procure was a bull suffering from
the last stages of foot-and-mouth disease and at death’s door. Pug-
marks, the next morning, revealed that the tiger had come,
walked around the bait, sat down in front of it, and from various
scratches in the ground I could deduce that he even set about
playing with it. But he never killed or even hurt the sick bull,
which succumbed to the disease the next day.

Tigers will sometimes drag or carry their kills, even a very heavy
animal, up and over considerable obstacles. I have used the word
‘carry’, for that is exactly what I mean. One rainy afternoon a
tiger killed a large brown bull in the middle of a cultivated field
hardly two furlongs from Tagarthy village. He carried this animal,
slung across his back with one hoof trailing along the wet ground,
for nearly half a mile down hill into a jungle ravine. Another tiger
dragged a large ploughing-bull to a fence, and leapt over it with
the dead animal. Panthers sometimes drag their kills, such as a
deer or goat, into a tree, probably to protect them against other
predatory animals.

Tigers sometimes have a funny way of resting on a hot day. They

will lie on their backs on the cool sand of a nullah under the shade
of a tree, and fall asleep with all four legs up in the air. They are
also fond of taking sand-baths and of rolling on dry leaves. Perhaps
they do this to scratch their backs and rid themselves of ticks.
These pests are always to be found in large numbers on a tiger
after it has been recently killed.

Tigers are great hunters and cover many miles a night in search
of food. Moreover, they have a habit of following a specified ‘beat’
of territory which may extend up to a hundred miles, always
repeating the same route in the same direction. This habit, as I
have remarked in my earlier stories, is of considerable help in
plotting the probable time of return of a man-eater to a particular
locality, and the estimate is always correct to within a week or
two.
 It has been proved that the tiger is a comparatively recent
immigrant into India, which before his arrival was largely
inhabited by the Asiatic lion. Then the tiger came down from the
north—from Siberia and Manchuria—and the lion slowly began to
lose ground before that more active animal. The tiger has slightly
diminished in size and become rather richer in colouring,
assuming a russet brown with black markings in place of a greyish
colouration, but still with the black markings of the original
immigrants. But he has not yet been able to conquer his
intolerance of the heat, which forces him to drink water
frequently and to lie up in cool places, often submerging himself
in a pool.

As far as evidence can show, the panther, like the sloth bear is a
true inhabitant of the country and has been in India from the
earliest traceable times. Panthers are widely distributed
throughout the world. Not only are they found in South America
as thickset jaguars, but in Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor,
Persia, throughout India and Ceylon, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia,
Indo-China, China and also Manchuria. With such a wide
distribution it is to be expected that the animal will vary
considerably in size, shape and habits, according to the territory.
But fundamentally they all belong to the same species. Since I am
concerned only with India, and in particular with South India, I
can only confine my remarks to the local variety.

The panthers of India vary considerably in size and colour. Large

specimens of the ‘thendu’ or jungle panther attain up to seven feet
six inches in length and weigh upwards of 160 pounds. They have
a rich, tawny coat with large rosettes and long fur, particularly
below the belly, and large squarish heads. Such panthers can kill
fairly big animals; for example, a well-developed domestic bull, a
sambar hind, or even a pony of moderate size. Their manner of
killing is the same as the tigers’, in that they usually break their
victims’ necks rather than strangle them to death. And they begin
to eat from the hindquarters, in the same way as a tiger does.
Invariably these large specimens inhabit fairly forested areas.

At the other extreme we have the village or ‘monkey panther’,

an adult animal, rarely over five feet long and weighing around
sixty pounds. They are generally of a palish yellow colour, with
small rosettes, short hair and small, roundish heads. Their diet is
very comprehensive, and includes a variety of small creatures
such as dogs, cats, goats, fowl (both domestic and wild), rabbits,
birds, lizards, and even frogs and crabs. They are found in the
vicinity of villages, among rocks, and in sparse scrub though the
small panther may sometimes occur in deep jungle, just as a
thendu may sometimes live in scrub or on a hillock near a village.

Because of this sharp contrast, it was long contended that there

were two distinct animals. That theory has now disappeared:
there is only one animal, its appearance and diet varying
according to its surroundings.

Black panthers occur on rare occasions. They are scarcely jet

black, but rather an extreme dark brown when viewed at close
range. Even at a distance, when they appear quite black, the
rosette markings are still visible when light falls on them at an
angle. Black panthers are not a distinct species. They are
examples of melanism, and occur generally in the jungles where
the rainfall is heavy and the vegetation dense. Occasionally they
occur in other forests, too. A normal mother may have a litter of
two or three cubs, one of which may be black. It is curious that its
melanism should recur only among panthers and not tigers, but
cases have been recorded of tigers that are almost white, and of
sloth bears that are almost brown or even grey.

A noticeable characteristic of panthers is the way their tails

vary in length. The small panthers seem to have longer tails, and
the larger panthers to have shorter ones. Panthers can tolerate
great heat and do not require much water. In fact, they actively
dislike water. I have often observed, when looking at pug-marks,
that a panther will make a considerable detour to avoid crossing
even a few inches of water or mud, unless of course he has to wade
a stream. Tigers have no compunction about wading or swimming
and often welcome an opportunity.

In my opinion, a panther is by far the more intelligent animal.

There is a definite purpose about his actions. For instance, around
about 5 p.m., before the sun begins to set and the air to cool, a
panther will lie prone on a rock on a hill-top, scanning the
country below for prey, such as goats, sheep, dogs, etc., as they
return to their villages. Seeing a likely victim, he will stealthily
drop downhill by the shortest route, stalk his prey, and kill it
within a matter of minutes. Of course, tigers are great hunters too;
but their hunting seems to me a matter of instinct combined with
wonderful skill, rather than of forethought.

A pantheress with cubs will defend them desperately. Tigresses,

surprisingly as it may seem, will sometimes desert their offspring,
although I had a very uncomfortable experience once to the
contrary.3 Panthers are particularly fond of catching and eating
monkeys, piglings and porcupines, although they will give an
adult wild boar a very wide berth. As regards porcupines,
however, at Gummalapur in the Salem district I came upon a
burrow which, by the tracks in the soft sand at its entrance, was
occupied by both a porcupine and a panther. This burrow was on
the banks of a stream known as the Muthiyalamma Holay. I made
it my job to sit in a tree immediately overlooking this spot the
same evening, because I wanted to satisfy myself as to the truth.
The poojarees had frequently told me that porcupines and
panthers lived together, but I never quite believed these tales as I
knew these creatures to be instinctive enemies. It was a
comparatively lonely spot, and just before 6 p.m. out came the
pantheress, an adult of average size. Later dusk fell, but it was
quite dark before I heard a rattling sound, made by the quills of
the porcupine, and shone the beam of my torch in time to see a
large specimen emerging from the same hole, between rocks on
the riverbank. Do not ask me for an explanation of this strange
fellowship, for I cannot give one.

Panthers are much more versatile than tigers. They can live in
fairly open country with little scrub, so long as there is shelter
among rocks and boulders. They move about much more in
daylight than do their larger cousins. They are also great climbers.
I remember that at Muttur many year ago I shot one that had
climbed to the top of a giant muthee tree, in which it had
cornered a terrified young monkey. Panthers are also less afraid of
a light, particularly if it happens to come from a lantern or other
oil-lamp.

Following up a wounded panther is often more dangerous than

following up a tiger, for two reasons. His colour blends with the
jungle and makes him invisible until almost trodden upon, and he
rarely gives a preliminary warning growl, as does a tiger.
Fortunately, to offset this the panther frequently lacks the courage
to charge home. He attacks vigorously, but swerves off at the last
minute. Even when he pounces on a man, it is just to scratch and
bite violently for a few seconds. Then he bolts. He does not stop to
kill the man, as does a tiger.

There is one great difference between a man-eating tiger and a

panther that has formed the same habit. Once a tiger acquires a
taste for human flesh he will become a permanent addict; he will
go on killing people till he is killed. A man-eating panther will
never take to eating human flesh alone, nor will he depend on it;
he will continue to kill and eat his normal food as well.
Sometimes he will cease man-killing altogether for long periods
and behave like a normal panther. But sooner or later he will
recommence his depredations against the human race. This makes
him all the more dangerous and difficult to find and shoot. Even
when he has shot a panther in the belief that it is the man-eater
he has been after, the hunter can never be certain he has not killed
just an ordinary panther, and that the culprit is still not at large.
The only test is time—and the fact that no more human beings are
killed in that particular area.

Panthers, living as they do, much more in contact with the

human race, are far more audacious than tigers. I remember many
years ago having dinner with my uncle, aunt and cousins at their
home at Yercaud, on the Shevaroy Hills, while the seven cats they
owned were eating from as many plates on the verandah of the
bungalow. We heard an unearthly yowl from one of the cats and
rushed out to see a panther leap off the verandah with one of them
in its mouth. Thereupon we made a great hubbub and released the
dogs. Somehow the cat escaped, but minus one hind leg. Martha,
for that was the cat’s name recovered from her wound and lived
on three legs for many years. There are many instances of pet dogs
being carried off literally from between one’s feet when out
walking in a jungle. And more than once I have sat in the midst of
a poultry farm for a sneaking ‘monkey’ panther that had
developed the habit of having chicken for supper several times a
week.

Panthers are generally shot from machans when over their kills
and rarely in a beat. They are too clever and too cunning to be
driven, and can hide too well. This is another example of their
superior intelligence. One exception to this general rule, however,
is their habit of returning to a kill even after being fired at and
missed. Tigers rarely do this. I have heard of another case where a
panther returned to its kill where a lighted lantern had been
placed a few yards away, though I was not present to witness it.

I think it is rather unfortunate on the whole that this animal is

classed as ‘vermin’ by the government and the Forest Departments
in the various states of India where, in some places, no licence is
required to hunt him. Although the species is still very numerous
throughout the country, I feel it deserves a better fate. The
spectacle of a well-marked panther stalking through jungle
dappled with sunlight and shade is even more beautiful than that
of a tiger. It is the most handsome wild animal in India. The call of
a panther—a guttural, sawing, rasping grunt—is heard when the
male calls to his partner, and sometimes when he approaches his
kill. It is a distinctive sound and remarkably loud and far-carrying
for an animal of such moderate size. In the jungle, panthers exact
a heavy toll of the small species of deer—spotted deer, jungle-
sheep and mouse-deer—which form their staple food, together
with wild sows and piglets. The larger boars they leave severely
alone. In village areas the diet is changed to include domestic
goats and dogs; in some villages the dog population has been
completely wiped out by an enterprising panther or two. At the
Jowlagiri forest bungalow I walked out on to the verandah one
night and almost stumbled over a panther that was lying there
eyeing Nipper, my dog, who was asleep under the dining table.
Apart from the animals listed above, panthers will kill smaller
creatures and birds of all descriptions. In turn they are frequently
killed and eaten by tigers, so that in a locality where the latter
exist permanently, panthers are exceptionally shy and cunning
and are sometimes not to be found at all. They will be tempted to
rob from a tiger’s kill, but while doing so are very much on the
alert against the sudden return of the rightful owner. Finally, they
will eat carrion and feast on carcasses in a very advanced stage of
decay. I have found that tigers do not do this in southern India,
nor as a rule will they return more than once to do so, for they are
tremendous feeders and by that time, if undisturbed, have eaten
all there is. But panthers return to their kills two and even three
nights in succession.

These reminiscences would not be complete without something

about that magnificent giant among wild animals, the elephant,
which has been with mankind, in some form or other, from
prehistoric times. There are only two distinct species of elephant
in existence today, the African and the Asiatic although there are
variations to each of these two main divisions. The African
elephant is the larger animal, often attaining a height of twelve
feet at the shoulder. In appearance he differs considerably from his
Asiatic cousin. He has enormous ears for one thing, and very long
and heavy tusks. His back is concave, with a distinct saddle, and
he has only three toes on each hind foot. His forehead recedes
sharply, and this, with his long ears, gives his head a rather
pointed appearance. Even the females have tusks. But the Asiatic
elephant differs in a number of ways. The largest of them reaches
to no more than ten feet in height. The ears are much smaller, and
the tusks are shorter and not nearly so heavy, nor so thick. In some
cases the back is convex, with a slight hump, and in others
relatively level. There are four toes on each hind foot. The trunk is
not so ringed nor so rugged as in the African species, with a slight
depression at the top between the right and left halves of the skull;
there are noticeable hollows at each temple. The females never
grow tusks.

As with the African variety, the Asiatic elephant also has its
pigmy variety in some countries, such as Ceylon and Malaya,
where both males and females are without tusks. Tuskless males,
called muknas, are sometimes found among the herds of the larger
variety in India, although not very common in South India. The
fact that such tuskless bulls are not necessarily alone, but live
with tusked males in a normal herd, is evidence enough to counter
the theory that they are a variety on their own, although there is
no explanation why their tusks have never grown. Such tuskless
males seem to develop into more bulky animals than do most
males with normal tusks.

The idea that a ‘rogue’ elephant is mad is quite wrong. It is also

often thought that a rogue elephant is always an elephant in a
state of musth. Actually these terms refer to three quite different
conditions affecting a male elephant. The condition of musth is
only temporary, lasting from a few weeks to three months, and
corresponds to rut among stags. It is directly connected with a
state of sexual excitement, and passes away after the condition
has subsided. This period of musth mainly attacks male elephants,
during which time they are restless, quarrelsome, excitable and
quick-tempered. They fight with the other bulls in the herd, who
sometimes combine to expel them till the fit subsides. But this is
not always so, as musth elephants occasionally exist in a herd on
amicable terms with the others and particularly the very young
calves.

An elephant in musth is invariably a very dangerous creature to

meet. He is liable to attack without provocation and on sight.
Being a natural and periodic condition in all elephants, tame
males also become musth, and when that happens they are not
put to work but are kept securely chained by their hind legs till
the attack passes off, when they return to normality. The
condition is a glandular one. The temples become swollen and
puffed. The overflow discharges through orifices in both cheeks,
situated between the temple and ear, and runs down the
elephant’s face as dark oily matter. There is also a seminal
discharge. An animal in musth emits a peculiar odour because of
these secretions. Many accidents have occurred and people have
been killed by tame elephants when in a state of musth. Generally
the mahout, or elephant-driver is the first victim.

A rogue elephant has little the matter with him. He has become
a rogue because he has lost his fear of human beings and has
formed the habit of pursuing and killing them without
provocation. The reasons are many. To begin with, when in a state
of musth he may have attacked people, chased them and perhaps
killed a couple. This has caused him to lose his inherent fear of the
human race and to realise how very helpless they really are. So he
continues his habit even after the musth condition has long passed
off. Or he may have had a fight with another elephant or
elephants and been expelled from the herd. In a paroxysm of
impotent fury, he may have come across some unfortunate human
being, who fled at his approach, causing him to give chase and
finally kill him. Thereafter he has found this an amusing pastime.
Thirdly, he may have been so wounded or harried by humans that
one day he turned the tables by attacking and killing one of his
molesters. Realizing from that moment that humans can be killed
easily, he lost no chance in putting an end to one at every
opportunity.

The ‘rogue’ condition in an elephant is akin to that of a tiger or

panther becoming a man-eater, except that I do not know of any
rogue elephant that has eaten any part of his human victim. My
friend Freddie Galiffe, however, tells me that a small rogue
elephant shot recently just outside the limits of the Annay Chowk
Reserved Forest, and not far from his estate, had a human thigh-
bone in its stomach. I have not been able to verify this for myself,
but such a find, if authentic would be unique in the annals of
rogue-elephant history.

A mad elephant is one that has become mentally deranged. The

animal may have contracted hydrophobia through the bite of a
mad dog (in which case we cannot really say that it became
mentally deranged in the accepted sense of the term), or it may
have fallen victim to heatstroke or overwork (in which case it is
still not really mentally deranged). Personally I have never come
across an instance of this sort, although I have read of such cases
occurring in the stables of Indian potentates who kept elephants,
and in the government kraals housing elephants that work in the
forests.

Elephants have poor sight, but a very good sense of hearing and
a truly marvellous sense of smell. For this reason, any attempt to
approach a wild elephant for purposes of observation,
photography or shooting, can only be made from a direction that
is upwind. Otherwise a long stalk will end with the discovery that
the quarry has long since decamped. It is said that wild elephant
can smell each other three miles away, and a human being one
mile away, if he is downwind.
 Twice the circumference of the forefoot of an elephant gives its
exact height at the shoulder, a fact that is always used in
estimating the height of rogue elephant that have been proscribed
for shooting and in identifying those shot with measurements that
have been recorded previously from the tracks of the rogue. When
an elephant collapses after being shot, the most certain indication
that he is really dead is the protrusion of the penis to its fullest
extent outside the sheath.

These animals live for well over a hundred years, and there is a
case on record where an animal has reached 150 years of age.
Indications of old age in an animal are generally its lanky and
underfed condition (the teeth have been so worn that they cannot
masticate the food, and the droppings therefore consist of
undigested leaves), hollow cheeks and sunken eyes and temples,
ears that are considerably turned-over at the top edges and ragged
at the bottom, and a condition of hairlessness with a sallow, very-
crinkled hide. Authorities on the subject state that for the first
fifteen years or so the top edges of the ears are perfectly erect.
Then they begin to turn over at the rate of an inch for every thirty
years of life, but I have no personal knowledge of the correctness
of this assertion.

Those who have constant dealings with elephants consider them

very intelligent animals, although a few hunters are inclined to
disagree. Judging from their habits in the wild state, and the
number of purposes to which their services can be put when
tamed, they are decidedly clever and sagacious. But they have one
undeniabe feature: their lack of courage, amounting to arrant
cowardice, for creatures so huge. A mature wild boar, when
aroused, has many times the courage. An elephant may attack a
man by surprise, relying on his mighty bulk and blood-chilling,
frenzied trumpeting to strike terror into the victim. But let a man
stand his ground, clap, shout and wave his hands, and the
elephant will invariably swerve off and bolt at the last moment.
Not so the wild boar. He charges home, right to the smoking
muzzle of a rifle, with several bullets in his body—unless, of
course, one has already succeeded in piercing his brave heart or
some other vital spot.

Many elephants suffer from a form of leucoderma: the skin

becomes speckled by white patches, especially on the trunk and
ears. To posses such an animal is considered very lucky, although
they have an unsightly appearance. Perhaps the superstition is
only a reflection of the fact that the so-called ‘white’ elephant are
considered very important for religious purposes among Buddhists
in Siam as well as in Burma.

The female elephant breeds about once in every two and a half
years, while the period of gestation averages twenty months. She
is fond of her calf, which makes her dangerous if encountered
suddenly when her offspring is in the vicinity. I had cause to know
this only too well when I took out a party of Americans working
with me in Bangalore to photograph a herd of these animals.
Unfortunately, the beaters who were to drive the herd along the
bed of the Secret River, not far from Anchetty, in a direction that
would make them pass the concealed cameramen, fell foul of a
female with a calf. She promptly charged them and they broke
back towards the place where the rest of us were comfortably
seated, bringing the infuriated female behind them. I can assure
you we all ran very, very fast that day, leaving a considerable
portion of our clothing and ourselves on the thorny shrub through
which we dashed. Luckily the calf could not keep up with the pace
set by us and by its mother. It began to squeal at being left in the
lurch and this caused the female to abandon the chase and return
to her youngster. Otherwise there would have been a nasty
accident, for none of us was armed, since the shooting of any
elephant except a declared rogue is very strictly forbidden.

When on the march, females and their calves head the herd,
tuskers bringing up the rear. It is the mothers that regulate the
halting places according to the availability of grazing and water
in relation to the ages of the calves. When a calf is born the whole
herd delays its march for a week till the baby is strong enough to
keep pace with them. Bull elephants make but little attempt to
defend their young when danger threatens. On the other hand,
they frequently head the line of flight. While fording a river, the
mother holds her offspring before her on the surface by supporting
it under the belly with her trunk. They can swim with ease for
long distances. When encountering obstacles or going uphill, she
frequently pushes her baby in front of her. Calves drink milk from
their mothers for many months, until they are comparatively big.
They do this by sucking with their mouths and not through their
trunks; the mother’s breasts are located immediately behind her
forelegs.

Herds are constantly on the move as the grazing becomes

exhausted. They drink water twice daily, just before sunset and at
dawn, but enjoy water-baths as well as sand-baths at other times
during the day, especially in the hot weather, if opportunities
occur. They are very affectionate towards each other and
solicitous of the welfare of their young at all times, and a herd
behaves like one big happy family. The members are often
relatives, due to constant inbreeding. I have never watched them
mating, because I have never had the chance; but Poojarees have
assured me that the male endeavours to cross the female only after
persuading her into a depression, or on to lower ground, to
facilitate his performing the act, which he does in an almost erect
posture behind the female.

When digesting their food they make a variety of sounds,

including a low, rumbling, thunder-like noise; a bellow resembling
that made by a domestic bull, but infinitely louder, when they are
contented; pig-like squeals when they are particularly happy; a
short, sharp trumpeting when alarmed or attacking; and sharp
rapping sound as a warning to an intruder and to alert each other.
This last is made by striking the trunk against the ground while
blowing air through it sharply.
 Elephants even suck their fingers—represented by the tips of
their trunks—when in doubt. It is amusing to watch a bewildered
elephant stand with the tip of its trunk in its own mouth while
wondering what to do next, for all the world like some timid little
boy sucking his thumb.

Unlike deer, who shed their horns periodically to grow another

pair, elephants retain their tusks for life. Should one of them break
in a fight, the animal goes through the rest of its life with a
damaged member. It is a mistake to think the tusks are employed
for pushing over trees; the elephant does that by placing his
forehead against the bole and pushing hard while using the weight
of his body. Elephants are most careful, when going downhill, not
to trip or slip for fear of breaking a leg. They are very conscious of
their own weight and the injuries they may incur by falling on a
decline, or by placing a foot into a hole, or by stepping into a bog
or mire and becoming stuck. For this reason, if a man is chased by
an elephant, he has far better chance of escaping by running
downhill, rather than uphill or on the level. Elephants cannot
jump, either horizontally or vertically, for at no time will they
trust themselves with all four feet off the ground. For that matter,
they do not run in the accepted sense of the word, but use a fast
shuffling stride which might reach a speed of a little over fifteen
miles an hour. They can maintain this pace steadily for some
miles.

A fairly good runner can outpace a pursuing elephant for a

reasonable distance, but it is problematical how long he could
maintain his lead, particularly when fleeing through dense or
thorny jungle, among tree-trunks, clumps of bushes and especially
thorns. Precious time is lost in going around such obstructions,
and considerable damage is done to one’s person and clothing in
trying to negotiate the barrier, while the pursuing pachyderm just
crashes through.
 No discussion about elephants would be complete without a
mention of that intriguing question: where do elephants die? A
wealth of superstition and conjecture has arisen over this question
in all countries in which these ponderous animals exist in their
wild state. In Africa, for a long time, they believed in the
existence of secret elephant cemeteries, and more than one
expedition has set out to find the treasure in ivory that must be
there. But none succeeded. In Ceylon, Burma, Malaya and Siam
the same question is asked and the same belief is held. But no
proof has been forthcoming in any of these countries.

The aborigines of southern India are divided in their beliefs in

this matter. The karumbas and poojarees support the ‘secret-
cemetery’ theory, while the Sholagas contend that elephants
never die at all, which is obviously incorrect, for every living
thing must die. But the former theory is equally untenable,
because there is no corner of the jungles of southern India that has
not been trodden by the foot of man. There are no unexplored
places there.

Where then do elephants die when they grow old? In all my

years of jungle-wandering, I have never come upon the carcass of
an elephant that has died a natural death. I have found a small
female that had been killed by a pair of tigers. And of course the
Moyar valley rogue got caught in sinking-sand. But none of these
endings can be described as natural death. So the question remains
unanswered and the fable continues. At most, we can conjecture
or suggest a possible solution, of which there may be more than
one.

Twice have I found elephant bones in the mud and ooze of the
Cauvery river when the water sank abnormally during an
excessively hot and dry season. One of these was a section of the
spinal column. This I found at Hogenaikal. The other was a
thighbone picked up at Sangam. Both these places harbour
elephants and are on the banks of the Cauvery river. Do aged
elephants, when they find dissolution approaching, deliberately
commit suicide by drowning themselves? The idea is improbable,
as they are instinctively powerful swimmers. Further the urge to
live is strong in all creatures. It is possible, however, that they
grow so feeble with old age as to be unable to cope with the
current, and are therefore drowned by accident. This is, I think,
the most likely solution of the problem, as in every country where
elephants occur there are large rivers winding through the forests;
they are fond of water and keep swimming across them, and at
last the day comes when they are too feeble to keep themselves
afloat, so they perish in the turbulent currents.

The second theory is that elephants do die in remote parts of

jungle where vultures, hyaenas, wild pigs, bears, porcupines, ants,
termites and fungi all combine to destroy carcass and bones
completely before the advent of the next human passerby, which
is very occasional because of the remoteness of the spot. This is a
quite possible solution although I do not think it is the correct
one. At some time or the other somebody would surely have
appeared in time to find the carcass, if not the skeleton. Even the
latter, except those of elephants known to have been killed, seem
never to be found.

The third theory is that elephants live to such a great age—over

150 years in fact—that by the law of averages they never die
natural deaths, but meet, sooner or later, with a violent end. In
such circumstances as I have said, their remains are frequently
found. In fact the stench given off by a decomposing elephant
carcass advertises its presence for miles. The objection to this last
theory is that, even so, there are extraordinarily few carcasses,
skeletons and bones found even of elephants that have died
unnaturally, to account for the number of these animals that
must pass away each year in every country in which elephants
have their habitat. This is particularly so in Africa, where there
are many thousands in the wild state today, while the number of
carcasses and skeletons found of creatures that have died from
unnatural causes is quite disproportionate to the total number of
deaths that must occur each year.

_____________

1 See: Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.

2 See: Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.
3 See: Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers.
 7

The Sulekunta Panther

HE panther of Sulekunta was a ‘thendu’, a hindustani term

T indicating a ‘forest-living panther of large size’. It was an
exceptionally big thendu at that.

I first heard of this beast through Muniappa, one of my shikaris.

The word shikari means ‘hunter’, generally one who has made it
his profession, and Muniappa was such a one in every sense of the
word. In addition he was an out-and-out poacher. I use the verb
‘was’, because Muniappa assures me his poaching days are over.
Well, that is what he says; but I for one do not believe him.
Muniappa is an awful liar.

Many years ago this man was responsible for creating a man-
eating tigress, which commenced her depredations at Jowlagiri in
Salem district and then visited Sulekunta and other places. Well,
all that is another story. 1 I just mention it to acquaint you with
the fact that Muniappa had been a poacher and done his quota of
mischief in days gone by. But he is nevertheless a fairly reliable
shikari and certainly knows the jungles within a radius of ten
miles of his own village of Jowlagiri like the palm of his hand.

Sulekunta is a little hamlet in the forest of the North Salem

division, and lies about seven miles southeast of Jowlagiri. It
boasts a varied type of jungle; heavy forest with much bamboo
growth in a deep valley intersected by a stream known as the
Battaiamaduvu Halla. This stream itself flows eventually in a
southeasterly direction and is a tributary of a larger rivulet known
as Doddahalla, which I have called the Secret river and about
which I have already written.
 Sulekunta hamlet is on rather raised ground, surrounded by a
few fields devoted to the growing of ragi and cholam grain.
Around the fields in every direction is scrub jungle. Low hills
surround the area and these are very rocky, consisting in many
cases of piled boulders interspersed by glades of long, barbed spear-
grass. Between the patches of grass and often in dense clumps,
lantana and wait-a-bit thorn grow profusely together.

The area was once abundantly stocked with peafowl which fed
on the rich red plums of the cactus plant. But the Forest
department introduced the cochineal insect, which feeds only on
the cactus plant and destroys it. The experiment has proved
outstandingly successful and the cactus is rapidly dying out, but
with its diminution the plumlike fruit is becoming a rarity. Hence
the peafowl have moved to other regions, although there are a
good many birds still to be found in the area. These encroach upon
the fields in the mornings and evenings, from whence their
plaintive cries echo across the valleys and hills. The sandalwood
tree grows prolifically there, although for some reason or the other
the plants in the region seem to suffer excessively from the attacks
of the ‘spike’ insect and are mostly unhealthy.

However, to return to my story, Muniappa sent me a postcard

one day, written in the Tamil vernacular, saying that a tigress had
killed three head of cattle within the space of as many weeks quite
close to the hamlet of Sulekunta. He invited me to come and shoot
it. I cannot read Tamil, so I had the postcard translated by an
Indian friend. I particularly asked him if he was certain that
Muniappa had said the killer was a tigress, or might he have
meant a tiger, or possibly a panther. My informant was quite
definite and confirmed that Muniappa had clearly written that
the killing were the work of a tigress. So I did not answer the
summons, for I was not interested in hunting a tigress which was,
after all, only doing her legitimate killing for food. I got my friend
to reply for me in Tamil, thanking Muniappa for the information
but saying I was not particularly interested.
 I heard nothing more for about a month, when I received a
further postcard from Muniappa, once again in Tamil. This
conveyed the fact that the tigress had since killed four more head
of cattle, making an average of one victim per week since her
arrival in the area, and stressing that I should not fail to come and
shoot it. Once again I sent a reply, stating very emphatically that I
had no desire to shoot a tigress that was after all, only taking her
natural food and harming nobody in the process. A fortnight later
Muniappa turned up in person. He arrived just as I had finished
lunch, and said he had travelled by bus, having left Jowlagiri at
dawn. Considering that Jowlagiri is only about forty-three miles
from Bangalore, you will have some idea of the slow rate of travel
of what are known as the ‘third-line bus services’ in southern
India. Muniappa said he had come to urge me to go after the
tigress. I replied that I was scarcely interested and suggested that
he shoot the animal himself. He said that he could not do so, for
he had no game licence.

I answered, rather bluntly, ‘You should know me better by now

Muniappa. Do you think I believe you for a moment?’

Muniappa hesitated for a while, and then answered: ‘It is no use

trying to deceive the dorai. He knows very well. The fact is, my
muzzle-loading gun is scarcely effective against a tigress.’

‘I seem to remember that you shot a tiger with it once,’ I

replied, ‘and that little bit of shooting started quite a big bit of
trouble. Isn’t that so?‘2

He was silent for a minute and then said, ‘I don’t want to take
another chance. This time I want to make certain the tigress is
killed.’

His words awoke my curiosity. ‘Why are you so interested in this

tigress?’ I asked.
 Finally, in typical eastern fashion, and seeing that my cross-
questioning had cornered him, Muniappa came out with the
truth. It appeared he had borrowed a hundred rupees from one of
the more influential men in his village, as he had required that
money for the purchase of a good bull to draw the plough on his
field. He had had two bulls previously, but one of them had died
and it was essential that he made good the loss immediately, as
two bulls, and not one, were required for ploughing.

The creditor had begun to press for the return of his money, but
Muniappa had none. To cut a long story short, this creditor had
agreed to release him from the debt if he (Muniappa) could supply
a good tiger-skin, freshly shot, which the creditor in turn intended
to present to another man, an official this time, in return for a
special favour.

Of course Muniappa gave me details of the creditor and of the

man to whom he wished to present the tiger-skin; also of the
nature of the special favour. But this has no bearing on the story
itself. I pleaded that I was busy and could not get leave for another
month, which was a fact. But Muniappa persisted in pestering me
till I compromised by agreeing to answer any summons from him
that arrived after the next five weeks had elapsed, as I was fully
engaged during that time. He was fairly satisfied and stated that,
when this period had passed and a kill had occurred, he would
arrange to have it covered by branches as protection against the
vultures and would cycle the twenty-three miles from Jowlagiri to
the district headquarters of Hosur, whence he would send me a
telegram. Upon receipt of the message I would go at once by car.
Pending my arrival he would return and put up the machan, so
that all I would have to do would be to shoot the tigress when she
appeared. He pleaded his cause so well that not only did he
succeed in getting me to give him the bus-fare for his journey to
Bangalore, but also for the return journey, as well as two rupees
for the telegram that he would send and something more for
himself.
 Five weeks had just passed when I received the telegraphic
summons. As agreed, I answered it promptly, so that about ninety
minutes later I stopped the Studebaker in front of Muniappa’s
little house in Jowlagiri. I found him squatting at the door,
awaiting my arrival. He had just got back on his bicycle from
Hosur. He explained that the tigress had killed a large brown bull
within a mile from Sulekunta the previous evening. A runner had
brought the information as it was getting dark. Muniappa and the
runner had returned to Sulekunta by lantern-light, and he had
spent the night there. At dawn he had visited the dead bull and
found that the tigress had eaten almost half of it. Muniappa and
his Sulekunta friends had covered the carcass with leaves. Then he
had given them instructions where to erect a machan, after doing
which he had half-run these seven miles to Jowlagiri, jumped on a
bicycle, and had covered the twenty-three miles to Hosur in two
hours to send me his telegram. The message had come fairly
quickly and I had responded quickly too, so that it was now just
after 3 p.m. and I was faced with eight miles to walk, and then
had only to sit on the machan , which no doubt would be ready
and awaiting me, and kill the tigress when she turned up. It was
all that simple.

We started for Sulekunta without further ado. On the way I

questioned Muniappa about the terrain where the kill had taken
place. He said the bull had strayed into a belt of dense bamboos,
where it had met its end. Then I asked him if he had observed any
particulars about the kill itself, and whether he had found pug-
marks to corroborate that the killer was a tigress.

‘No,’ he answered; ‘I could find no pug-marks, as the area is

carpeted thickly with fallen, dry and decaying bamboo leaves.
Besides, there was no time for me to hunt further afield for tracks,
as I had to hurry back to send the telegram. But the killer is a pilli
(tiger) all right, for the bull’s neck was broken, which is a sure
sign. It must be a tigress, for the people of Sulekunta say so.’
 With that illogical argument I had to be content, so we did not
waste time in further conversation. With all our efforts, it took
two hours to reach Sulekunta, and some more time to arrive at the
dead bull. My watch showed exactly 5.30 p.m.

We removed the leaves from the carcass. As Muniappa had

reported, the bull’s neck had been broken and the rear half had
been devoured after the entrails had been removed a few feet. All
indications pointed to the handiwork of a tiger —or tigress! The
myriads of fallen and died bamboo leaves precluded any hope of
seeing pug-marks.

Then I turned my attention to the machan itself. As might have

been expected, having been left by a second party to a third party
to construct, the result from my point of view was far from
satisfactory. To begin with, it was one of those bamboo-tree-
machan affairs, by which I mean that it was constructed at the
top of a clump of bamboos. Of course, that was nobody’s fault, as
the bull had been done to death in a belt of bamboos and there
was no other tree nearby on which to tie the platform. But such
machans have many disadvantages. Unless they are constructed
very carefully and cleverly, they are apt to be very conspicuous.
This one was no exception.

Every single bamboo stalk had been lopped off at the height of
about fifteen feet, the cut pieces having then been shaved of their
leaves and placed crossways to form the floor of the machan. As a
result, that particular bamboo clump had an obviously beheaded
appearance and clearly revealed the platform on top of it.
Secondly, the crosspieces were too few and some of them were
several inches apart. The whole structure looked most insecure,
and I knew it would sway and creak horribly. Thirdly, no attempt
had been made to camouflage it from below or from the sides. It
was just a bare platform, erected at the top of an abruptly
shortened clump of bamboos.
 Time was running out, however, and it was too late to do
anything about it. After removing the leaves from the dead bull, I
scrambled onto the platform with my rifle and usual night
equipment.

My worst fears were immediately confirmed. Straight away, my

weight tipped one end lower than the other, so that the whole
structure went askew at an angle of almost thirty degrees from the
horizontal, and I felt it sway ominously. Muniappa cut a few
green bamboo fronds and stuck them between the crossmembers
beneath me in an attempt to conceal the structure from below.
But it was a poor effort, and now that the time was almost six
o’clock, nothing more could be done by way of camouflage at the
four ends of the platform. Then Muniappa went away and I spent
one of my worst nights ever. The bamboo pieces cut into me from
below. Each time I moved, the whole structure creaked and
swayed. The machan appeared to go still further askew with my
weight and every movement I made. Hence I was forced to remain
immobile for fear that the crazy structure might collapse or tip
further down at one end and so steeply as to make it impossible to
remain there.

Although sitting over a kill is regarded by many as an irksome

and tiring ordeal, to me it has always been a source of
considerable pleasure. Perhaps this is because I am, above all else,
a lover of nature. Far from dragging monotonously, I have found
that time passes, if anything, too quickly. I am so absorbed in the
wonders of the night, be it moonlight when the soft, silvery
moonbeams outline the jungle in a ghostly brilliance quite
different from its appearance by day; or a dark night, with the
fireflies flitting fitfully around, while the stars in the heavens
twinkle serenely with a radiance sufficient to outline the
surrounding bushes and landscape. There is so much to listen to,
even if one cannot see the myriad forms of life that crowd the
forest night. So much is there to learn, if one has only the desire
and ability.
 But this night was an exception in every way. It was as black as
pitch, the darkness being accentuated by the heavy clouds that
fled low across the sky. But the jungle was as silent as the grave.
No animal or bird voiced the faintest sound, nor did a frog croak or
cricket chirp among the dark swaying aisles of bamboos.

I knew the reason for these unusual conditions. A storm was

brewing. It was eight o’clock when the first harbinger of the
downpour made itself felt in the bamboo grove. The wind started
to blow. I could hear it coming across the tops of the bamboos,
beginning as the far-off roar of a distant ocean. Eventually it
reached me with the impact of a giant hand. The tops of the
feathery bamboos bowed low beneath the onslaught, while the
cut stems below me began to bend to the breeze. This caused the
crossmembers of the platform on which I was sitting to creak and,
what was worst of all, to separate increasingly. The tilt became
more acute as the mutilated bamboo stems shook and tossed with
each gust.

And then came the rain! Often in the jungle, especially in hilly
regions, you can hear the rain falling before it reaches the ground.
I heard the distant murmur as the condensing clouds began to spill
their contents towards the thirsty forest below. This soon became
a continuous roar as the rain struck the jungle, and the roar
advanced with growing intensity as the wall of water rushed
towards the spot where I sat. A final gust shook the broken
bamboos below. They strained with the impact, and then a sheet
of water enveloped me. Vivid flashes of forked lightning streaked
earthwards, followed by the earsplitting crashes of the thunder. In
a moment I was drenched.

But I had little time in which to lament my discomfort, for a

still greater calamity befell me. With the next onslaught of wind
the ropes holding my crazy platform either slipped or gave way,
and I felt the structure heel over to an angle of forty-five degrees as
I, and all my equipment, slid down the impossible slope.
 I let go the rifle as I felt myself falling. I recollect hearing it
clatter against the bamboo stems and then fall with a dull thud to
the ground. The cut ends of the tossing bamboos sought to impale
me as, sprawling awkwardly, I sought desperately for something to
hold on to. One of these cut ends ripped through my shirt at the
back, while another almost gouged out my eyes. I clutched
fearfully at the latter, striving to push it away as it tore my
forehead. And in the midst of the confusion, from below me came
a series of coughing roars and the sound of a heavy body rushing
through the undergrowth.

I yelled at the top of my voice while I frantically clung with

both hands to the bamboo before my face. My legs and body were
wedged between the stems, while my full weight was borne by
both arms. In this position I held on for dear life, continuing to
shout for all I was worth to drive away the tigress which I now
knew was beneath me.

It was much too evident what had happened. She had returned
to the kill just as the rain came and had decided to shelter at the
foot of the bamboo-clump in which my most insecure machan had
been built. As likely as not the wind, rain, thunder and lightning
had all combined to distract her attention from spotting that very
obvious platform on which I was seated and which she would no
doubt have seen at once had conditions been normal. But that was
when the ropes holding my machan gave way. My rifle and other
equipment had fallen all around her, while I had started
floundering among the stems above.

She must have been badly frightened, and annoyed too. No

wonder she had roared so terribly in strong protest. But the
question was: had she run away, or was she still lurking below?

I was in complete darkness, having dropped my torch with the

rifle. Also I could not hold on much longer. My hands, face and
back were torn, the wet bamboo began to slip from my hands, and
my legs and body slid a foot or so downwards. Then I become
wedged between the stems. I was well and truly fixed, and I was
helpless in every way.

As I have told you, the platform had been erected at a height of

about fifteen feet from the ground. It must have tilted about two
feet lower. Then I had slipped downwards at least a foot more
before I became wedged. I was therefore about three feet lower
than the original fifteen. My height is 5 feet 7 ½ inches. As a result
my legs were hanging not more than about six feet above the
ground. Of course I did not do all this mental arithmetic just then.
But I did enough to realize I was in great danger should the tigress
decide to attack. For any tiger could now reach me without effort,
while I was held tightly among the bamboos, unarmed and in
pitch darkness.

Can you blame me for shouting? I did not do so merely to

frighten away the tigress. I suppose when one is really terrified,
the spontaneous reaction is to shout—rather, I should say, to
scream. So I continued to do just that for quite a while, most
unrestrainedly and unashamedly. Then I managed to regain
control of myself and began to think things out. I remembered
having heard the sound of a heavy body rushing through the
undergrowth. Undoubtedly, that had been the tigress. But had she
rushed right away, or had she just leapt to the shelter of some
other clump after bedlam had broken loose around and above her?

As I calmed down I realized with great thankfulness that the

tigress was after all just a normal cattle-lifter and not a man-eater.
My screams must surely have frightened her more than ever.
Having reasoned thus far, I felt fairly certain she had run away
and that I would be safe enough if I descended to the ground. But
the point was that I could not descend, I was caught firmly
between the swaying stems.
 The next few minutes were extremely harrowing ones. Finding
myself held so firmly, the obvious thing to do was to draw myself
higher up the stem to which I was clinging in order to free my feet
and lower extremities. I started to do this while groping with the
toes of my canvas shoes for the slightest foothold to support my
weight, even for a few seconds, to relieve the terrible strain on my
arms.

I do not know how many of you have seen or examined a

bamboo stem, or frond as it is generally called, very closely. There
are projections along it from which the leaves branch out. Some of
them are spiked, but they are all relatively strong although only as
thick as a man’s middle finger. These sharp spikes pierced the thin
rubber soles of the canvas shoes I was wearing and cut their way
into my flesh. But they were strong enough to support my weight.
With considerable effort I regained the foot or so I had lost. As I did
so I felt my legs come free. Soon I was clinging to only one stem,
which supported my entire weight.

While all this was happening the storm continued with

unabated fury. Lightning flashed, the thunder rumbled and
crashed, and the rain descended in solid sheets. The wind grew
stronger, if that were possible, and tore its way through the
bamboo grove, whipping off branches here and there that swished
past my face as they were carried away by the breeze. Suddenly a
tremendous blast, stronger than any of its predecessors, seized the
tops of the bamboo. It struck the mutilated clump, causing the
stems to bend further than ever, and the stem to which I clung
broke sharply below me. I felt myself falling as my body crashed its
way through the other stems, and a second later, still holding the
broken bamboo in my hands, I hit mother earth with a resounding
thump.

Instinctively I scrambled up and with my feet groped in the

intense darkness for my fallen rifle. But it was quite some time
before I found it, and I went twice around that clump of bamboos
before I did so. I could feel the end of the muzzle clogged with mud
and the first thing I did was to clean it.

I had not brought a greatcoat with me because the weather had

been warm; only a pullover. This had fallen to the ground with
the rest of my things and very foolishly I did not think of searching
for it, a lapse for which I was to suffer intensely before that night
was over.

The next thing I did was to press the button of the torch that
was fastened to the barrel of my rifle. Nothing happened. I felt
along the torch itself till I came to where its lens would have been,
but there was neither glass nor bulb. Both had been smashed in
the fall. I was in pitch-darkness. And the rain continued with
unabated force.

I have mentioned that the bull had been killed about a mile
from the hamlet of Sulekunta. A mile is no great distance, but to
reach that hamlet in those conditions would be tricky, for apart
from the rain and darkness, I had a bamboo jungle to contend
with. Those who have been in such jungles at night will
understand what that means, for the bamboos grow in clusters,
each cluster only a few feet from its neighbour. As a rule no trees
grow between, nor large bushes either, the intervening ground
being covered with grass, minor undergrowth, or just a deep carpet
of fallen, decaying bamboo leaves. Even in bright daylight one
clump of bamboos looks like any other, and I knew that, in pitch-
darkness, intensified by the bamboos themselves, the overcast sky,
the pouring rain, the absence of any star to guide me, and the
impossibility of keeping a match alight even if I could strike one
on the sodden box, once I left the clump on which I had been
sitting, I might wander all night in circles without getting any
closer to Sulekunta. I might even wander further away from the
hamlet.
 By this time I had ceased to worry about the tigress. If she had
been anywhere near and had wanted to attack me, she would
have done so already. Otherwise, no animal would venture out in
a storm like that. Even wild elephants, a few of which generally
inhabited these mixed jungles, where the bamboo grew to provide
them with tender fronds, would not brave these elements, but
would seek such shelter as they could find, huddled together
beneath the clumps. Of course, it would be just too bad if I was
unlucky enough to walk right into one while groping in the
darkness. That was a chance that had to be taken.

I waited for the next flash of lightning, and it was not long in
coming. After that momentary illumination, I faced the direction
in which I judged the hamlet to be. I walked a few paces with
outstretched hands that soon met the spiky obstruction caused by
the next clump. I felt my way around it, and when I judged I had
walked about half way around, I tried to continue in the proper
direction. A few minutes of this sort of thing made me realize its
utter hopelessness. To begin with, when I walked around each
clump of bamboo I had no means of judging whether I had
circumvented half of it, or less, or more; so that each time I set out
for the next clump I might be walking in almost any direction. I
then decided that there was no alternative but to wait for the
storm to pass. I sat on my haunches at the foot of the next clump.
The ground was about six inches deep in water and mud, so I
placed my rifle across my knees and awaited events.

It was ten o’clock before the heavy rain eased, but a sharp
drizzle prevailed till almost midnight. The thunder had long since
ceased and the flashes of lightning became fewer and then stopped
altogether, leaving me in inky blackness.

So long as it had rained heavily I had not felt the cold unduly.
Paradoxically, the water had seemed comparatively warm. When
the drizzle set in I felt chilly, and when after midnight the drizzle
ceased, that was when I really started to feel the cold. What with
the drop in temperature towards the early hours of the morning,
together with evaporation from my soaked clothing, I began to
freeze. In no uncertain manner I cursed myself for failing to look
for my pullover. Eventually I removed every stitch of clothing,
walked to and fro, leaped up and down, flung my arms and legs
about, and did everything I could to keep the blood circulating in
my chilled body. I tried to light a match, but the box and its
contents were sodden. The sky remained overcast, without a star
to guide me on another attempt to reach Sulekunta. And so I
passed what was without a doubt the most uncomfortable night
ever. Blue with cold and with chattering teeth, I witnessed the
dawn break through the clouds of vapour that rose from the
saturated jungle.

With daylight I was able to gain an idea of the general direction

in which the hamlet lay and set out for it. Imagine my surprise
when, scarcely a minute later, I passed the beheaded clump on
which I had been sitting the night before. Although I had been
tempted many times during the hours of early morning, when I
felt that I would freeze to death, to blunder forth a second time, at
that moment I heartily congratulated myself for having remained
where I was. Eventually, wearing my still soaking trousers, I
reached the little village, where I found Muniappa anxiously
awaiting me.

Before telling him what had happened, I asked him to make a

big fire of straw, wood, dried cow-dung—in fact, anything that
would burn—without a moment’s delay. Soon a healthy blaze was
started and I sat close beside it, my saturated shirt spread on the
ground beside me next to my pants, while I wore Muniappa’s
turban around my waist. It was a feeling of pure bliss that crept
over me as the heat penetrated every part of my body. Then, as
Muniappa placed a small pot of water in the midst of the fire,
preparatory to making tea, I told him the tale of woe.
 An hour later I started the seven-mile walk back to Jowlagiri
and my car. I now had a personal account to settle with the tigress
of Sulekunta. Although she was undoubtedly innocent of the
intention, she was, I felt, responsible for the terrible night I had
just endured. At Jowlagiri I left Muniappa with money for another
telegram in case the tigress should kill again, when he was to
inform me without delay. Then I returned to Bangalore, a sadder
but a much wiser man.

The same evening I suffered a sharp attack of ague, followed by

high fever. The exposure had brought on a bout of malaria. To
malaria bronchitis was added three days later, and this in turn
developed into pneumonia. It was then that the telegram came
from Muniappa: the tigress had killed again at Sulekunta. Of
course, I could not respond. I told my wife to write to Muniappa,
telling him of my condition, and that I would contact him when I
was fit to answer a further summons. But it was a whole month
before I felt I could risk another night in a machan. And that, of
course, against both my wife’s and the doctor’s orders. Meanwhile
I wrote and told Muniappa that I was well again.

Nearly another month passed before I received the next

telegram. Briefly it informed me that a cow had been killed near
Sulekunta. Thirsting for revenge, I set out for Jowlagiri once more,
but this time with a raincoat and two pullovers, together with a
spare torch, batteries, bulbs and matches, wrapped in an old
oilskin tobacco pouch to protect them from the wet. I had learnt
my lesson: from that time I have always carried these additional
articles with me.

When Muniappa met me at Jowlagiri, he told me that the killer

was a very big panther—a thendu—and not a tigress as he had
imagined. He said he was certain of this because he had clearly
seen the pug-marks in the sand beside the kill. To say I was very
disappointed would express my feelings lightly. Then Muniappa
said something that made me think deeply. He said that he now
thought that there never had been a tigress, and that this thendu
had alone been responsible for the many kills that had occurred at
Sulekunta. He reminded me that we had seen no pug-marks near
the bull over which I had sat. Both he and I had concluded the
animal had been a tiger because the bull’s neck had been broken
and it was the villagers of Sulekunta who had said it was a tigress.
He also reminded me that thendus kill and eat in the same manner
as tigers.

The thought that I had been through all that dreadful ordeal for
the sake of a mere panther was distinctly galling. However, having
come so far, I set out with Muniappa for Sulekunta. The kill, this
time a fully-grown and white cow, lay at the fringe of the same
belt of bamboo. In my letter I had told Muniappa to build no more
machans on bamboo trees. Thus I was left with selecting the spot
where I intended to sit and constructing my hide in the short space
of the one remaining hour of daylight. It was exactly five o’clock.

In those early days I had not made the portable machan which I
carried about with me in later years to meet just such an
emergency as this. So I had to work really fast if I wanted to be in
place by six o’clock. The kill had been made at the fringe of the
bamboo belt and was much closer to the hamlet. The bamboo
grew less thickly there and was interspersed with a few trees and a
considerable number of lantana and other bushes which had
spread in from the adjacent scrub jungle.

Glancing around quickly, my eyes fell on a large lantana bush

some twenty yards away. It was a few feet apart from its
neighbours and seemed the ideal place. Muniappa had brought his
curved knife for cutting wood, so we set to work in real earnest.
From the edge of the lantana bush furthest from where the cow
was lying we hacked a small passage leading to its centre, which
we then cut away also, retaining for camouflage use all the
branches and twigs we removed. I crawled through the passage
and sat in the centre of the bush. Then, level with my head,
Muniappa cut a rectangular opening directly facing the dead cow.
We made the space in the middle of the bush large enough for me
to sit in comfortably, together with my raincoat, pullovers and a
flask of tea. Taking up my position, I aligned my rifle through the
rectangular opening and at the kill to test the angle and direction
of fire.

We had worked fast and it was still ten minutes to six when
Muniappa, after a scrutiny from all angles to check if anything
had been overlooked, pronounced himself satisfied. Then he went
away. It was quite warm under the bush which, together with the
earth beneath, still retained some of the heat of the day. This
caused me to perspire a little, but as it grew dark this slight
inconvenience passed away and I was as comfortable as I could
expect.

There were the usual jungle sounds of sundown, dominated by

the screeching of myriads of those small green parakeets with
purple heads that abound in the vicinity of bamboo forests, where
they feed voraciously on the dried bamboo seeds. Batches of the
‘seven-sister’ birds, which is the colloquial name for the Indian
‘babbler’, fluttered from bush to ground and back again,
chattering vigorously, and a couple of mynas winged around the
clearing, snatching at the insects that began to show up in the
grass as it cooled. In this task the mynas had an active competitor
in a solitary hoopoe that hopped about on the ground, raising his
crest of comb-like feathers of a rich light-brown hue, and dipping
it again from time to time in his pursuit of insects. As a
background of sound to this nearer chorus came the distant cries
of peafowl, the challenging crow of the junglecocks, and the
squabbling of spurfowl; all three, together with the parakeets, are
particularly fond of localities where the bamboo grows thickly,
providing them with both food and dense cover in which to hide
from their natural enemies—man, and the members of the cat-
tribe.
 At length darkness fell. Although there was no moon, the sky
was completely cloudless and was soon filled with myriad stars.
The starlight shed a diffused light over the ground in front of me,
so that the dead cow, as I looked at it through the opening we had
made in the lantana, still remained visible as a faint blur on the
ground although it had lost its shape. The patches of white on its
coat helped to reveal those parts of the carcass, whereas the brown
patches were nearly invisible. The minutes passed quickly enough
and it was 7.45 when I thought I heard a slight sound to my right.
It seemed like a faint sigh, or maybe a stifled yawn. Then, seconds
later, came a faint scratching.

What could have made it? Not a panther, nor a tiger for that
matter. Very likely a mongoose was nosing around. That would
account for the scratching noise I had heard, but not for the faint
sigh or stifled yawn. The minutes sped by and then the scratching
was resumed. This time it came from behind me. Something was
clawing gently at the lantana bush in which I was seated. It
seemed to have discovered the freshly-cut branches and twigs that
had been loosely placed there by Muniappa and was investigating;
perhaps even trying to remove them. Whatever animal was busy
there, it was either extraordinarily brave or exceptionally
curious. I became curious too, and I turned my head slowly to
glance over my left shoulder.

The scratching noise ceased abruptly. Had the animal been able
to detect that slight movement, even through the intervening
twigs? For a considerable time nothing happened. Then the
scratching restarted, more insistently and more quickly this time.
From the darkness in which I sat the leaves and twigs of the bush
behind me were outlined faintly against the background of the
star-dusted sky. I saw them vibrate and move. The creature now
seemed to be making a determined effort to remove the loose
twigs. Then I heard the faint hissing sound that is the
unmistakable snarl of a panther in doubt.
 Slowly I drew the rifle back from the rectangular aperture before
me, and half-turned my body around. That was when the panther
ceased to be in doubt or even to be curious. There came a series of
quick, deep growls, followed by a rush and a thud, as the panther
backed out and leapt for the shelter of some other bush or a clump
of grass.

My memory flew back to that rainy night just two months

earlier, when I had slid off the tilting machan and had almost been
impaled on the lopped ends of the bamboo stems. I had heard this
very same growling then, followed by the rush and thud as an
animal had leapt away. I wondered if Muniappa was right. Could
it have been just a panther that had been sheltering under the
bamboos when I had fallen on top of it, and not a tigress—or a
tiger—as I had thought?

Well, whatever animal had made its rush on that occasion, I

had no doubt whatever that in this instance I was dealing with a
panther—and a thendu at that. And now it had discovered my
presence and had gone, and there was little chance that it would
return. Luck was entirely against me. I looked at my wrist-watch;
the time was 8.20. The night was still young, so I decided to wait
till midnight and then return to Sulekunta.

As chance ordained, however, I had not heard the last of the

thendu for that night. Obviously hungry, certainly curious, and
angry at being spied upon, it came back in a half-circle and,
without revealing itself, started uttering the well-known sawing
call of a panther from the jungle in front of me and immediately
beyond the dead cow. Panthers often make these sounds when
returning to an animal they have killed, but this one had not done
so up till now.

I remained quite still and the effect on that thendu was

amazing. He walked around the area in a wide circle, taking care
to keep out of sight, till he got behind me. Then, as if conscious
that he was at an advantage, redoubled—if that was possible—his
sawing, alternating with snarls. At one stage he ceased abruptly
and silence reigned for a while. Either he had gone away or he was
preparing to attack. But panthers, even the large thendus, do not
do that sort of thing unless they have become man-eaters, and I
knew this animal was no man-eater. For there had not been a
single report of any person having been molested by tiger or
panther in this area since the reign of the Jowlagiri man-eater. 3

The doubt was settled a little later when he worked himself

around to a direction in front of me but half-left, and from there
he began to call again. This gave me the hope that if I remained
absolutely still he might become bold enough to advance upon the
kill, or at least show himself for a minute or two. But it turned out
a futile hope. Finally, he abandoned the task of trying to terrify
me with his calls and departed, his grunts of disapproval and
disappointment gradually fading away in the distance.

I remained till midnight without any sign of his return, and

then, deciding he had gone for good, I stepped out of my hiding
place and walked the short distance to Sulekunta, where I woke
up Muniappa and told him what had happened. Muniappa said
that he thought I had done wrong by coming away and that I
should have remained in hiding, as he was certain the panther
would return in the early hours of the morning. He even suggested
that I go back and re-enter the lantana bush. But I was of a
different opinion, being just as confident that the thendu would
not return, because, all his efforts to dislodge me having failed, he
would hardly be so foolish as to come back and show himself,
when I might still be concealed.

Muniappa challenged me to a bet on this issue. I accepted it and

suggested a stake of five rupees—about six shillings. He said that
was too high a figure, but he was prepared to bet me a rupee that
the thendu would return. I accepted the challenge.
 It was agreed that I should walk back to Jowlagiri alone and
spend the rest of the night in the small forest rest house there,
while Muniappa would remain at Sulekunta, inspect the kill early
next morning to see if the panther had come back, and then
follow to Jowlagiri and report.

I spent a late morning at the Jowlagiri rest house and awoke to

see Muniappa peering in at me through the iron bars of the little
window which I had left open. The time was 8.30 a.m. Getting out
of bed, I went out on to the verandah, where Muniappa told me he
had won his bet and come to collect his money. The thendu had
returned and eaten well, but he said he thought there was enough
left over for a third meal. That would mean that the panther
would be at the kill that very evening. Muniappa also said that he
had taken the precaution of covering what remained of the
carcass with leaves, in order to hide it from the vultures.

Beckoning him into the bedroom of the rest house, I solemnly

handed over the stake money of one rupee and then told him I
would prepare some tea for him if he would take my camp-kettle
to fill at the little stone-lined well about a hundred yards behind
the bungalow. He did that with alacrity, and soon the roar of my
Primus stove told us both that refreshment was on the way.
Without bothering to shave, I buttered some cold chappaties and
opened a large tin of sardines to keep them company. Being a caste
man, Muniappa would have nothing to do with my buttered
chappaties and sardines, but he accepted the big mug of tea I
offered him. Then we tried to chalk out a line of campaign for the
forthcoming night.

Now I did not favour the idea of sitting in the bush again, for I
was almost certain the panther would inspect it carefully before
approaching his kill, if he did return at all. If he found me inside,
which he was sure to do, he would repeat his performance of the
night before. True he had come back in the early hours of the
morning, as Muniappa had predicted. But I felt he would not have
done so had I returned to the bush the previous night, as my
henchman had suggested, or had I remained there. So a plan began
to form in my mind, but I did not tell Muniappa, whose opinion it
was that I should reoccupy my old hide. Instead, I told him to go
to his house in the village of Jowlagiri, half a mile from the forest
rest house, eat an early lunch and be prepared to return with me
to Sulekunta at exactly one o’clock.

Eating a cold lunch myself, I left the bungalow at twelve thirty

and walked to the village to collect Muniappa, but my retainer
had not even started on his meal when I arrived. However, by dint
of much cajoling, I managed to get him on the move by one-thirty
in the afternoon. It was blazing hot, but we maintained a brisk
pace, reaching what remained of the dead cow at exactly three-
thirty. We were both streaming with perspiration. I then began to
seek for the means to put my secret plan into operation. You will
probably have guessed what I was looking for: a convenient tree,
overlooking the bush inside which I had sheltered the night before,
quite regardless of whether the kill was visible from the tree or
not.

As soon as he realized what was in my mind, Muniappa told me

plainly that he did not think it a very good plan. Fancy sitting up
over an empty bush! To him the whole idea was stupid. We found
a tree—a half-grown jumlum —about thirty yards away. It
commanded a fairly clear view of the lantana bush, but from it
nothing could be seen of the dead cow, because the latter was at a
right angle to a line drawn between the jumlum tree and the
lantana bush. The three points represented the three corners of a
right-angled triangle. That was why I had not selected the jumlum
in the first instance in preference to the bush.

Choosing a convenient branch, I instructed Muniappa to erect a

machan , which he did quite efficiently within a little over an
hour, concealing the platform on the four sides as well as from
below with leaves from the same tree. While he was busy I let him
into the second phase of my secret plan, by hanging a spare khaki
shirt inside the lantana bush where I had sat the night before.

It was ten minutes to five when I climbed into the jumlum tree
and told Muniappa to wait for me at Sulekunta. He departed with
a rather glum expression. Plainly he thought that I was very silly;
but as he walked away he did what I had previously instructed
him to do: he talked aloud to himself so that, should the panther
be lurking in the vicinity, he would gain the impression that the
man who had been near his kill was now going away. I sat
perfectly still and silent. The next hour or so would prove whether
I was right.

The sun had not set and it was quite bright when a large thendu
walked gingerly out of the jungle to the right, halted some twenty
paces from the bush, and stood regarding it intently. He was at
right angles to me, absolutely motionless and broadside on,
presenting a perfect shot—either behind the left shoulder or at the
neck, as I might prefer.

Very slowly I raised my rifle, fitted the stock comfortably into

my shoulder, and started to align the sights on the panther, which
remained quite still, staring into the bush. What a perfect picture
he presented, his gloriously spotted hide a thing of beauty! Each
rosette was clearly visible. His cocked ears and slightly tilted head
were ready to catch the faintest sound or movement from the
bush. Only the tip of his ringed tail twitched spasmodically from
side to side, registering the nervous tension which was not at all
evident in his bold posture.

I had almost squeezed the trigger when I thought of the two

nights of excitement and entertainment with which this animal
had provided me. Was I now justified in butchering him in cold
blood when he was quite unaware of my presence, and when he
had committed no crime? Twice he had had me at his mercy, but
had done nothing. Now he was at mine. What was I going to do
about it?

I hesitated another moment—and was lost!

Lowering my rifle, I called pleasantly to him, ‘Good evening.’

He looked up at me, very startled. Then he returned my

greeting. ‘Wroof! Wroof!’ he said, and was gone!

I listened to the familiar and always delightful calls of the birds

as they went to roost, and returned to Sulekunta at about 9 p.m.,
with the news that the panther had not shown up. I admitted to
Muniappa that I had erred greatly in not listening to him by
sitting over the kill. He nodded in a superior kind of way and said
rather haughtily: ‘I told you so, but you would not listen to me.
You thought you knew better. The next time you will do well to
remember that I, Muniappa, the best shikari in Jowlagiri, know all
about the animals of the jungle and their ways.’

It would never do to let my retainer think his dorai had become

suddenly soft and sentimental. Better to be thought wrong, than
to be considered a maudlin idiot. But I never regretted my last-
moment decision to spare the life of that beautiful animal.

Incidentally, I do not know if that official did Muniappa’s

creditor the favour that was required of him. Probably not;
because he never got the tiger’s skin—nor a panther’s, for that
matter. But I do know this much: Muniappa never paid his debt of
one hundred rupees. He told me so, many years later, blaming me
for being the direct and only cause of his dishonesty, because I
failed to shoot the panther and procure the pelt.

_____________
1 See: Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.
2 See: Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.
3 See: Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.
 8

From Mauler to Man-Eater

HIS story is the sequel to two episodes I have recorded in the

T earlier books of adventures. The first of these began when a
tiger began to behave very strangely by mauling the graziers of the
hamlet of Rajnagara, at the foot of the Dimbum escarpment in
North Coimbatore district in what is now known as Madras state.
The unique feature was that this tiger never bit any of its human
victims nor was there any authentic proof that it had killed or
eaten anybody. It merely rushed at its victim and, when close
enough raised itself on its hind legs and severely mauled him with
the claws of its forefeet in the region of the head, chest, back and
arms. I attempted to bag this elusive animal, but failed
completely.

Then the scene changed to a very much wider area of

operations, varying from sixty to one hundred miles north and
northeast of Rajnagara. A tiger killed and carried off a boy at
another little hamlet in the jungle, called Pegepalyam. That boy
was the first of several victims, some of whose remains were
recovered. The bodies bore unmistakable evidence of having been
severely mauled by the claws of the tiger which had attacked
them, while teeth marks, other than where the flesh had been
eaten, were conspicuously absent. In one case, two men who had
climbed up a tree saw their companion actually being mauled by
this tiger, which attacked him on two separate occasions, clawing
him across the face the first time, and killing him with a blow of
its paw the second time, before it carried him off.

The human remains that had been found indicated that there
was apparently nothing wrong with the animal’s teeth or jaws, as
had at first been conjectured. For he had eaten a good meal from
each, which would hardly have been possible with impaired teeth
or a broken or otherwise maimed jaw.

His constant mode of assault, however, which was by clawing

and striking with his forepaws and not by biting, appeared to
indicate beyond doubt that this animal was none other than the
earlier ‘Mauler of Rajnagara’ that had strayed northwards into an
area of jungle far larger than his original habitat. My son Donald
made two attempts to bag this beast, the first at Pegepalyam itself,
and the second near the road between Lokkanhalli and Bailur, in
the very area where I had encountered the Ramapuram Tiger some
years before.1 But he had met with bad luck, for on both occasions
this tiger had not returned to the remains of the human victims he
had killed and over which Donald had, with the utmost difficulty,
persuaded the bereaved relatives to allow him to sit.

Naturally, both Donald and I scanned the newspapers keenly for

further reports of man-killing, besides receiving such reports as the
Forest Department sent us from time to time. From these sources
scanty news trickled through at long intervals. Human beings
began to fall victim to a tiger in scattered areas and in the most
remote north-eastern corners of the Kollegal taluk in North
Coimbatore district, just south of the Cauvery river, which
separates it from Mysore state on the northwest and the Salem
district, which is a part of Madras state, on the north and east.

Two definite and authentic items of news eventually arrived.

The first was a report that, while grazing her cattle, an old woman
had been carried off by a tiger which never so much as touched
any of the browsing herd. Her remains were never found. This
happened at a cattle patti named Gulya. The second report was
that a man grazing cattle had been attacked and mauled, but not
killed, at another patti named Alambadi just across the Cauvery
river from Salem district; in this case it was reported that the
herdsman, who was standing in the midst of his cattle while the
animals were feeding in the jungle looked up in time to see a tiger
spring from an adjacent bush and regardless of the beasts all
around, come straight at him. He yelled at the tiger, and as it
came within reach he pluckily swung at it with the wooden staff
he was holding. It appears that the tiger then reared up on its hind
legs and severely clawed his chest and arms, knocking him down.
But among the man’s cattle were five buffaloes, and these animals
happened to be grazing nearby. As buffaloes often do, the five of
them joined together and charged the tiger, which turned tail and
fled. Although severely injured the man was able to stagger back
to the patti where there were several other herdsmen to succour
him.

A patti is a patch of jungle which has been let by the

government to a number of herdsmen for kraaling cattle at night
that have been licensed to graze in the reserved forest. These
animals are permitted to feed during the day in the jungle within
a radius, generally, of three miles around the patti in any
direction. The grazing period lasts for about six months out of
twelve: after the monsoons and during the hot dry weather, when
there is no fodder to be found near the villages. The licence costs
four annas per animal for the six months, which works out to
about one shilling for three head of cattle for six months. This
breaks down to two-thirds of a penny per animal per month for the
right to feed all day within an area approximately twenty-eight
square miles.

However, to get back to our story: because the scenes of these

two incidents, and Alambadi in particular, were close to the
Cauvery river, with Salem district on the other side, with
reasonably good roads and communications, the news spread
quicker and in greater detail, so that we heard about it in
Bangalore within a month of the incidents in question. This is not
a long time for such conditions and such remote areas. It was
therefore reasonably certain that this tiger was not entirely
devoted to man-eating. He was following the general practice of
man-eating panthers, attacking human beings only when an
exceptionally easy opportunity turned up or perhaps when the
mood seized him. At other times he was obviously living on wild
game, as there were no more than the usual number of cattle
being killed in the area by tigers and panthers.

Time passed and we were beginning to forget about this tiger

when reports came in quick succession that two persons had been
killed and eaten at a small hamlet with the rather curious name of
Bejahahai. It was reputed that the body of the first victim was
never recovered, but the second was found after it had been half-
devoured. This man had been badly mauled and clawed about the
face and chest.

Donald agreed with me that at last we had something concrete

and authentic to work upon. The elusive tiger of Pegepalyam,
which we suspected to be no other than the mauler of Rajnagara,
appeared to be again at work. According to the map, the hamlet of
Bejahahai was situated almost 3,000 feet above sea level in a
valley to the east of the highest mountain peak in Kollegal taluk,
named Ponnachai Betta or Ponachi Malai, itself nearly 5,000 feet
up. Donald had long determined to shoot this tiger and solve the
riddle of its strange habit of mauling its victims before killing
them. So he decided to set out on a month’s ‘safari’, as he called it,
to accomplish his objective. What follows is Donald’s story, as he
told it to me:

After receiving reports of the two human kills that had taken
place at Bejahahai, I decided at all costs to get the tiger that had
been responsible, especially as I was sure it was the same beast I
had tried unsuccessfully to shoot almost a year before at
Pegepalyam.

There were two curious things about this tiger. The first was
that he was reported to claw the people he attacked rather than
bite them. The second was that he never returned to a human kill;
I had already sat up for him over human bodies without success.
 So I got things ready in a hurry and collected as much cash I
could, nearly 300 rupees, to pay for my baits and general expenses
while I was out on safari. Although this was a good deal of money,
it was well worth spending if I could shoot this tricky animal that
had proved such a menace for so long. So at five o’clock one
morning I set out in my car, which although old, had proved itself
over and over again as very good for jungle work.

I stopped for a couple of hours at Pennagram to pick up Dad’s old

shikari, a fellow named Ranga, whom I regarded more as an old
friend than a servant. I then made a diversion down a jungle road
to a place called Muttur, seven miles away in a valley on the
banks of the Chinar river, where I persuaded Byra, another old
shikari friend, to accompany me too. Byra is a Poojaree, an
aborigine who was born and bred in the jungle. Dad and I have
known him for many years. Although he is pretty old, I still think
he is even better than Ranga when it comes to jungle knowledge
and work. He is certainly a better tracker.

We motored back to Pennagram and then turned due west, to

cover another ten miles to a hamlet named Hogenaikal, on the
banks of the Cauvery river. There are some water-falls here which
have become famous for religious reasons, at least so far as the
Hindu faith is concerned. Years ago another very good shikari
lived here, who had at one time got into trouble with the
government through shooting an elephant on one of his poaching
trips. He also knew me from an early age, but he was now dead. A
mile from Hogenaikal is a village named Ootaimalai, where Dad
has a one-roomed brick hut which he used in the old days as a
camping place when game was plentiful in the area and he came
regularly on hunting trips. Conditions have changed since then,
however, and there is not much to shoot in the locality.

I left my car in front of his hut and in charge of the local Forest
Guard. Then I distributed all the kit I had brought between Ranga,
Byra and myself and we set out to cover the rest of the journey to
Bejahahai, about 9 ½ miles, on foot.

First we walked three miles down the road that led

northwestwards from Ootaimalai, along the banks of the Cauvery
river, towards a place named Biligundlu. At the third mile there is
a ferry across the river, and we had to use this to reach the
Alambadi cattle patti on the further bank. Incidentally, this ferry
is not a regular wooden boat, but a circular, basket-work affair,
perhaps eight feet in diameter, covered with tough buffalo-hide
and hardly drawing six inches of water. These leather-cum-
basketwork jobs are known locally as coracles. They are
controlled by one man with a short wooden paddle; he is highly
skilled in negotiating the strong river currents and in avoiding the
sharp edges of rocks that often lie just below the surface. When we
set foot on the opposite bank near Alambadi we were in Kollegal
taluk, which is a part of North Coimbatore district and has quite a
separate Forest Department administration. Alambadi was one of
the places at which this tiger had seriously mauled a man some
months earlier. I tried to get more information about the animal
from the herdsmen living in the patti, but I could gather very
little.
 Two facts were prominent, however. The first, that everyone
was terribly scared and walked about in fear of their lives. The
second, gained from those who had seen the man who had been
mauled, was that he had been severely clawed about his
shoulders, chest and back, but had not been bitten anywhere. The
poor fellow had since succumbed to his wounds as a result of blood
poisoning.

The place for which I was bound was the hamlet named
Bejahahai, on the eastern slopes of a mountain chain about ten
miles in length, running almost north and south, which has its
highest peak at a point named Ponachi Malai, about four miles
from the northern end. A stream called Gulyatha Halla rises
somewhere south of this chain and flows in a northeasterly
direction, joining the Cauvery river a little north of Alambadi.
There is a footpath from Alambadi to Bejahahai, which more or
less follows the tributary I have just mentioned for about five
miles, and then turns westwards for the remaining mile and a half
to Bejahahai. The three of us set out along this footpath. It was
close on three in the afternoon. The sun was really fierce, and
walking along the narrow and stony track was arduous. We
crossed the tributary about half-a-dozen times; it became
increasingly rocky and boulder-strewn as the land rose perceptibly
towards the mountain chain ahead.

Our trek was not altogether uneventful. We had practically

completed the first five miles and were at the last river-crossing
before the pathway left the stream to turn westwards to
Bejahahai, when we came upon a herd of elephants resting from
the heat beneath the shade of the muthee and tamarind trees that
grew along both banks of the tributary. They were not feeding at
the time and so we did not hear them, and as the breeze was
blowing down from the hills, past them and towards us, they did
not scent us. I was wearing rubber-soled boots, while Ranga and
Byra were barefooted. Hence they did not hear us coming, with
the result that we almost walked into their midst. Pandemonium
broke loose as the elephants scented and spotted us
simultaneously. As if to show how cowardly these huge beasts
really are, even when in large numbers—there might have been
about thirty in all—the herd rushed away headlong, the shrieks of
the frightened females being exceeded by the terrified trumpeting
of the tuskers. The piglike squeaking of the calves, bundling as fast
as they could at their mother’s heels added to the confusion. What
was most amusing was that the big tuskers, whom one might
expect to put up a rearguard action to protect the cows and
babies, actually jostled them aside and vied with one another in
showing a clean pair of heels. In a few moments, where there had
been many elephants and much noise, there was nothing but a
deep silence.

We reached our destination without further event at about five

in the evening. Although it was a comparatively long time till
sunset, the whole area was already in shade, for the sun had sunk
behind the frowning ridge of the mountain chain. The actual peak
of Ponachi Malai towered to the northwest, a little over a mile
away.

Bejahahai was like all jungle hamlets, and consisted of about a

dozen huts clustered together. Most of them had walls of thorn
and roofs of dried jungle grass, the thorns and the grass being kept
together with spliced bamboos tied with lenghts of dried jungle
vines. One or two of them, which were clearly ‘better-class’
buildings, had three foot walls of dried mud, plastered with cow
dung, but with the same roofing of jungle grass. The cattle-pens
which adjoined the rear of each hut had low walls of woven
bamboo, topped by a stockade of thorns. The latter were necessary
to keep out marauding panthers and tigers.

Our advent caused quite a stir. Two or three dozen men,

wearing nothing but wisps of rag around their loins, bare-breasted
women with tattered and torn sarees, and pot-bellied children,
affected by enlarged spleens owing to the ever-present malarial
mosquitoes, timidly stepped out of their huts or stood in the
doorways to watch us suspiciously and rather fearfully. One or
two of the men salaamed nervously.

We came to a stop in the centre of this group of hovels.

Obviously, if I expected them to answer questions, the first thing
to do was to set the inhabitants at ease. With that in view I judged
that Byra would be the best person to speak. For one thing he was
an aborigine himself, and these scared folk would understand him.
I knew from experience that Ranga was rather haughty towards
people whom he considered his social inferiors, and would call
them by such disparaging names as ‘jungle monkeys’ and ‘stupid
apes’. If I spoke to them myself they would perhaps become even
more nervous. Certainly they would not believe me.

I told Byra to introduce us. Never have I been so flattered as by

his words. Byra said that I was a great hunter who had shot
hundreds of tigers, elephants, panthers and similar insignificant
creatures, and that hearing of the plight of the inhabitants of
Bejahahai I had come many miles to deliver them. He said that an
essential contribution from them would be all the information
and help I could get. His speech was a bit long-winded, but I must
say it accomplished its purpose. Smiles crept over some of the faces
surrounding me. But anyway, the tension clearly eased.

I can speak Tamil and Hindustani, and understand some

Kanarese. Most of my hearers were Tamil, although I could make
out a few Sholagas who, like Byra, are aborigines and have
inhabited the Coimbatore forests from time immemorial. So at
this stage I took an active part in the proceedings by addressing
the gathering in Tamil. As simply as I could, I told the people that
my purpose was to rid them of the terrible menace that had come
into their lives. I also told them I was confident of success. There
was but one condition: that I should receive their unstinted and
active co-operation. I said that I expected every able-bodied man
in the village to assist me to the utmost. My simple speech
appeared to have the desired effect. Villagers in India do not
applaud by clapping their hands as do the people of the West. But
they do something as good, if not infinitely better. They smile,
even laugh in approval. The inhabitants of Bejahahai smiled
widely that evening.

Having won their goodwill, I began questioning them about the

tiger. I asked if any of them had seen him, if there was anything
distinctive about his methods or appearance, if he had any
particular or peculiar habits or any favourite locality in which he
was likely to be found. Several of the simple folk replied that they
had seen the man-eater, but from their generally contradictory
answers it was soon evident that either there were many different-
looking tigers about the place, or that the people were saying they
had seen this beast just to please me.

As one might expect, the majority proclaimed that he was an

animal of colossal dimensions, with a head about two feet in
diameter and a body at least twelve feet long. One or two of the
women who said they had glimpsed the marauder prowling near
the outskirts of the hamlet were emphatic that this was a tigress
and not a tiger. But in one respect they were all in close
agreement: that it would be quite useless for me to attempt to
shoot the man-eater. He, or she, was protected, they were
confident, by a forest goddess that sat astride the neck and
accompanied the animal on its hunting forays. Indeed, they were
quite sure that the goddess led the man-eater directly to each
unsuspecting victim.

While this harangue went on, I noticed that one man, who
squatted on the ground slightly apart and never so much as opened
his mouth, wore a rather cynical smile while the rest tried to
outdo one another in their wild statements. He was a middle-aged
fellow, clearly a Sholaga, and wore only the briefest of loin-cloths.
Thinking he might not understand the Tamil I spoke, I asked Byra
to question him.

But the man interrupted by saying: ‘I can understand you,

dorai, and I shall speak as soon as these liars around us have
stopped talking.’

Those words had a silencing effect and the throng ceased

jabbering at once. The Sholaga then began to speak and his words
were as unusual as they were dramatic.

‘For one thing, dorai,’ he said, ‘the man-eater is male and not
female. I know this for certain, for just three days ago, when I had
climbed up a tree to catch an oodumbu that was sheltering in it,
he came out of the jungle and calmly squatted down at the foot of
the tree, waiting for me to descend. I shouted at him and hurled
twigs, but he only growled and glared up at me menacingly. I
thought he would never go away, but towards midday, when the
sun reached its zenith and the waves of heat danced above the
ground, he became thirsty and suddenly walked off into the
jungle. I thought it was a trick and that he would be hiding in the
undergrowth, waiting for me to descend. So I remained in the tree
for another two hours. Just as I was wondering what I should do,
there was a great hubbub and a pack of about a dozen wild dogs
chased a sambar stag into the clearing beneath my tree and tore
him to bits in a few moments. Then they started feeding on the
carcass. This I knew was my only chance. No tiger, not even a
man-eater, will dare to show itself in the face of a pack of wild
dogs. If I came down from the tree and made my escape the dogs
would not harm me, while the chances were that the tiger had
fled long ago.

‘So I did that, dorai. The dogs stopped feeding, stood up, and
looked at me inquiringly. But not one of them ran away. It was as
if instinct told them I was unarmed and helpless and that they
could kill me if they wanted. And while they were still looking at
me I stole off and managed to return to the hamlet without harm,
although I do admit I was terribly afraid, once I got away from the
presence of the wild dogs which had actually been the means of
saving my life, as I was sure the man-eater would have returned to
the vicinity after slaking his thirst in one of the few remaining
pools that are fast drying up in the streambed.

‘Well, dorai, I saw the animal clearly. It is not such a big tiger as
these people try to make out, but only of average size. But it has
quite a long tail. I noticed that particularly, as it kept twitching it
from side to side while glaring up at me. And that glance, dorai! I
have never seen such diabolical hatred in the eyes of any living
creature as I saw in the eyes of that tiger.’

‘How is it that you did not return and tell the other villagers
what you had seen?’ I asked suspiciously.

The Sholaga remained silent for a while. Then he said: ‘There is

a reward for the death of this animal. I intended borrowing my
uncle’s muzzle-loading gun and trying to shoot it. My uncle is due
back in this village the day after tomorrow. I wanted the reward,
for I am a poor man. Nor would I have told you about the
incident, but my stomach was turned at hearing the silly tales
these villagers have been telling you.’

A murmer of anger and protest rippled through the throng, but

the Sholaga continued. ‘This tiger has no magic nor goddess to
protect it, dorai. But it does have brains, much more brains than
most of the people standing here. However, if the dorai is really in
earnest and means to shoot it, I will help him. For I have brains,
too; more brains than the tiger or these folk around us.’

And that was how I made the acquaintance of Lotta the Sholaga
—outspoken and unusually arrogant and self-opinionated for a
simple aborigine. But as I was to find out very soon, he knew his
jungle and its inhabitants intimately, and he was a tremendously
brave man, too. I told him I would welcome all the assistance he
could give me, whereupon, in token of agreement, he came and
stood at the side of the two henchmen I had brought along with
me.

As there was little more information to be gained from the

inhabitants of the hamlet, I led my three followers into the jungle
for about a furlong, where we squatted on the ground to work out
a plan of action. By the time all this talk was at an end another
forty minutes had elapsed: it was exactly 5.40 p.m. It was too late
to tie out live baits, an operation which includes the complex but
very essential task of selecting the most likely places in which to
tether them, and the erecting of machans in advance, if possible,
at those same places, so as not to cause a disturbance later on,
should a kill have been made.

Lotta told us that the tiger’s pug-marks were frequently to be

seen in the morning, leading across the dry sands of the Gulyatha
Halla stream, and that these tracks were invariably found just
south of a hillock about 500 feet high that rose sharply from the
left-hand or northwestern bank of the stream, a little over a mile
away, coming from the same direction as we had that very
evening. In fact, the pathway we had followed to Bejahahai, after
leaving the stream, had passed this same hillock on its northern
side. He told us there was a small cave near the top of the hillock
in which he believed the man-eater lay up during the day.
Although the whole hillock was clearly visible from the bed of the
stream five hundred feet below to the southeast, Lotta said the
cave itself was hidden from view by a large intervening boulder.
According to him, the lower two-thirds of the hillock were
covered with jungle, but the higher slopes were comparatively
bare, consisting of tumbled boulders, piled on top of each other.
Therefore, anyone approaching the cave would be at a
disadvantage. Not only would he be visible to the tiger from
above, but however silently a man might climb he was bound to
make some sort of noise in negotiating the rough terrain and in
jumping from boulder to boulder, or in trying to pass between
them.

We asked Lotta what made him think the tiger used the cave on
the hillock as a shelter. He answered that, apart from the
frequency of the tracks that crossed the riverbed and seemed to
come from the hill and lead back to it, he had several times heard
the langur monkey’s cries of alarm on the hill, generally too. Also,
about four nights ago, a tiger had called from somewhere on the
hillside.

Byra pointed out that none of these happenings in themselves

conclusively proved that the man-eater lived on the hill, but that
all the facts put together, plus the presence of the concealed cave
Lotta had mentioned, suggested it might be so. The only way of
settling the question was to climb the hill and investigate the
cave, if possible. So we determined that early next morning we
would procure two live baits and tie one of them on the streambed
to the southeast of the hillock, where the tracks appeared so often,
and the other on the footpath along which we had just come, and
which, as I have already told you, passed the hill on the northern
side. In addition, just after midday, when the sun was at its
hottest, I determined to climb the hill and try to find the cave. In
doing so it was possible that I might stumble across additional
evidence that the tiger lived there. There was also a slim chance
that I might catch a glimpse of it—perhaps even be able to get in a
shot.

Daylight was fading fast by the time all this was discussed and
settled, and so we withdrew to Bejahahai to camp for the night.
The problem of accommodation arose. I had brought no tent with
me because of the extra weight to be carried on our long march.
Besides, it was the last week of March, when not only is the
weather very dry but growing uncomfortably hot. Dad and I
generally camp under the trees at all times except monsoons.
Lotta offered us the use of his hut. It would have been rude to
refuse, but as I stood at the tiny, low entrance and looked into the
small, dark and rather smelly interior without ventilation of any
kind, I politely but firmly said that sleep would not come to me in
such a warm and enclosed place, and that I would prefer to sleep
outside. Now anyone who has tried to sleep in close proximity to
any hamlet in southern India will at once agree with me that it is
well-nigh impossible. Not only is the ground covered with refuse
and filth of every description, but it is freely used as a latrine by
the inhabitants after darkness has fallen. So to avoid the refuse we
walked to an open spot about 150 yards away and decided to sleep
there for the night. Lotta said he would stay with us, and I lay on
the ground while my three followers gathered wood and soon had
a fire burning merrily.

The first item on the programme was to brew some tea, and
while the water was boiling I ate a little of the cold salt beef and
chappaties I had brought from home. Then, as I sipped the hot tea,
I listened to the tales my three friends had to tell me. And indeed I
was happy. The starry sky above, as it began to pale with the glow
from the rising moon, the flashes of fireflies against the sombre
background of jungle trees, the towering and serrated outline of
the Ponnachai Betta mountain chain to the west, the homely
flickering light of our camp-fire with its slumber-inviting warmth,
and the wisps of smoke that curled and eddied and finally
disappeared in the darkness—all contributed towards that
happiness.

Ranga and Byra had been taught to read the time from a watch,
so at eight o’clock I took off my wristwatch and handed it to
Ranga, instructing him to remain awake and alert, and to feed the
fire till ten-thirty. Then he was to awaken Byra whose guard-duty
would extend till one. Then came my own turn, till three-thirty.
Finally, I would hand over the responsibility to Lotta (who did not
know how to read the time) till the dawn came at six.

I fell asleep immediately and awoke only when Byra gently

shook me by the shoulder at one o’clock. I saw that the other two
men were fast asleep and Byra soon joined them. The fire had died
down to a few embers and there was not much wood left to keep it
alive. Finally, despite the season, it became decidedly chilly. My
watch passed uneventfully. An elephant trumpeted in the
distance, and a sambar stag called three or four times closer by.
But the calls were not of sufficient duration to indicate the passing
of a carnivore. Perhaps something smaller had frightened him, for
the stag soon got over his fear and fell quiet. I began to feel sleepy
again and was glad when my watch showed three-thirty. I awoke
Lotta, whispered to him to husband the few remaining sticks so as
to keep the embers alight till dawn, and fell asleep once more.

It was past six-thirty when I awoke to find my three assistants

busy with a large fire they had built, on top of which I was glad to
see the kettle boiling for tea. Then we set to work in real earnest.
By dint of much bargaining, I managed to hire two brown bulls for
ten rupees apiece. The man who hired them made it plain that he
could not sell the animals outright, since he was not their owner.
The true owner lived in a faraway village and had entrusted him
with some thirty-five head of cattle for grazing over a period of six
months. His salary for this was three rupees a month (4s. 6d.) plus
as much milk as he might want to drink. No wonder he was
tempted to hire them to me for a few nights for twenty rupees,
which represented almost seven months pay. But he made it clear
that if either of the animals was killed I would have to pay a
hundred rupees in compensation. In addition, nobody should be
told he had lent the animals for bait. He would tell the owner that
the bull had been killed by a tiger while grazing. No doubt the
owner would fine him by stopping two or three months’ pay, but
as he had received a hundred rupees from me, he would make a
profit of at least ninety rupees. Such is the simple logic of an
otherwise honest jungle-man.

We retraced our steps along the path by which we had reached

Bejahahai the previous evening, and after covering a little over a
mile found ourselves just to the north of the hillock Lotta had
described. Just as he had said, more than half of the lower portion
was jungle-clad, but beyond that the hill was bare of vegetation
except for a few thorny bushes between the piles of boulders.

A tamarind tree beside the track provided an ideal site for the
first machan, to be tied some fifteen feet above the ground, which
is about the ideal height. We tethered one of the bulls by a foreleg
to a stake driven into the ground in the middle of the path; then
my companions set to work on making a machan. As all three of
them were well skilled in jungle-craft, I did not have to tell them
what to do. Indeed, the completed structure, which took about
seventy-five minutes to erect, was a work of art and so well
camouflaged that it was barely visible even from a distance of
thirty feet.

From the tamarind tree we followed Lotta along a short cut

through the jungle and reached the stream (Gulyatha Halla)
within half a mile. Turning up-stream for another quarter mile,
we found ourselves due southeast of the hillock and at the place
which Lotta had described the evening before. His story needed no
corroboration, for within a few minutes Ranga found a fresh set of
tiger pug-marks leading across the sands of the tributary. Clearly
the tiger that had made them the night before had descended from
the hillock. A few yards away a half-grown plumfig tree provided
another suitable place for the second machan to be tied. An hour
and a half later this had been done, and we tethered the second
bull to a stake driven into the bank of the stream just below the
tree.

It was now past noon and the next step in our campaign was for
me to climb the hillock and try to locate the cave. As far as the
two live baits were concerned, there was nothing more to be done
except to hope that the tiger would kill and eat one or other of
them during the coming night—or the night after that.

Quite a sharp argument arose among my three retainers as to

which one of them should accompany me, each of the three
insisting that it was his particular duty. Ranga was very emphatic,
claiming he had carried me when I was two months old and so had
known me longest. Byra was equally insistent, saying that when it
came to ‘smelling’ a tiger at close quarters, he was the most
competent, and that therefore he would be of the most use to me.
Lotta, although only recruited the day before, claimed that clearly
he was the most eligible as he alone knew the position of the cave.

Obviously the man to take with me was Lotta, for his claim was
the most justifiable. But here a tricky situation arose. The
complexities of the eastern mind are somewhat difficult to fathom
at times, and I well knew that, if I chose the new man to come
with me, I would deeply wound the feelings, pride and affections
of my two old henchmen. And to select either one of them in
preference to the other, would cause even deeper hurt to the one
left behind. So I made up my mind quickly. There was nothing for
it but to go alone.
 I announced my decision as nonchalantly as possible and asked
Lotta to indicate, from where we stood, the approximate position
of the hidden cave. A renewed outburst was the result, all three
proclaiming that such an undertaking was extremely dangerous.
In fact, realizing my embarrassing position in having to choose
between them, all three volunteered to step down to allow me to
choose between the other two. But this did not make matters any
easier. I still had to pick on one of the three to the detriment of the
remaining two. Besides, having said I intended to climb the hill
alone, to change my mind now would show that I was afraid. So I
said very firmly that I had made my decision: I would go alone.

Rather sheepishly Lotta pointed out a boulder standing a few

yards from the summit of the hillock, and told me that the
entrance to the cave lay right behind it. He suggested that, rather
than approach the cave from directly below, I would do well to
climb the hill at an angle till I reached the top, and then creep
along the summit till I could overlook the cave, which I ought to
have no difficulty in finding if I kept the boulder as a marker.

With these instructions in mind I said no more, but crossed the

stream to the opposite bank and began the ascent. The jungle that
clothed the lower two-thirds of the hill effectively shielded my
approach if the tiger happened to be lying near the entrance to the
cave. By the same token, it hid the tiger in case he happened to be
lying in the undergrowth, waiting for me to come near enough to
spring upon me.

I went forward very warily, intently scanning every thicket and

bush ahead. Of necessity my progress in this fashion was rather
slow, so that it was some time before I saw that the undergrowth
was becoming perceptibly thinner as I approached the higher part
of the hill where the boulders predominated. But at last I reached
it, only to find that I was now considerably worse off than when
negotiating the jungle-clad area. I was clearly visible to any
watcher from above. The tiger could creep down upon me, and
merely by lying in wait behind one of the boulders he could
pounce upon me as I drew abreast; or he could wait for me to pass
and then attack from the rear. But having committed myself to the
task, there was nothing for it but to go on.

Some of the boulders were quite large, being ten feet high or
more. Others were small, about three feet high. In many cases it
was difficult to pass between or around the smaller ones as they
were jumbled together. Often I had to climb on to one and jump
from it to the next. That made me very conspicuous from above.
Besides, I was bound to make some noise in my movements, in
spite of my rubber-soled boots and the infinite caution I exercised.
At this stage I regretted my foolhardiness and began to wish that I
had brought one of my companions with me.

However, my luck held out and at last I stood on top of the

hillock, almost at its right end. I had now to creep along the
summit towards the other end till I came in sight of the boulder
that hid the entrance to the cave. This I did, standing on tiptoe
from time to time to see if I could see the boulder. But a fresh
difficulty arose. From my position I could only see the top of each
boulder and not its base, which was hidden from my view by the
curvature of the hillside. And there were so many boulders that I
had no means of identifying the one that Lotta had indicated. In
this dilemma I still advanced, when quite unexpectedly the
problem was solved for me.

Suddenly a large grey shape shot out from behind a rock just in
front of me and bounded away. Startled out of my wits and
thinking it was the tiger, I had raised my .470 to my shoulder.
Then I saw that it was a solitary langur monkey. He leapt from
rock to rock towards the other end of the hill and in a few
moments had disappeared from view. The langur’s presence
seemed very reassuring. Had a tiger been in the vicinity, I knew
quite well that the monkey would not have been there. More
rapidly, and with less caution, I advanced towards the place
where the langur had vanished.

Then a strange thing happened. The langur gave a cry of alarm;

‘Har! Har! Haar!’ The next instant he reappeared and came
bounding back. In a series of prodigious leaps from rock to rock, he
dashed past and was lost to sight behind me.

Now why had the langur called in alarm? Why had he dashed
back so wildly, almost on top of me?

More cautiously I approached the spot where the monkey had

reappeared. As I drew nearer to the end of the hill and could look
over the edge, I caught sight of the upper half of a boulder. It came
more into view as I advanced, till soon I could see it wholly, and
then I knew it was the boulder that Lotta had indicated from the
streambed. I was standing at that moment above the cave itself.
The realization came to me in a flash. The langur had cried out
and bounded back because he had probably seen the tiger lying at
the entrance of the cave, or had come to realize the proximity of
his age-old foe. The question that now arose was whether the tiger
was outside or inside the cave, and the only way to find an answer
was to go still closer.

So I crept forward, inch by inch, till I came to the edge of the

hill and the land fell away sharply before my feet. Dropping to my
hands and knees and craning forwards, I was at last able to see the
entrance to the cave—a narrow opening in the rock, which I
judged to be about five feet high and perhaps a yard wide. No tiger
was to be seen. I pondered what I should do next. I was tempted to
call out or to throw down a pebble, in order to make the tiger
charge out and so show himself. But I curbed myself in time. The
tiger might not be at home. Moreover, stone-throwing would
needlessly frighten him. He might come out from a second cave
connected with the first, of which Lotta knew nothing, and then
just run away to some other part of the forest, where the job of
coming to grips with him would have to be started all over again.
All said and done the wisest course seemed to be not to give myself
away or to frighten him, but to withdraw quietly and let events—
in the form of his taking one or other of the two baits—take their
own course.

So, as silently as I had come, and glancing back every now and
again against a surprise attack from the rear, I retraced my
footsteps to the point where I had first reached the summit of the
hillock, and continued down the further side till, eventually, I
stood among my followers on the bed of the stream. We remained
in camp that evening so as not to disturb the jungle unnecessarily
and made a point of going to sleep early, although we continued
to keep watch, one at a time, just as we had done the previous
night. This time we took the precaution of gathering in advance a
large pile of brushwood, among which were some quite big logs, so
that the question of having to husband our stock should not be
repeated.

Dawn found us on the way to examine our first bait— the bull
we had tied on the pathway leading to the hamlet. He was well
and unharmed. Nor were any pug-marks to be seen along the
track. We followed the same short cut to the stream and our
second bait. But that animal was also alive, but with this
difference: casting around, we found that the tiger had seen him.
He had come as close as fifteen yards, squatted on the streambed
and closely scrutinized the animal, no doubt wondering whether
he should kill it or not. And then, for some unaccountable reason,
he had just walked away. His pug-marks on the soft river sand told
us the story as clearly as if we had been watching him.

With nothing to do, we returned to the hamlet to find that

Lotta’s uncle had turned up on schedule, bringing his matchlock
with him. The presence of the gun (not of the uncle) urged Lotta
into action. He put before me an idea which had his definite
recommendation. Rather than spend a third night in camp, doing
nothing, he strongly advocated I should beg, borrow or steal two
more cattle for bait and tie them at the two remaining sides of the
hill which were roughly to its east and west, and that I should sit
over one of them, while he did the same with his uncle’s
matchlock over the fourth bait. He reasoned that, as the tiger had
closely approached but not taken one of the first two baits, having
clearly become suspicious, it was very likely he might do the same
with baits numbers three and four if he came upon them after
descending from the cave on the hillock. So Lotta suggested that I
should sit over the live bait to the west, while he sat over the bait
to the east. Then either of us might find a chance of shooting the
tiger while he was examining the bait. Of course, if the tiger
happened to kill either of these two new baits it would be all the
better for us in ensuring an easy shot.

By nature I am a restless person and the idea of remaining

inactive day and night while waiting in the hope that the tiger
would take one of the first two baits did not appeal to me at all.
Several times I had toyed with the idea of trying to flush him out
of his cave, but Byra and Ranga had cautioned me against the
plan in case we succeeded only in frightening the tiger away.
Under these circumstances I welcomed any plan that savoured of
action and immediately fell in with Lotta’s idea. Entrusting him
with the task of procuring two more bulls, and that quickly, I
began to prepare a hasty lunch out of some of the tinned
provisions I had brought with me.

Lotta succeeded more quickly than I expected and by noon

turned up with a half-grown black bull and a buffalo heifer. The
four of us soon set forth with Ranga and Byra carrying my
greatcoat, water-bottle, sandwiches and an empty beer bottle
filled with tea. There was also my torch equipment, which could
be fastened to my rifle with two clamps. Lotta brought up the rear,
driving the bull and the heifer.
 I admit I acted rather selfishly in choosing the eastern side of the
hillock in preference to the western, as suggested by Lotta, as I had
reasoned the tiger was more likely to approach in this direction,
since it overlooked the stream. I also selected the buffalo heifer in
preference to the black bull as tigers are sometimes rather shy of a
fully black animal. Secondly, having refused one of the baits last
night—a bull—I hoped the tiger would not refuse a young buffalo.

Next came the task of finding a suitable place in which to sit,

and this presented some difficulty as the jungle growth on the
lower two-thirds of the hill consisted mainly of bushes, grass and
trees that were neither high enough nor strong enough to bear my
weight in a machan. I was soon forced to face the fact that there
was no suitable spot whatever on this part of the hill, unless I was
prepared to sit on the ground in a bush, which would be very
hazardous.

The idea then came to me to climb a little higher, among the

rocks that were piled in profusion on the upper slopes. We did so,
and in a little while came across a formation that seemed to suit
my purpose admirably. Two boulders, each over twelve feet high,
touched a third wedged in between them and a little higher than
the first two being about fifteen feet high. The three rocks were at
an angle to one another of slightly less than ninety degrees. The
space in front was open and overlooked the hillside and the
Gulyatha Halla rivulet below. If I sat at the base of the centre and
highest of the three rocks, after getting my retainers to cut thorns
and wedge them firmly into the spaces between the bases of the
three rocks, I would be quite safe against attack from the rear. To
get at me the tiger would have to jump on to one or other of the
three rocks, which he could easily do, but even then I would not
be directly visible to him owing to the curvature of the boulders.
He would have to leap down into the amphitheatre in the centre
first, and then turn to find and attack me, which would leave me
time enough for a shot.
 The only other way in which he could get at me would be to
come around from the exposed area in front, where I intended to
tether my buffalo heifer, at a spot about fifteen yards away. I
reasoned that, even if the tiger discovered my presence and had
brains enough to sneak around the outer edge of the rocks, he
would find the heifer confronting him, which would be a definite
deterrent. He might make up his mind to kill it; he might walk
around to inspect it; but its presence would definitely confuse him
and confuse his original plan of attack. Lastly, the buffalo would
be visible to the tiger from the top of the hill and would serve to
attract him. Of course, if he tried to creep through one or other of
the spaces between the rocks, he would need to clear away the
thorns and the noise would afford me ample warning.

I was therefore very pleased at my good fortune in finding such

an excellent and comparatively safe hiding-place. I explained my
plan to my three companions, who unanimously agreed that it
was a really good one. While I sat at the entrance keeping guard
over them with my rifle, they scurried a short way down the hill
and came back carrying quantities of cut thorns, which they
proceeded to wedge tightly into gaps at the base of the boulders.
Finally they tethered the heifer by its forefoot to a stake they
hammered into the earth at a spot exactly twenty paces from
where I was going to sit.

It now remained to find a suitable place on the other side of the

hill for Lotta to hide in with his uncle’s ancient matchlock. I
wanted to help in this and so, rather than walk directly across the
hill from where we stood, or climb over its crest as a short cut,
when in either case the tiger might see or hear us and take alarm,
we descended to the base of the hill in single file and made a
detour, walking along the streambed for a short distance and then
through the intervening jungle, led by Lotta, before climbing the
hillock again on the opposite face.
 The conditions here were exactly the same as on the eastern
side. There was no tree big enough for a machan on the lower
slopes and so we climbed higher, into the zone of the rocks and
boulders. It was too much to expect to find such an ideal ‘hide’ as
the one I had secured, and after clambering over and stumbling in
between the heaped rocks, Lotta finally selected an almost flat
slab of rock that was slightly higher on the end that raced the
summit or the hillock. He said that this was all to the good, and
that he would lie prone on top of the rock and tie the black bull in
front of the higher end, from where it would be in uninterrupted
view of the tiger, whose cave was around the corner or shoulder of
the hill, out of sight of the flat rock and considerably higher up.

It was now about 4 p.m. and too late for us to go back to camp.
The upper surface of the flat rock, being to the west of the hillock
and directly exposed to the rays of the afternoon sun had become
far too hot for Lotta to take up his position immediately. So we all
helped in tethering the black bull, and then left Lotta with his
matchlock sheltering in the shade on the lee side of his rock. He
said he would climb up at about five-thirty, as soon as the rock
had cooled.

Once more Ranga, Byra and I slithered down the hill, detoured
through the jungle and down the bed of the stream, and came to
the place where I would have to start climbing to regain the three
rocks where I was going to sit. Here I parted company with my two
servants, after giving them strict instructions that they should
return to the hamlet and remain there till morning, when I would
come back to them.

It was a few minutes after five when I got back to my hiding-

place. The heifer, quite undisturbed, was resting on the ground,
half asleep. The sun had already sunk below the crest of the
hillock to the west, so that it was comparatively cool at the foot of
the rocks and entirely in the shade, particularly as I was sitting to
the east of them and had the rocks between me and the ridge of
the hill over which, as I have just said, the sun had already set.
There being no jungle in the immediate vicinity, hardly any
sounds reached me other than the distant twittering of the
hundreds of bulbuls that fed on the clusters of blue-black lantana
berries at the foot of the hill. Lower yet was the belt of greenery
which denoted the tamarind, muthee and jumlum trees bordering
the stream. From that direction I heard the occasional cries of
jungle fowl and spurfowl as the cock-birds sent out their evening
challenges to their rivals before settling down for the night.

It grew quite dark soon after six o’clock, although I could still
see the trees that grew along both banks of the stream far below
me, the scrub jungle in the middle distance, and the heifer only
twenty yards away. I remember comparing the scene to a picture
on a cinema-screen, where the spectator in the audience sits in
darkness while the screen is illuminated. But very soon that
picture faded, too; and then all around me was a dense, heavy
blackness, relieved only by the few stars that twinkled directly
overhead. The rocks around me seemed to shut me in from the
usual and pleasant sounds of the jungle.

Then, just as my watch showed ten minutes past eight, the

silence was rudely shattered by a sudden, distant, wailing scream,
followed in a second or two by the deep boom of a muzzle-loading
gun. Then there was complete silence till, in another half minute,
a distant sambar doe, somewhere in the valley below, as startled
by the sounds as I had been, began to utter her resonant cry of
alarm, that echoed and re-echoed down and across the dells and
the jungle-clad aisles of the forest, to fade into nothingness in the
mountain fastnesses.

I sprang to my feet. Without doubt something terrible had

happened to poor Lotta. The weird cry I had heard, although it
had sounded inhuman, could only have come from his lips. The
report of a muzzle-loader, quite distinct to experienced ears from
that of a rifle or breech-loading gun, could only have emanated
from the ancient musket he was carrying. The fact that the scream
had come first indicated that Lotta had either been attacked or
severely frightened and then had fired in self-defence. But Lotta
was not the sort of man to be easily frightened.

It was doubtful whether Ranga and Byra, back at the hamlet

over a mile away, would have heard the musket-shot, particularly
as it came from the other side of the hill. They would certainly not
have heard the scream. And I had emphatically instructed them
not to leave the village. So there was but one thing to do—and at
once. I would have to go to Lotta myself, and see what aid I could
give him.

With the help of the torch that was clamped to my rifle I

stumbled downhill through the scrub jungle to the bed of the
stream, up which I ran for a short distance. I did not know the
short cut leading across the belt of jungle to the spot at the foot of
the hillock from where we had started climbing to reach the flat
rock, for it was the Sholaga himself who had led us along that
path. So I followed the only alternative, which was to cut across
from the stream to the foot of the hillock towards the west, and
start climbing in a half-left direction that would, sooner or later,
bring me within hearing-distance of the injured man, who would
answer me if he was still alive.

I felt myself trembling with excitement and nervousness as I

forced myself to climb upwards through the scrub belt, flashing
the beam of the torch from side to side in fear that the man-eater
might ambush me at any moment. Finally the scrub petered out
and those awful rocks began. I could see the top of the hillock
outlined against the starry sky and, keeping this to my half-right, I
pressed forward as best I could in that difficult terrain. In a few
moments, judging that I was within earshot of Lotta, I began to
call his name as loudly as I could, conscious as I did so that I might
succeed in accomplishing one of two things—either in driving the
man-eater away or in attracting him to me.
 For quite a long while there was no answer to my calls. Then I
heard a feeble groan. I stopped walking to catch the direction from
which the sound had come, and shouted again: ‘Lotta, where are
you? Answer me, and I will come to you.’

I heard a subdued moan, followed in a few seconds by a faint

cry, ’ Dorai , I am here. I can see your light. You are going too high
up the hill. Walk forward, but come a little lower.’

The voice had seemed to come from very far away, but I
stumbled on Lotta within a hundred yards. He had fallen to the
base of the rock on which he had been lying, but had managed to
cling to his matchlock, although he could not reload it. The
Sholaga had been badly clawed down his back, buttocks and
thighs. Very fortunately he had not been bitten.

In a whisper he told me that the tiger had evidently seen him

from somewhere on top of the hill and had worked around to the
rear, while he had been lying on the sloping rock facing uphill,
where we had tied the black bull. Without warning it had sprung
on to the rock from behind and then had jumped on to his back
and begun to claw him. Unable to turn around or point his
weapon, he had just pressed his finger on the trigger. The roar of
the explosion, and no doubt the flame and smoke from the black
powder, had evidently frightened the beast, for it had sprung
away, knocking him off the rock in doing so. Lotta had been lying
at the foot of the boulder, expecting the man-eater to return at
any moment, when he had seen the light from my torch and heard
me calling his name. Had he fallen to the left of the rock instead
of to its right, it would have come between him and me, and he
would never have been able to see my light.

A closer examination by torchlight revealed that, although

severely and deeply clawed, and bleeding profusely, no very
serious or dangerous wound had been inflicted. The man was
obviously suffering from severe shock and was in great pain, but
there was no trace of a bite.

I pointed out to him that we would have to get back to the

hamlet somehow, as no help would reach us till morning. At first
Lotta said he could not stand, but as the effects of shock wore off I
drew him to his feet; after abandoning his matchlock, which he
was loth at first to do, he clung to my neck with both hands. I
supported him with my left arm while I held my rifle, with the
torch still alight, in my right hand. In this manner we began a
nightmare journey down the hill.

With difficulty, and only after a long time, we reached the

streambed, where Lotta collapsed with exhaustion. From there I
carried him on my shoulders, fireman’s lift fashion, and by the
time we got back to the hamlet I was dead beat, while the cells of
my torch, that had been burning for so long, had grown very dim.

We awoke the inhabitants and all became a bustle of

excitement as hot water was prepared. I then washed the
Sholaga’s wounds as best I could and poured on to them raw
crystals of potassium permanganate, followed by iodine. It was
crude treatment, I knew, and he groaned with pain. Finally, I
injected the contents of two phials of penicillin procaine, which
totalled eight lakh units, into his buttocks. Dad and I always
make a point of carrying a hypodermic syringe, penicillin, iodine,
a sharp knife, bandages, cottonwool and other items of first aid on
our shikar trips, to meet such emergencies.

It was past 3 a.m. when I told the headman of the hamlet that
he would have to press eight able-bodied men into service early
next morning to carry Lotta on a charpoy to the Cauvery river
and, after crossing by ferry, on the Ootaimalai, from where I
would take him in my car to the hospital at Pennagram.
 I was falling asleep from sheer exhaustion when Byra came to
me with a dramatic idea. ‘Dorai,’ he said, ‘let us make a last
attempt to kill this tiger. After being frightened by the explosion
from the muzzle-loader it has probably gone back to its cave and is
hiding there. You go to sleep now. I will call you when the
junglecocks begin to crow. We will go back to the stream and
climb the hill as day breaks. You creep along the top till you reach
the point at which the langur sprang back, overlooking the
entrance to the cave. After allowing you sufficient time to get into
position, I will come along the hill from one side and momentarily
show myself before the cave. The tiger, provided it is inside, will
probably growl first before he attacks, which he will then do by
charging out. I will step back and hide flat against the rock so as
not to get in the way. You shoot him through the back from above,
with both barrels of your rifle. I have spoken.’

‘Nonsense,’ I began remonstrating, when Byra broke in: ‘Go to

sleep now quickly, dorai; you have hardly two hours in which to
take some rest.’

And I was so tired that I fell asleep before I could argue.

Promptly at five Byra awoke me, and true to his promise I could
hear the junglecocks crowing, although it was quite dark outside.
Still undecided as to whether I was being wise or foolish, I
followed him. The torch gave out long before we reached the bed
of the stream. Believe it or not, although I had been most careful
to check all the equipment I had brought with me from Bangalore,
this most important item— extra torch batteries—had been
overlooked. But I had the utmost confidence in my old jungle
friend, Byra, and so I kept behind him as we groped through the
heavy belt of trees and eventually found ourselves on the dry
sands of the stream. Here we sat for another half-an-hour, till
dawn began to break. Then I removed the torch and the clamps
from the barrel of my rifle, as these would now be a needless
impediment, rechecked the rounds in the two barrels of my .470,
and began to follow Byra up the hill.

When we had almost reached the top, he took me by the arm

and whispered: ‘You go on from here, dorai. Make no sound
whatever. Creep along till you reach the summit. Then turn to
your left and continue until you are directly above the cave. Lie
down there and be ready with your finger on the trigger. I will give
you plenty of time before I show myself. When you shoot, fire both
barrels to make sure.’

Then, without another word he disappeared behind a boulder.

With many misgivings I did as the little old man had told me. To
reach the top of the hill and work my way along the ridge to the
left was easy enough. But to recollect the very spot to which I had
followed the langur monkey was a very different matter. Thrice I
misjudged the place and, looking down from above, saw no cave.
Then I remembered the rather tapering boulder that served to hide
the cave-entrance from sight when standing on the streambed. At
last I spotted it, and keeping it in view as a marker, soon
recognized the exact place from which I had overlooked the
mouth of the cave after the langur monkey had rushed back. Once
more the cave was directly below me.

Now another thought began to worry me. Had Byra given me

enough time to allow for the three mistakes I had made in finding
the place? I had heard no sound, so nothing could have happened.
Silently I lay down on the bare rock above, so that the muzzle of
my rifle overhung the narrow entrance to the cave. And there I
waited and waited. But still Byra did not appear.

Then abruptly, before ever I was aware of his proximity, the

little man came into view from below and to the left of me.
Calmly but gingerly, so as to make no sound before the right
moment had come, he walked towards the narrow cave-mouth,
stood before it, kicked a loose stone with his foot, and cleared his
throat. Like lightning, after that, he nipped back the way he had
come and disappeared from my view behind a ledge to the left.

Events followed quickly. The ground on which I lay seemed to

rumble as if with an approaching earthquake as the tiger growled
within the cave below me. Then he roared loudly, and the next
second had dashed into view from out of the very bowels of the
earth.

As the man-eater hesitated for a moment, not knowing where

the man who had so impertinently disturbed his privacy had gone,
my first shot took him behind the neck. He somersaulted and fell
on his back, the white of his belly turned towards me—all four
legs threshing the air wildly. My second shot went through his
chest.

He had hardly stopped twitching when Byra reappeared around

the corner, and with hands on hips smiled up at me broadly, the
smile of one whose plan of campaign has worked out to perfection.
In great excitement, I slid down the rock from above, arriving in a
most undignified manner, all of a heap, at Byra’s feet and
uncomfortably close to the tiger which we were both not quite
certain was really dead. There we waited for about five minutes.
Then Byra threw a stone that glanced off the animal without
bringing any response. That told us what we wanted to know; the
tiger was dead.

And now the moment for unlocking the secret which had
puzzled Dad and me and a host of others for practically five years.
Why had this tiger formed the habit of scratching and clawing,
rather than biting, its human victims when it first attacked them?

The mystery was solved at last when we examined the dead

animal. The whole of its nose had been blown away by an old
gunshot wound, probably caused by a .12 shot-gun or perhaps a
muzzle-loader, which had also shattered the bone at the bridge,
extending from the nostrils to between the eyes. What must have
been a ghastly and extremely painful injury had healed
marvellously, but the tiger had doubtless never forgotten to
associate that terrible wound with the human race, and so had
taken great care to keep the organ out of the way and safe from
possible harm every time he attacked a man. This could be the
only explanation, as such cattle as had been killed by this tiger
had been done to death in the normal manner, with teeth as well
as his claws. Besides, he had eaten normally. The wound, as I
could see, had healed perfectly. Therefore it was very unlikely
that he still suffered pain in the act of biting. Assuredly, but for
this injury, he would have remained like any normal tiger, quite
harmless to the human race.

In great exultation we hurried back to the hamlet and told the

good news. Lotta was loud in his congratulations. Every man,
woman and child of Bejahahai turned out and climbed the hill to
see the dead man-eater for themselves.

It was a joyful procession that walked back to Ootaimalai a

little later, with Lotta on a charpoy carried by eight men, and the
skin of the tiger, rolled in a bundle, on Byra’s head. Although the
jolting must have caused the Sholaga considerable pain he never
complained or murmured once, but was garrulous in his praise of
me as the slayer of the tiger, and of the little old poojaree, Byra,
whose jungle cunning had brought about its end and whose
fearlessness had flushed the man-eater from its den.

I felt guilty for having delayed the medical attention that would
otherwise have been rendered Lotta earlier by my action in going
back for the tiger. But I am glad to say he made a quick and easy
recovery. Nothing Byra did could have raised him higher in my
estimation. My admiration for him was at its peak. Old Ranga was
a bit crestfallen that his competitor had managed to steal a march
over him on this occasion. But the two of them, joined now by
Lotta, are always awaiting us as faithful friends, companions and
assistants, ready to serve Dad and myself at any time.

_____________
1 See: Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers.
The Tiger Roars

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Dedication

To the Old India, where I lived in happiness for so many years; and
to the New India, in her venture for freedom and democracy and a
new way of life.
 Acknowledgement

Once again I place on record my unbounded gratitude to Malcolm

Barnes and those others of George Allen and Unwin Ltd., whose
names I do not know, who have spent time and trouble in editing
my manuscript and turning it into a book. To them I say: ‘Pardon
my shortcomings, and thank you’.
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. The Novice of Manchi
2. The Lame Horror of Peddacheruvu
3. The Queer Side of Things
4. The Dumb Man-eater of Talavadi
5. The Killer of the Wynaad
6. The Man-Hater of Talainovu
7. Sher Khan and the Bettamugalam Man-eater
 Introduction

REFACES are not popular and are seldom read. After all, a
P reader buys a book for what he can get out of it by way of
entertainment, excitement or knowledge, as the case may be, and
no explanation by the author will increase or diminish these. But
before I embark on a few more tales of my adventures in the
jungles of southern India, I merely wish to make a plea for their
preservation, that their wild life and their beauty may survive,
not only for their own sake, but that future generations may enjoy
them as I have done. Time is already short.

It is the duty of the government of India, of every government in

every state of India, of every sportsman who visits her forests—
indeed, it is the duty of every Indian—to make a supreme effort to
save the country’s wild creatures from extinction.

Game and bird sanctuaries have been formed, it is true. But this
is not nearly enough. Rules are printed that cannot be enforced.
For one thing, the forest guards and watches are not paid enough.
For another, corruption is rife.

In the state of Mysore as a whole, and also in the district of

Salem belonging to Madras state, tigers and panthers are now
almost extinct, wiped out by the villagers who use a poison
supplied to them almost free of charge by the local governments as
an insecticide to protect their crops. This poison they smear on the
flesh of the kills made by tigers and panthers. These animals
invariably return, eat the doctored meat and die within a few
yards. So do the jackals, hyaenas, vultures and crows that follow
them.

Deer continue to be slaughtered in hundreds every summer by

the poachers who wait for them with muskets over the water holes
to which they must come to drink. A few rupees, or a piece of the
carcase here and there, silence the officials who are paid by the
governments to protect the lives of these animals.

So death stalks the wild creatures of India. Extinction,

particularly in South India, will surely and certainly follow unless
the governments of the various states and the people themselves
wake up to the fact very soon and become realistic. It is almost too
late already.

I hope that you will enjoy reading these stories a fraction as

much as I have enjoyed writing them, for in doing so I have been
carried back to the forest life—not only to memories of bygone
days but to its enchanting sights, its myriad exotic smells, its
medley of sounds, its joys and its sorrows, the exuberance of life
there and its tragedy.

—Kenneth Anderson
 1

The Novice of Manchi

HE narrow trail wound in and out between clumps of giant

T bamboo that rose on every side, the tall graceful fronds
arching like huge bouquets of elegant, feathery blooms. It was the
time when the bamboo tree was seeding, when each length of
cane was crowded at its tip with tufts consisting of thousands of
tiny seeds. These seeds look like ripe grains of wheat but are
smaller; yet the weight of thousands of them was enough to bend
each frond low to the earth, creaking and groaning under its
burden as it moved with the gentle breezes passing along the
jungle aisles.

The seeds fell in showers, carpeting the earth and the narrow
path with a thick layer that mostly decayed, but here and there
showed signs of sprouting into tiny dark green seedlings. This
carpet felt like sawdust and had a springy consistency: it deadened
the sound of anything moving over it, and of the killer that now
stalked from bamboo clump to bamboo clump in search of a meal.
Overhead, thousands of parakeets screeched as they hung by their
feet, head downwards above the twisting trail, pecking the seeds
with their razor-sharp curved beaks, deftly severing the husk from
the kernel, which they crushed to a fine powder before
swallowing. They were small compared with other members of the
parrot family, being about twice the size of the domesticated
budgerigar, but they were of many hues, ranging from emerald
green to peacock blue, some with pale yellow wing-feathers and
heads of rose pink or deep purple, and others of a uniform green,
ringed around the neck with a narrow collar of red and black.

A lone traveller, walking cautiously along the jungle trail, did

not heed the parakeets nor the thousands of other birds, including
wild pigeons and doves, that fed on the seeds of the bamboos. He
gazed intently ahead and glanced furtively to either side, slowing
down and even halting now and then to study a particularly dense
clump of bamboo before drawing level with it. His sharp, restless
eyes tried to penetrate the thick growth to see if anything was
hidden there. His ears, too, were alert for sounds far different from
and far more arresting than the raucous, strident screech of the
parakeets. The sounds he was listening for, and dreading to hear,
were the sharp crack of a bamboo branch being broken, or the
deep rumble of contented feeding, or the swishing sweep of
ponderous feet brushing through the carpet of seeds and decaying
leaves.

The man was afraid of meeting a wild elephant or a herd of

them, for there were many in this area, especially at this time of
the year. But his hearing was not attuned to the approach of the
killer, who first sensed and then saw him. The killer made no
sound whatever, unlike the screaming, fluttering birds above or
the ponderous elephants beneath, engrossed in their search for
vegetable food. This killer was by no means harmless, nor was he a
vegetarian. He dealt death swiftly and surely and he was at this
moment very hungry indeed.

The man was a poojaree, a member of an aboriginal jungle tribe

that inhabits the forests of the Salem district in southern India,
and the trail he was following was the footpath that led through
the forest from the hamlet of Aiyur, southwards for about ten
miles to the still smaller hamlet of Manchi, nestling on the slopes
of a great range of hills. The path ran down a valley, as also did a
rocky stream, the two crossing and recrossing frequently, and
sometimes running parallel to each other, while the hills towered
on both sides, to east and west, in an unbroken chain of jungle.
The narrow path was visible now and again, but disappeared as
suddenly beneath the tall, bending, swaying bamboos as they
moved to the gentle currents of the forest breeze.
 Fine webs, almost invisible, frequently caught and tickled the
face of the poojaree whose attention was wholly concentrated on
the possible presence of the elephants. He brushed them off angrily
with both hands, much to the annoyance of the large, long-legged,
yellow-and-black-and-red spiders, six inches and more across,
whose webs extended from tree to tree, secured by gossamer-like
threads that were unbelievably strong, supporting a central area
of a web eight or ten feet in diameter and of an intricate, finely-
woven pattern. The dew had condensed on these webs and drops
of moisture glistened in the sunlight that filtered through the
bamboo fronds. All was still, all was peaceful, except for the din
of the feeding birds.

Keera, the poojaree, passed a dense clump of bamboo after

making certain no elephant sheltered behind, but failed to see the
killer in its black and rusty coat that crouched low to the earth
and stared at him with malevolent, unblinking eyes.

The man heard a coughing roar twice: ‘Aa-arrgh! Aa-arrgh!’

Then the tiger charged.

Keera whirled around as a great shape with widely-extended

jaws engulfed him. The poojaree screamed but once: ‘Aiyooo-oo-
oo!’ He screamed no more. The birds that had ceased chattering
for the moment, when the tragedy was enacted, started to screech
again and from the side of the pathway came the crunch and
crack of bones as the tiger began his meal.

Away on the hillside a troop of langur-monkeys had been

feeding joyously, their cries of ‘Whoomp! Whoomp, Whoomp!’
echoing across the narrow valley. Then the sharp hearing of the
langur-watchman caught the distant sound of the tiger’s roars and
the fainter, futile, agonized human scream. He knew that the tiger
had made his kill and the hoarse, guttural, langur alarm-cry
issued from his lips as he stood on his hind legs high up on a
branch to discover if possible in which direction the killer was
moving.

‘Ha-aah! Harr! Harr!’ called the watchman, over and over again.
The langurs ceased playing and scampered in terror, to huddle in
families on the tree-tops; while the deer and other creatures on the
floor of the jungle, whose sharp ears had detected the sounds of
death and the alarm of the monkeys, raced uphill and away from
that valley of doom.

Time passed, and the life of the forest resumed its normal
course. The birds forgot the tragedy in a matter of seconds; the
monkeys and the other animals took perhaps an hour to calm
down; while the poojarees in the distant hamlet of Manchi would
undoubtedly have forgotten the death of their clansman Keera in
a month or two had not another of them been killed a fortnight
later; and, ten days after that, a third.

These things the poojarees could not forget. A dreadful fear

overshadowed them. A scourge lay upon their tiny village; a man-
eater had come to stay!

These people belong to a tribe that lives on the produce of the

forest. They gather wild honey from giant combs built on high
rocks and trees; they catch the iguana-lizard which they eat or sell
for the aphrodisiac properties said to exist in its tail; they pick
medicinal herbs and roots and berries which are traded as
medicine; and they cut and collect bamboos, grass and the pods of
the tamarind fruit, according to the season of the year. All for a
pittance, less than an ordinary person living in Europe or America
would spend on feeding his pet dog. Their work, their very
existence depends upon the forest, and into that jungle a fearful
menace had now come. No man who left his miserable grass hut
in the morning knew whether he would return that night. No
woman or child was safe; for the second and third victims had
been, respectively, a young girl of nine years and a pregnant bride
of fourteen!

None of them did anything about it except one man, and that
was my old friend and instructor in jungle-lore, Byra the Poojaree.
Once before had he summoned me, in the case of the ‘Marauder of
Kempekarai,’ about which I have written elsewhere,* and once
again he asked me to come to the help of the people of Manchi.

This time Byra arrived in person rather than convey the message
through another. He walked ten miles or more from Manchi to
Aiyur village, and thence nine miles to Denkanikota town,
whence a bus brought him to Bangalore.

From the story he told me it was clear that the three killings had
taken place in comparatively quick succession, within a total of
twenty-four days and all within a radius of four miles from
Manchi, in the vicinity of the track leading from Aiyur to
Kempekarai along the deep valley that I have elsewhere referred
to as ‘Spider Valley,’ because of the large spiders to be found there.

These killings indicated that the perpetrator was a comparative

novice so far as man-eaters go. Either he was a young animal that
had, for some reason or the other, just launched out on a career of
man-eating; or he was a wounded tiger that had been almost
incapacitated and was desperately hungry; or perhaps a tigress,
killing merely to feed her cubs. This third alternative was
extremely unlikely, as there was still a fair amount of game on the
surrounding hills, while cattle were plentiful around the villages
of Aiyur, Gulhatti and Bettamugalam.

The facts pointed more to his being a beginner. No experienced

man-eater would have killed in such quick succession or almost in
the same place, as had this tiger. Veterans are far too cunning to
do that. They follow a circuitous beat of many miles, covering a
large tract of land, and slay at sudden and infrequent intervals, all
of which habits combine to make them extremely difficult to
shoot.

The course for me to follow would be to strike quickly and bag

this beast before he began to learn from experience and became
more cautious and adept. That caution would come as soon as the
villagers tried to retaliate by shooting him or by some other
means. He would be frightened then; or perhaps he would be
wounded. That would make him a wiser and far more dangerous
antagonist.

I knew the terrain well. For many years I had tramped that
dense bamboo jungle in the deep, narrow valley flanked by the
two parallel ranges of towering hills, running north and south,
closely bordering the banks of the narrow stream that also flowed
southwards to merge finally into the Chinar river at a place called
Sopathy. The eastern range was the loftier of the two, culminating
in a high peak named Gutherayan, near which was a picturesque
forest bungalow known as the Kodekarai Forest Lodge.
Kempekarai hamlet lay on the slopes of the other and western
range, a short distance above the little stream. The locale was
almost the same as in my earlier adventure, except that the
‘Marauder of Kempekarai’ had been a more experienced man-
eater, hunting in an area west and south of the little hamlet of
that name. The present animal had so far confined his activities to
the north of the settlement of Manchi and near to the Aiyur track,
as I have just told you. For this reason he should be a
comparatively easy proposition to bag.
 Bundling Byra and my camp kit into the Studebaker, with food
to last for about a week in the form of flour for chappaties, bread,
butter, vegetables—especially potatoes—and of course tea, coffee
and sugar, together with my little tent and bedroll, we set out for
Denkanikota and Aiyur. From the latter place we would have to
walk to Manchi and that would mean that Byra and I must carry
the load for upwards of ten miles. Fortunately, it would be
downhill for most of the way going, but uphill coming back.

As far as possible, I avoid tinned foods on these excursions. I

grant that they are convenient to transport. But like the villagers
of India I like my food fresh and simple. Thereby I have contrived
to avoid much indigestion and the other stomach troubles that
appear to afflict half the sophisticated people of the world, Indians
and Europeans alike.
 I put my tent on Byra’s head, slung the bedroll on to my back,
piled the kitbag with the flour and vegetables on his, and carried
the rest of the things, including the rifles, myself. I can assure you
we were well weighed down, but Byra seemed to feel no
inconvenience as he strode rapidly along in front of me.

The valley was hot and humid and I was bathed in perspiration.
While my companion was exposed to greater risk from a wild
elephant by walking in front, I was in more danger from the tiger,
as man-eaters invariably attack the last person on the trail. In
both cases, heavily burdened as we were, neither of us would have
been able to do much about it. But I don’t think we thought about
elephants or tigers, being more bent upon reaching the journey’s
end as quickly as possible and ridding ourselves of our abominable
loads.

We arrived at last, and with a sigh of relief I threw down the

things I was carrying (except the rifle) just beyond the little pool
of drinking water that was to figure so prominently in this
adventure. The first requirement was tea—gallons of it—and I
asked Byra to fill the kettle from the pool and light a fire quickly.
Very soon we were pouring scalding tea down our throats and life
seemed to be rosy once more.

By this time some of Byra’s friends from the hamlet had gathered
around us. They were all poojarees—an underfed, skinny and
scantily-clad group—but all as tough as nails. The men wore little
moochas and nothing else; the women were bare-breasted, the rest
covered by threadbare saris that hung in shreds and hid nothing;
the children, both boys and girls, were completely naked.

There were the usual greetings, whereupon Byra launched into

a prolonged account of how he had travelled to Bangalore to bring
his dorai, who had immediately come to their help. There was a
murmur of amazement and, being of a practical turn of mind, I
took advantage of the situation to despatch some of the elder boys
to gather firewood from the brambles growing around the pool,
and one of the men to lay in a store of water in the aluminium
carrier and the water-bottle I had brought with me. These
mundane but essential matters attended to, I set about munching
the roasted meat, jam and buttered bread brought from home,
while I asked my companions to tell me all they knew about the
tiger.

I acquired little information other than the bare facts that Byra
had already recounted, but there was one new item. Byra had set
forth for Bangalore the previous morning. In the early afternoon of
the same day, as nobody would go near the pool later than three
o’clock for fear of the man-eater, four of the women had gone for
water together. They had kept close to one another, relying on
their numbers for safety.

The women had finished the task and were turning away when
the eldest noticed a slight movement under one of the bushes
bordering the jungle some fifty yards away. She looked closer. Her
companions, noticing her staring at something, had all looked the
same way. On the ground under that bush was the head of an
enormous tiger. It was glaring at them hungrily and snarling! With
screams they threw down their water-pots and bolted for the
hamlet, less than 200 yards away. This time the tiger did not
attack and they all got back in safety.

Two of those four women were among the group around me.
One described the tiger’s head as ‘that big,’ indicating a distance
of a yard between outstretched hands. The other, who was a very
matter-of-fact and comely young girl, and somewhat of a wit to
boot, said it was big enough to eat all four of them and me as well.
Her subtle smile after this statement was perhaps a hint that, after
it was all over, I would at least be in good company inside the
tiger’s belly!
 The news gladdened me and I noticed the gleam of satisfaction
that sprang into Byra’s eyes. Old hunter that he was, he knew that
things would be easier for us now. If the tiger was there yesterday
evening, as likely as not it would come again this evening. For all
we knew, it might be watching us at that very moment.

This fresh development made me change my mind about

pitching my tent near the pool. It would not fit into the plan that
now came to my mind. To make camp within the hamlet itself
was a far from attractive proposition, as the poojarees, who have
many good attributes, do not count cleanliness among them. So I
got some of the men to carry my things a little beyond the village,
to where a wild jack-fruit tree was growing. Beneath its shade I
pitched the small tent and put my belongings inside.

The plan that had come to me connected the tiger with the
pool. Strange, indeed, that a situation of this nature should be
twice destined to arise in waiting for a man-eater. In that earlier
adventure at Kempekarai, just a few miles away but many years
ago, I had waited all night long at a well for the ‘marauder’ to
make an attempt to kill me. But I had waited in vain. Perhaps this
tiger, which was certainly not such an experienced animal, would
be more obliging and I was glad I had not made the mistake of
pitching my tent, that was. more or less white in colour, within
sight of the pool. Whereas the ‘marauder’ of years ago might have
been tempted to attack the occupant, this recruit among man-
eaters would surely be frightened away. Or so I reasoned, and Byra
agreed with me. Events that night were to prove both of us quite
wrong.

At sunset I ate an early supper, finishing the last of the roast I

had brought. This time I made no tea and drank hardly any water,
for experience had taught me that imbibing liquids does not help
when a nightlong vigil for a man-eater is contemplated. Nature
cannot be diverted from her normal practices, and the slightest
fidgeting or movement on the part of the hunter will betray his
presence to the tiger when he comes.

The night would be dark, for which reason I did not follow quite
the same plan as I had with the ‘marauder.’ That had been a
moonlit night and I had deliberately advertised my presence at the
well by working the squeaking pulley and pretending to draw
water in order to attract the tiger. But this night would be totally
dark and it would be foolish to show myself openly. He would hear
and see me all right; the only trouble being that I certainly would
not be able to see him, and might not be able to hear him either
till it was too late!

So I decided to modify the scheme a little by sitting with my

back against the babul tree some twenty feet from the water and
facing the jungle. I would sit quite still and with no movement
whatever. The man-eater could hardly attack from the rear. He
would have to come from in front or from either side and sitting
motionless would not only help me to hear him but it would
puzzle him also. He might not notice me at all; or if he did, as a
novice he would be perplexed at my immobility and decide to
investigate. I hoped he would make some sound in the process.

When Byra heard my plan, he told me that it was a very stupid

one. The tiger might attack without making any preliminary
sound. He might come from behind. I would hear nothing and see
nothing in that darkness; but the man-eater would certainly see
me, while he (Byra) would never see me again. For that matter,
the tiger might not come this way at all. Why should he be
snooping around a pool of water at dead of night? The beast knew
very well that people drew water from it—but during the hours of
daylight and not at night.

While he was speaking, Byra looked at me significantly, and the

meaning of his glance became quite apparent. He was trying to
put me off.
 ‘I know all that,’ I interrupted testily, ‘but it’s the only way.’

The old fellow was bent upon complicating the situation.

‘I never meant that you should not sit for the tiger.’ he said
aggressively. ‘What I meant was that you should be beside me. We
should await his return together.’

‘Idiot,’ I interrupted, being as rude as I could, ‘you have not the

brains of a flea! In what way will your presence lessen the
darkness? Keep out of this and let me try the plan I have in mind,
at least for tonight. Tomorrow you may tell me a better one if you
can think of one.’

‘If you are here to listen,’ he concluded pointedly.

And so, an hour before sunset, I took up my position near the

little pool, my back to the babul tree and facing the jungle, the
small stream beyond and the pathway along which we had come
that morning. Inwardly, I hoped that the tiger would arrive early
and see me and that in turn he would show himself as he had to
the four girls, so that the episode might be closed before darkness
fell. Unfortunately, the man-eater did not oblige.

The poojarees in the hamlet drew great clumps of thorns, which

they had cut earlier, around the low entrances to their wattle
huts, stepped gingerly between them and slipped inside. I could
hear the thatched doors of the huts being barricaded from within
with large stones, gathered from the stream for the purpose. These
people believed in self-help, and it was evident they did not have
much confidence in my ability to save them from the killer that
now threatened their lives.

The sun had sunk behind the range of hills to the west,
outlining their heights against a background of blue, which turned
to pink and then to orange. As I was facing northeast, I could just
catch brief glimpses of the beauties of this sunset. The orange
deepened to blood-red, and then to crimson, green and yellow and
violet and purple. An instant later it was quite dark.

While I had been watching the sunset abstractly, I had been

listening to the sounds of the jungle which at all times are
pleasant music to my ears, particularly at the close of the day and
again at dawn. Two families of langur-monkeys, one on each of
the slopes of the opposing ranges of hills, called to each other
across the narrow, deep valley. ‘Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!’
cried the males of one batch as they leapt from branch to branch,
and back came the joyous notes from the other group on the hill
slopes across the stream: ‘Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!’ and
‘Cheek! Cheek!’ from the females and young.

Then the sounds of pleasure suddenly turned to those of fear and

danger as the monkey-watchman of the more distant clan issued
his staccato barking alarm cry: ‘Ha-aah! Harr! Harr!’ which he
continued to repeat at short intervals.

The group nearer to me and on the same side of the valley fell
silent, while their watchman in turn took up the note of warning,
answering the more distant calls of his colleague: ‘Haaah! Harr!
Harr!’ The two monkey sentinels kept answering one another and
my nerves tingled pleasantly in expectation.

To one accustomed to such sounds there was a wealth of

difference in the timbre of the calls. The voice of the distant
watchman was filled with great fear and apprehension, and it was
evident that he could see the source of danger. The watchman on
this side of the valley, although sounding the alarm also, was
merely doing his duty to alert his tribe. His notes were flat and
matter of fact. This could be detected by the fact that he called
each time immediately after the other watchman, like an echo.

The calls of the two monkeys were becoming less frequent when
a junglecock, somewhere on the stream, screamed suddenly in
fright: ‘Kuck! Kuck! Kuck!’ The hen with him, hearing the cries of
fright made by her mate, flew quickly away crying: ‘Krr-r-r-r!
Keek! Keek! Keek!’ Silence and a great stillness enveloped the
jungle. Then a peacock gave sign of nervousness; ‘Quank! Quank!
Quank!’ His metallic notes broke the stillness and a moment later
I could hear the distant heavy flapping of wings as he launched his
weighty body into the air to reach a place of greater safety.

I knew the tiger was afoot! He had descended the opposite range
of hills and been discovered by the distant langur-watchman. He
had crossed the stream and disturbed the jungle fowls and the
peacock. He was now coming straight towards the pool and the
spot where I was seated.

It was growing darker with the passing of each minute. Would

the keen eyes of the nearer langur-watchman detect him?
Although the monkey had the advantage of elevation, he was
comparatively far away, and no tiger—not even a beginner among
man-eaters—will betray his presence unnecessarily. My doubt was
settled the next instant when the watchman on the hillside to my
left broke forth hysterically, fearfully: ‘Ha-aah! Harr! Harr!’ His
cries were quick now, and independent of his distant colleague,
who was still calling, but at long intervals. The note of fear was
there this time—of danger and sudden death. He had seen the
man-eater. And it was much closer to me than I had thought.

But of the tiger itself I could see or hear nothing. It was growing
darker all the time. The bushes at the edge of the jungle before me
had lost their individual outlines. They appeared as grey masses
against a background of deep chocolate, turning rapidly black. A
frightened hush fell over the forest, permeating it, enveloping it.
The further langur-watchman had stopped calling altogether, and
the nearer one barked only intermittently. He could see the tiger
no longer and, having fulfilled his duty by alarming his tribe, was
wondering what next to do about it.
 The summits of the ranges of hills to my right and left showed
themselves as ragged lines of intense blackness against a
background of lesser darkness, studded by myriads of stars,
flashing and blazing in a distant glory all their own. I
concentrated upon one of them. It seemed to change its colours
constantly, like a heavenly gem.

While staring into the blackness before me I glanced

alternatively from right to left. I slowed my breathing, even tried
to hold my breath altogether, in an effort to hear the very faintest
of sounds. But I saw and heard nothing.

Then, with nerve-shattering abruptness, a sambar belled in the

thickets just the other side of the pool: ‘Dhank! Oonk! Oonk!’

The brambles crackled to his departure as he crashed his way

through. The sounds of his running were lost in a few seconds, but
he continued to call with alarm as he rattled over the pebbles in
the stream and scrambled up the slopes of the opposing range of
hills, ‘Oonk! Oonk! Oonk!’ came his cries as they grew fainter with
the ever-increasing distance.

Grateful, indeed, was I for the warnings of my jungle friends, for

they told me as unmistakably as if I had seen him with my own
eyes that the tiger was within a few yards of where I was sitting.
The questions were: Had he seen me? Would he see me?

I know the value of stillness in the jungle, and so I sat absolutely

motionless, hardly daring to breathe. That was my only hope of
escaping the tiger’s immediate attention.

The seconds ticked interminably by. They appeared to pass into

minutes and then into hours, though I knew that they were only
seconds. Then I heard a gentle rustle to my right: the faintest of
sounds, as of a leaf being turned over, and it came from a direction
in line with the pool. Not a breath of air passed which could have
caused that dry leaf to be moved and I knew that the author of the
sound was moving through the undergrowth, hidden from my
sight, and passing the pool at that moment, and that in a few
moments more he would have passed behind me.

Holding my breath I listened intently, but I heard no further

sound. Every instinct warned me that the tiger had now passed
and was somewhere behind the bushes on the other side of the
babul tree against which I was leaning. I was filled with an urge to
turn around and face the danger, but I knew that if I did so I would
certainly make some faint noise. However slight it might be, the
tiger would hear it and in all probability would turn to
investigate. So I overcame the urge, but turned my head around to
see if the beast was creeping upon me from the rear. All I could see
was the trunk of the babul tree only a few inches away, and
beyond that darkness.

I do not know for how long I endured this suspense, but suddenly
the silence was shattered by the high-pitched, fear-laden yelping
bark of a village dog in the poojaree hamlet so close behind me.
The tension was relieved for the moment and I breathed more
easily. Two things were evident to me now. The tiger had passed
the well without detecting my presence, and had gone towards the
wattle huts, obviously in search of human prey. Secondly, and
beyond any doubt, it was the man-eater, as no ordinary tiger
would deliberately wander near human habitation.

At that moment a perfectly silly notion entered my head. I

reasoned that I could achieve no useful purpose by remaining
where I was. Assuming that the man-eater did not succeed in
finding a human victim, there was little chance that he would
retrace his steps and pass the pool again. He might wander away
in any direction, while if he did return, he would come upon me
from the rear and this time he might not fail to detect my
presence.
 I cannot tell you, however, why I did not think of doing the
most obvious thing; just sit where I was, but facing the hamlet.
Instead, I made up my mind to go towards the hamlet myself,
shine my torch when I came close enough, and pick up the glare of
the tiger’s eyes in its beam. That should afford me an easy shot.

This was a silly thing to do. Had I remained where I was, the
tiger might have returned to drink at the pool, while I would have
been in a fair position, behind the stem of the babul tree, for an
easy shot. Instead, I got stealthily to my feet, and in a half-
crouching position, started advancing towards the hamlet which,
as I have already told you, was hardly 200 yards away.

Within a few steps I realized my foolishness, for although there

was a well-defined pathway leading from the huts to the pool, in
the intense darkness I could not see it and began stumbling among
the bushes, making enough noise to scare away the man-eater or
urge him to attack. I then thought of going back to the friendly
babul, but again decided to advance, this time with the full
knowledge that the man-eater might be five yards away, behind
any bush, and I would not be able to see it.

The hysterical barking of the cur was taken up by others of its

kind, and by now some half-dozen village dogs were yowling their
heads off in a perfect frenzy, making enough noise to unnerve the
boldest of man-eaters. It was extremely doubtful that the tiger
would pursue his original intentions in the face of this din; he
would either slink off or turn back. And if he did turn back, he
would run into me, face to face, at any moment.

With this thought in mind, I made the second mistake of the

evening. I switched on my torch—far too soon, as it turned out! As
the bright beam cut through the darkness the tiger, of which I did
not catch a glimpse, true to the cowardly code of most man-eaters,
roared shatteringly from somewhere in front, and I could hear him
crashing into the dry scrub beyond.
 There was no point in further caution. My quarry had fled and I
followed the torch-beam dejectedly towards the poojarees’ wattle
huts while cursing myself repeatedly for the idiot I had been. Upon
reaching the hamlet, I called softly to Byra, who emerged from
one of the huts. He had been awake and had listened to the alarm-
cries of the langurs at sunset, followed by those other sounds. The
barking of the dogs had mystified him till the tiger had roared.
Only then had he realized that the man-eater was in the village
itself. He was even more surprised at finding me there also.

Quickly I related what had happened and was not comforted

with Byra’s brief comment, heavy with sarcasm. ‘Did the dorai
think he was following a rabbit? Perhaps the years have affected
his wisdom!’

It was now just after eight o’clock, and with nothing better to
do, I walked to my tent, which you will remember I had pitched
under the jack-fruit tree beyond the village, lit the small
hurricane lantern hanging from the ventral pole, and made myself
a pot of tea. That done, I closed and fastened the flap of the tent,
spread my bedding on the ground, not having burdened myself
with the weight of a camp cot, extinguished the lantern because I
do not like sleeping with a light burning, and was soon fast asleep.

Something awakened me with a start. In the jungle one does not

wake as city folk usually do from the snug warmth of a
comfortable bed, to yawn and stretch in luxury and maybe spend
another five minutes contemplating with dismay the tasks that
have to be performed. The forest teaches its inhabitants to sleep
alert. When they awaken, they are keyed to instant action, for a
second’s delay may be their last.

When I opened my eyes, the vague feeling of danger that filled

my mind synchronized with my groping hand and outstretched
fingers as they fumbled for the rifle I had placed loaded on the
ground beside me. Its comforting hardness brought assurance as I
sat up to discover what had awakened me with that urgent,
oppressive sense of peril.

For a second I could hear nothing, and then came the faintest of
scratching sounds, which stopped and started again after a
moment or two—scrape, scrape—stop—scratch, scratch—silence,
and then once more. The side of the tent moved slightly and
something entered from underneath; something that groped about
here and there with a sinister purpose. Was it a snake?

That something encountered the edge of my bedding as it lay on

the ground to my left barely a foot away, became entangled with
it, and pulled away sharply, wrenching canvas and groundsheet
with a sharp, tearing noise. Claws! The man-eater was outside!

He had sensed the presence of a human being within the tent,

but fortunately, with no knowledge of its flimsy structure, had
tried to feel with his paw under the canvas and along the ground
in the hope of reaching his prey, whom he would drag out before
the victim was aware of what was happening.

A neat little plan, indeed; the only fault being that the victim
was myself! Fortunate, indeed, that a premonition of terrible
danger had awakened me in time.

I quickly pulled the rifle across my body as I lay on the ground,

pointing the muzzle towards where I knew the tiger must be, and
slid my right hand towards the trigger.

Remember, it was pitch-dark in the tent when this happened

and I did not know exactly where, and in what position the tiger
was standing outside. I waited for the next movement and it came
again as the groping paw wrenched once more at the bedroll.

Then I pressed the trigger!

 There was a deafening explosion and I scrambled to my feet,
working the underlever of the .405 Winchester feverishly to fire
two more shots blindly through the canvas side of my tent.

There was no sound from the tiger. Was it dead? Even so, it
should have uttered a last gasp or gurgle. Was it wounded? Then
surely it would have roared with pain. Had it got away? I must
have missed. That could be the only explanation for the
unaccountable silence.

Like a fool I had once again made an inexcusable mistake. My

torch was clamped to the rifle. Why had I not switched it on for a
brief moment before firing? A second or two of torchlight would
have sufficed to indicate the direction from which that groping
paw was coming and where the tiger was standing outside the
tent. Instead I had pressed the trigger blindly in total darkness;
three times, moreover, hoping to hit an animal whose
whereabouts I did not know.

With torch alight, I hastily opened the tapes closing the

entrance to the tent and stepped forth cautiously, to direct the
torchbeam in every direction. As I had already guessed, the man-
eater had escaped, nor was there the slightest sound to indicate in
which direction he had fled.

My three shots had awakened the poojarees in Manchi hamlet. I

could hear the voices of Byra and some others calling anxiously,
inquiring if all was well. Knowing that if I did not go to them
soon, the poor fellows would brave the darkness and come to find
out what had happened, I walked the short distance to the huts by
torchlight and told a huddled, frightened group of little jungle
men just what had taken place.

They insisted on coming back with me right away to see the

three bullet holes in the canvas of my tent for themselves, and the
ragged edges in my bedding made by the tiger’s claws. They called
loudly upon God in thanks for protecting me. Then I had to leave
them back at the hamlet, where Byra implored me to share the
hut in which he slept for the rest of the night and not risk going
back to my tent.

But this invitation I declined and marched back once again, and
lay down to continue a much disturbed sleep this time with the
hurricane lantern brightly burning. Sheer disgust with myself and
things in general caused me to awaken long after sunrise. Voices
outside greeted me, and opening the tent-flap I found all the
poojarees from the hamlet squatting around in a semicircle.

The reason for their visit was a simple one. My foolish actions of
the previous evening and night, and the misses I had made with
the three shots I had fired, was to be explained in just two words,
both of them very simple: black magic! Someone had cast a spell
upon me and my rifle, so that I and the weapon did not act in
coordination. Who had done it? Why? When? How? The spell
would have to be removed if I hoped to kill the man-eater.

Superstition of this sort is rife amongst the simple people of the

Indian forests, and large numbers of townsfolk as well. I knew that
no amount of reasoning, persuasion or argument would make the
poojarees think otherwise. If I ignored their belief, they would just
cease cooperating with me, and then blame my failure on the spell
that had been cast on me and my weapon. The shortest and easiest
way was to agree.

I said, ‘Yes; some misbegotten son of a … has cast a spell

without doubt. Will you please remove it, if you can?’

In turn, the eldest among them replied, ‘Yes, but it will cost five
rupees to do this,’ going on to explain that this sum covered the
cost of a fowl that had to be sacrificed, and various other articles,
together with the fee for performing the pooja.
 I agreed again, paid the five rupees, and went inside the tent to
snatch another hour of sleep. But disgust with myself prevented
me from sleeping and I fell to thinking about the man-eater. The
raucous screeching of an unfortunate chicken having its throat
cut, followed by the acrid smell of smoke and incense, announced
that pooja was being performed.

In due course Byra’s voice called to me from without: ‘Dorai!

Dorai! Wake up and come out. The spell is broken. Let us search
for the tiger now. We will surely find him, and this time he will
fall to your rifle with a single shot, for the weapon will obey your
command.’

The pooja was not quite complete, however. The grey-beard,

who was also the sorcerer of the hamlet, asked for my rifle. Laying
it on the ground he made various marks in red and white, using
konkam powder and lime (chunam) respectively, on both sides of
the stock. The entrails of the chicken were next looped into a
circle and passed up and down the length of the barrel half-a-
dozen times to the accompaniment of muttered mantras and some
more incense smoke. Finally he scattered the fire in four
directions, calling loudly to the tiger to come forth and be shot.

The sun was high in the sky by the time all this was over. Byra
and a poojaree lad of about twenty years of age, who turned out to
be the grandson of the old man who had conducted the pooja,
then invited me to accompany them into the forest in search of
the man-eater. As everybody knows, to look for a tiger in any
jungle, especially a man-eater, by walking about in broad daylight
is not only hopeless but foolish and a waste of time. My regard for
Byra’s junglecraft was boundless, but that a hunter of his
experience could lend himself to this sort of foolishness surprised
me.

My looks must have shown my disapproval, but Byra and the

lad together urged me to waste no further time in idle talk.
Evidently they had implicit faith in their sorcerer. We started,
Byra leading, then me and next the boy, but as soon as we were
out of sight of the hamlet I insisted on altering this marching order
and exchanged places with Muthu, for that was the lad’s name. If
the man-eater did see us, regardless of all the hocus-pocus that had
just been performed, the chances were that, like all man-eaters,
this one would decide to attack the last individual in the line of
march, and the unarmed youngster would not have a chance.

We walked downhill to the streambed where we cast around in

the loose, dry sand for recent tracks. Difficult as it always is in
such terrain to differentiate between fresh and old spoors, the two
poojarees were not long in finding the tiger’s tracks where he had
approached the pool, with me sitting near it, the previous night a
little later, and nearly a furlong away, they found his trail again,
this time leading away from the village. Whether this was the
spoor left by the tiger when my light near the hamlet had alarmed
him, or later on after I had fired my three shots through the tent,
was settled by the fact that the scooping out of the grains of sand
at the toe portions of the tracks, and the marks of all four feet
separately on the ground, showed that our quarry was moving
very fast when he made them, with no attempt at concealment or
caution. Evidently he was hurrying away after being badly
frightened and this appeared to indicate we were following the
trail left by the man-eater after I had fired those foolish shots. The
absence of blood anywhere confirmed that he was uninjured.

We had not gone far when the trail veered abruptly to the right
and led straight up the hillside on the eastern bank of the stream. I
remembered that this was the direction from which the monkey-
watchman of the first batch of langurs had voiced his alarm the
evening before, when the tiger was descending the hill. Now the
tiger had returned the same way. Very probably his lair was in a
cave somewhere higher up that hill, or perhaps some distance
further away, on the slopes of the Gutherayan mountain.
 With this discovery came difficulties. The ground became hard
and stony once we had traversed the low-lying belt of bamboos.
Clumps of spear-grass grew in between rocks and small boulders
and all signs of pug-marks vanished entirely.

The two poojarees, experts though they were in woodcraft, were

soon at a complete loss. They moved around in small circles,
trying to pick up the trail. At times Byra, and then his young
companion, would come upon a broken stem of grass or an
overturned stone that showed the way the tiger had gone. But this
was not for long and very soon they were forced to a halt. Beyond
knowing that the tiger had gone up the hill, we had no further
indication of his whereabouts.

We discussed the matter in whispers and decided to climb the

hill ourselves in the vague hope of coming upon a cave of some
sort in which the man-eater might be hiding. To proceed in single
file meant covering only a single line of advance, so we decided to
fan out slightly in order to search a wider area. Byra went about a
hundred yards to my right but remained within sight, while
Muthu moved off about the same distance to my left. Then the
three of us started to advance cautiously.

The ground became more stony and the boulders increased in

size and number, but we came across no signs of a lair. The hillock
we were climbing might have been about 500 feet high, but in due
course we reached the top and were able to look down the other
side. Here the ground dropped sharply to a lush valley, thickly
covered with bamboo, before it started to climb the next foothill.
Above that hill rose the peak of the Gutherayan mountain.

At a signal from me, and maintaining the same distance apart,

the three of us began the steep descent. On this side the hillock
was more fertile. There were fewer rocks and boulders, larger and
taller clumps of grass, and even bushes and stunted trees that
increased in number till we had reached the region of bamboos,
where we found ourselves in a green twilit valley beneath the
towering fronds. Now we could no longer see each other, and very
soon I felt that my companions, unarmed as they were, had
exposed themselves to terrible risk, for I could not help them
should the tiger decide to attack. The bamboos and heavy jungle
afforded ample cover and even the keen eyes of the two aborigines
could not possibly penetrate the green wall that enveloped the
three of us.

It was as if this thought gave rise to action, for just then I heard
a shrill scream of terror from the poojaree boy, who was about a
hundred yards to my left. This was followed by short, sharp
‘woofs’ as the tiger charged him. The roars ended abruptly when
Byra, to my right, gave voice to a volley of shouts. Knowing he
was doing this in an attempt to frighten off the attacker I added
my yells to his as I turned and crashed towards the spot from
which the scream and the roars had come.

Short as the distance was, Byra had caught up with me before

we found the lad. He was lying on his face just beyond a pile of
boulders and long grass, the back of his skull crushed in, while
deep fang marks at the base of the neck and over the right shoulder
showed where the tiger had first bitten him before smashing his
skull with a stroke of the paw. Possibly the man-eater had been
seized by a mixture of fear and rage at hearing our shouts,
intended, as I have told you, to save the boy’s life. But in this
instance they had sealed his fate, for the tiger had killed him.

The flattened grass on the opposite side of the pile of boulders

showed where the man-eater had been hiding, waiting till the lad
had passed before pouncing upon him from behind. We turned the
young poojaree over and were confronted by a ghastly spectacle.
The force of the blow upon the back of his head had caused the
eyeballs to protrude, while the boy had bitten through his own
tongue so that the end hung loosely from his mouth, held by a
shred of flesh. Blood seeped into the sand where it was forming a
little pool.

Shaken and feeling sick, I turned to my companion. His jet-

black face had turned to an ashen hue and his features worked
violently with emotion. But not a word did he say. Nor did I. What
was there to say? We—and most certainly I—could only blame
ourselves for our carelessness and for exposing this unarmed youth
to the fiendish cunningness of the tiger.

My watch showed it was just eleven o’clock and the sun beat
mercilessly down upon the scene.

It took some minutes to recover from the shock.

Then I said, ‘You were so sure that we would kill the tiger after
that silly pooja. Instead, he has slain one of us!’

Byra did not answer at once. When he spoke there was

resentment in his tone. ‘The sorcerer should have sacrificed a
cock. Instead, he slew a hen, for the hen cost him a rupee less. But
it has cost his grandson his life!’

I was scarcely listening. An idea had flashed into my mind. I

walked through the long grass to the boulders, stepped on one, and
looked back at the body. Barely ten yards! The distance was
almost too close. There were only four boulders lying haphazardly
together, and the largest of them, the one on which I stood, was
about three feet high. The others were much smaller.

The idea then became a definite plan. Since there were already
some stones on the spot, would the tiger notice if a few more were
added? Perhaps not, provided the extra stones were so placed as
not to give rise to undue suspicion.

I turned to Byra and said, ‘The night will be dark and this will
tempt the devil we are after to return to his kill early, provided we
leave the body where it is. For he is hungry, remember. He was
hungry last night. That was why he went so boldly to the huts at
Manchi. And he has not eaten since then. Tonight he will be very
hungry indeed. So we will bring some more boulders to add to
these four and make a hide in which I will sit. At this close range,
when my torchlight falls upon him, I cannot miss.’

‘Dorai you’re completely mad,’ commented the old hunter. ‘As

soon as he sees the hide he’ 11 suspect something. Perhaps he may
go away. Maybe not! If he should spring over the boulders, he will
be on top of you before you know where you are.’

‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘it’s our duty to return to Manchi and

tell that rascally grandfather what has happened to the poor boy.
Then the men from the village will come and bear his body away
and burn it tonight. Thus his soul will gain peace. If we leave his
remains here to be eaten by the tiger, and not burn them, the soul
will wander in these jungles and torment us for failing to do our
duty.’

The tiger will not eat them,’ I cut in sharply, ‘for I will be
among the boulders to prevent him. That I promise you. Is this not
a good chance to be avenged upon this devil? If I succeed in slaying
him tonight, will I not save many lives, perhaps your own among
them? As a hunter yourself, don’t you agree it would be foolish for
us to lose such a golden opportunity?’

Byra did not reply. I could feel him weakening. Finally he

looked at me and there was complete innocence in his expression.

‘We’ve searched everywhere and cannot find the body, dorai.

Let’s go back now and inform the others. Tomorrow morning we
will search again. Tonight you will sit at the side of some jungle
path to await the tiger, should he pass by, while I will perch like a
monkey on a tree, out of sight but not out of hearing, in case you
should need my help.’
 Thus Byra settled the issue with his conscience and we got to
work in right earnest.

In order not to arouse the tiger’s suspicion, we moved quite 200

yards away to another area strewn with boulders, big and small.
Together we carried half a dozen of the larger ones, one at a time,
and placed them in a rough circle with the four boulders that were
already there. On this foundation we placed smaller stones, so
that in time we had built a circular wall maybe three feet high. I
realized it would not do to make this wall any higher, for the
additional safety thus gained would be of no avail should the tiger
become suspicious on seeing a construction before him that had
not been there on his last visit.

Next, into crevices between the stones we stuck handfuls of the

tough grass which we tore from tufts and clumps growing some
distance away. All this took a long time and was strenuous work,
for you must realize the sun beat down on us mercilessly, and the
stones and the grass had to be brought from a distance to avoid
creating suspicion.

When we left Manchi that morning, boosted by the sorcerer’s

confidence that we would kill the tiger, I had brought only my
rifle and no torch or water-bottle. It would be dangerous to send
Byra back alone to fetch these things. Either we would both have
to go back, or I could go myself and leave the poojaree up a tree,
and if I did that there was always the chance that the tiger might
return during my absence and carry away the cadaver of the.
unfortunate boy to some more remote spot where it would be
difficult for us to find it again.

After considering all these factors in whispers, we decided that

we had no choice but to take up our positions straight away. I
within the small three-foot fort we had constructed and Byra on
some tree within hearing distance, and remain in our places till
next morning, in the hope that the man-eater would remember his
human victim and come back for a meal. We could only hope that
the tiger had not been in hiding within hearing distance all this
while, for then our movements during the past three hours would
undoubtedly have alarmed him and he would have moved off long
ago, not to return. Our only chance of success lay in the hope that
he might have gone higher up the hill in search of water and had
not heard us. It was most unlikely that he had returned to the
stream in the valley for, as I have told you, it was quite dry at this
time of the year.

We cast around in a wide circle for a suitable tree for Byra, and
came upon one about half-a-furlong away, slightly lower down
the hill from the spot where the boy had been killed. This was a
fairly large tamarind and offered ample scope for the old poojaree
to shelter in comfortably till I called him next morning.

It was two-fifteen in the afternoon, perhaps the hottest time of

day, when Byra climbed the tamarind after earnestly advising me
to be careful and not fall asleep at any cost. Leaving him there, I
returned to my little fort, scrambled over the scorching stones we
had placed there to form the wall, and tried to settle down inside.
I at once encountered the first difficulty. The ground was so hot
that I could not sit on it, but had to remain crouched on my
haunches. Apart from being a painful and uncomfortable posture,
the wall was not high enough for it. My head showed above the
top and would be easily seen from outside, so I had to sit with
head bowed to try to conceal myself.

It did not take me long to realize that such a position was

absurd and dangerous, for I would not be able to see the tiger
should he creep upon me.

I got out of the hide then, walked some distance away, and
plucked several handfuls of tough grass stems which I stuck very
closely together into the pugaree of my ‘Gurkha’ hat. This took a
little time, but I was satisfied with the task eventually. When seen
from a distance, there was no hat to be seen, only another clump
of grass.

Donning the hat, I returned within my fort of stones, crouched

once more on my haunches and attempted to remain motionless. I
was just able to look over the rim of the rocks in a half-circle,
before and to both sides of me, and by turning my head ever so
slowly to right and left, I could even see behind. This movement
would not be very noticeable, I felt, as the whole ‘clump’ of grass
on my hat would turn with it and might be mistaken by the tiger
for the effect of the hot breeze that was blowing from the valley
and the streambed towards the hill-tops and was rippling the
bowed heads of the dried grass in waves from time to time.

I soon found that I could not remain still in that crouching

posture for very long. My ankles became painful and the calves of
my legs became numb. I had to move this way and that, slowly
and a little at a time, till after four o’clock, when the earth cooled
sufficiently to allow me to sit down.

Up to this time the surroundings had been abnormally silent.

Not an animal or bird had indicated its presence by sight or sound.
All creation—and no doubt the tiger, too—was sheltering from the
devastating heat. Only twice had I seen movement, firstly when a
giant iguana lizard attempted to cross, caught sight of Muthu’s
body on the ground, turned abruptly and scrambled away, and
later, when a small python, hanging unnoticed head downwards
from a low tree, had dropped upon a passing ground squirrel to
crush it to death. I had seen the squirrel, but had not noticed the
snake till I saw the python’s coils squirming in the grass and heard
the squeaks of the victim being crushed to death.

There was a marked cooling of the air by five o’clock and this
reminded me that I had drunk no water since morning. There was
not a drop to drink anyhow, and worst of all, I would have to
remain thirsty till I returned to Manchi the following morning—a
truly formidable thought!

A partridge on the hillside to my left broke the long silence at

last ‘Kee-kok-kik! Kee-kok-kok! Kee-kok-kok!’ he called in
challenge and within minutes came the acceptance to a fight from
another male bird slightly higher up the hill: ‘Kee-kok-kok! Kee-
kok-kok! Kee-kok-kok!’

The two partridges challenged each other frequently as they

drew closer together, hastening to the fray, till finally they met.
Then with hysterical cries of ‘Kok! Kok! Kok!’, the duel started in
earnest. Unfortunately I could not see the birds but could picture
the battle in my imagination for the ten minutes or so that it
lasted, before one of the contestants gave way to the superior
prowess and stamina of his adversary. He flew helter-skelter from
the scene of battle. I was just able to glimpse his brown form
sailing precipitately downhill to safety, while the other bird
remained to voice the victory cry ‘Kee-kok-kok! Kee-kok-kok! Kee-
kok-kik!’ once again.

The battle of the partridges had served to while away the time.
It was now 5-40 p.m. and the calls of junglecocks from the
streambed in the valley rose to announce the advent of eventide.
‘Wheew! Kuck-kya-kya-kuckm!’ they crowed from down below, to
be answered by other cocks on the hillsides in all directions.
Occasionally a peafowl voiced its meowing cry, while bulbuls in
hundreds, on bushes and thickets, joined in the general symphony
of calls that remain indelible in the memory of all that have
known these beautiful jungles.

But it would not do for me to pay too much heed to these sounds
much as I enjoyed hearing them. I would have to remain keenly
alert from now onwards, for with nightfall drawing near, the man-
eater would remember his victim and might decide to return at
any moment. At this time the two tribes of langur-monkeys, one
of them on the hilltop above me and the other somewhere on the
adjacent hill across the stream, started their eventide gambols,
frolicking among themselves and calling boldly to each other
across the intervening valley. ‘Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!’ they
screamed as they leaped from branch to branch. I could not see
them from where I was sitting, but could hear the bang and thud
of their bodies as they landed heavily among the branches of the
trees.

I was grateful for the presence of the langur-monkeys. I knew

that each tribe would have its own watchman, sitting alert on a
tree-top, serious, silent and intently scanning the ground below
for movement and danger.

The sun set behind the range of hills at my back and the shades
of evening spread rapidly around me. The grasses and bushes and
boulders that had been so clear all this while now became hazy
and blurred. Distances lost their perspective. In a few moments
there was no background to be seen at all; just the few indistinct
bushes that grew in my immediate vicinity. All else was a dark-
grey void, rapidly turning to chocolate and then to blackness.
Muthu’s body, only ten yards away, lost its shape and became
merely a darker heap upon the rapidly darkening ground.

There was a whirring flutter of movement behind my head that

startled me, accompanied by high-pitched, creaking squeaks. The
long-eared bat, intent on its search for insects, had thought there
might be a few in the clump of grass adorning my hat and had
come to investigate. Softly a nightjar fluttered on to one of the
stones forming my rampart. It was so close that by stretching out
my hand I could have caught it, and I was pleased with myself at
having sat so still, for I had even deceived this bird into not
noticing my presence. The nightjar snuggled low on the hot rock,
puffed out its throat with air, and voiced its usual cry:

‘Chuck! Chuck! Chuck! Chuck! Chuckoooooo!’

 Then it noticed poor Muthu. Suddenly it took fright, fluttered
both its wings like a giant moth, and sailed into the heavy air and
out of sight. A little later I could hear it again, this time from far
away, where the bird thought it was quite safe, voicing its jerky
call.

Now I could no longer see the bushes, the grasses, the stones, nor
even poor Muthu. A curtain of blackness closed over me with the
falling of night. The stars that to a certain extent illumine the
darkness in a jungle were few this night as I raised my eyes
heavenwards in search of them. The steely blue-black of the usual
night sky was covered by a ruffled blanket of small, broken,
cirrocumuli clouds, resembling the ringlets of wool on a
sheepskin. They stretched between the two ranges of hills and all
but hid the stars from sight.

It was a perfect night for the man-eater to discover my presence

and add me to his menu without my ever being aware of his
nearness. To see him in such darkness was impossible, and I was
entirely at his mercy. Suddenly I became very frightened and
began to shiver. Why had I been so foolhardy as to place myself in
this predicament by not listening to the old Poojaree’s experienced
advice? I felt like shouting to Byra. I felt like getting up and
dashing away from this horrid place to the faraway tamarind tree
in which I knew my friend, the jungle man, was sheltering. A
feeling of being closed in, of suffocation, of claustrophobia,
gripped me. Panic all but overwhelmed me and the sweat of
nervous terror streamed down my face. In the distance, a horned-
owl hooted dismally: ‘Whoo! Whoooo! Whoo! Whoooo! Whoo!
Whoooo!’

At that moment the calm of the night was shattered by the

dying scream of a sambar stag from the stream bed down in the
valley.
 ‘Aar-aar-aarrhh-aaarrhh!’ it shrieked in its agony, and once
again ‘Aaahhh-gggrrrhhh!’ Then there was silence.

I knew the animal that was being done to death at that moment
was a stag, for a doe would have uttered a cry of far higher pitch,
while the shriek of a spotted deer would have been quite different.
Three possible foes could be killing that stag; a pack of wild dogs,
a panther or a tiger. I decided against the dogs; a pack would have
raised its hunting calls and I would have heard them long ago.
Besides, these dogs do not hunt on dark nights. So the slayer was
either a large panther of the thendu variety, or a tiger. Nothing
else could be killing an animal as big as a sambar stag. Even a
thendu would have all its work cut out to bring down a victim of
that size.

Very likely the killer was a tiger after all. But was it the man-
eater, who was reputed to eat only human flesh? Or was it some
ordinary wandering tiger who happened to be in the vicinity too? I
knew that the man-eater could not subsist on human flesh alone.
His kills were too few and far between. He must be devouring
animals as well, and I remembered he was very hungry that night,
not having eaten for some time. Very likely it was he who had
attacked the stag after all. Perhaps he had been returning for
Muthu and had come upon the deer by chance.

The sambar was dead now and all sounds had ceased. The tiger
would spend the rest of the night feeding on this new victim and
would not come near the body of the poojaree lad. My vigil would
have been in vain. The thought was very mortifying indeed.

Mixed feelings of relief from immediate danger, and sheer

disgust with myself at my cowardice, set in when I realized that
only a few moments earlier I had been trembling, scared out of my
wits at nothing but the darkness and the thought of the man-
eater’s proximity.
 I knew that the old poojaree, too, must have heard the sambar’s
death-scream. Like me, he would wonder if the killer was the
man-eater or some other animal. I wondered what conclusion he
had reached. The slaying of the sambar had brought to an end the
nervous tension under which I had been labouring. I was quite
calm now as I wondered over and over again whether the man-
eater would return or not.

For the next half-hour or so the forest was hushed and strangely
silent. It was as if its denizens were aware that danger lurked by
the streambed, and that sudden and violent death awaited any of
them who betrayed his presence. I glanced at my watch. It was not
yet ten o’clock. I had many hours of tiring vigil before me.

After that the jungle gradually came to life again. I could hear
the stealthy nibbling of grass by a barking-deer a few yards to my
right. Down below, on the banks of the stream, an elephant was
breaking bamboos.

As the heated air from the valley started to rise, the colder air
from the hilltops rushed down to take its place. This caused fitful
gusts of breeze to blow and carried to the munching barking-deer
the smell of Muthu’s body that was now beginning to make itself
felt. There was a sudden noise as the little animal dashed away for
a few yards. Then it came to a halt to voice its barking alarm-cry:
‘Kharr! Kharr! Kharr! Kharr!’

The barks came at intervals of a few minutes. It seemed

incredible that such a small animal could make such a loud noise.
I knew that the call of a barking-deer can be heard for over a mile
on a still night.

Shortly afterwards the elephant in the valley, in his hunt for

fresh bamboo-shoots, moved upstream. This brought him to the
remains of the stag that had been killed a short while earlier.
Probably the killer, panther or tiger, was still there, feeding on his
prey. Whatever it was, the elephant became excited and began to
trumpet repeatedly, the brassy scream of each note disturbing the
silence of the forest.

And then I heard it clearly. ‘Wr-aagh! Wrr-aagh!’—the roars of

an angry tiger coming from the same direction. The elephant
screamed again and again, and the tiger roared its defiance in
between, answer for answer. I could imagine the scene. The tiger
had been feeding, or perhaps just sleeping by the sambar’s
remains, when the elephant had blundered upon him. Would the
encounter develop into a fight, or would one or other of the
animals lose its nerve and retreat?

The screams of the elephant began to change in timbre. The

high-pitched note of fear gave place to the longer, slightly lower
note of anger. I could make out that the animal was a bull. He
resented the tiger’s presence amongst the bamboos, which he no
doubt regarded as his own property, and was rapidly losing his
temper.

What would the tiger do? The matter was not left in doubt for
long. He suddenly lost his nerve and decided to give way to the
irate elephant, even if it meant abandoning his kill. There was
sudden silence when the tiger beat a retreat, while the bull
elephant, finding his bluster had succeeded in driving away the
foe, slowly regained his composure and ceased to trumpet.

Silence once again descended upon the forest. The fleecy clouds
that had been hiding the stars since sunset had disappeared about
an hour before, and I could now see the dark form that was
Muthu, and the nearer bushes and grasses, reasonably clearly in
the light of the stars. Now at least I might be able to see the man-
eater should he decide to return to Muthu’s body. This caused me
to wonder again whether the tiger that had just had that
altercation with the elephant was the man-eater or not. His
display of cowardice tended to offer an affirmative answer.
 My thoughts were disturbed at that instant by a growl! I heard it
only once and so I could not quite locate the sound or where it had
come from, but it was an unmistakable growl. I fancied it had
come from somewhere behind me and lower down the hillside, but
I was not quite sure.

As quietly as possible, I turned my body a few inches to the left,

so as to be able to observe whether anything was approaching
from that direction, but I could still see the smudge that was
Muthu, by looking to my right.

And then I heard it again: another growl, louder and closer this
time. There was now no doubt whatever: the tiger was coming up
the hill, he was coming in my direction.

I could not help smiling to myself as I thought of the great

service that the elephant had done me in driving the tiger from his
kill. The angry tiger had now been forced to remember that he had
made another kill, one of those tasty human beings, earlier that
afternoon and higher up the hill. So he was returning to it, voicing
his anger all the while against the elephant that had disturbed
him.

My luck had been stupendous. Not only was the tiger

advertising his presence, which was much in my favour on a dark
night, but the bad temper he was displaying, and his smouldering
resentment against the elephant, would prevent him from being
too cautious when he eventually reached poor Muthu. After all,
perhaps he would not discover my presence. I was elated at the
thought.

Twice more the tiger growled. Then I dimly saw a long, dark ill-
defined shape to my left and a little below me. It seemed to move.
It disappeared completely. Then it appeared again, this time much
closer. It was certainly moving towards me.
 The tiger growled again Apparently he was still thinking of the
elephant and could not get him out of mind. The throaty, rasping
note came from the long, moving object that was rapidly
approaching me.

The dark shadow disappeared behind an intervening bush. A

few seconds later the slinking shape moved dimly from left to
right, and came to a halt over Muthu, just ten yards away. It had
not even glanced at the little stone fort that Byra and I had so
painstakingly constructed.

The tiger was in such a vile temper that he voiced a series of

loud growls when he bit savagely into the poojaree lad’s dead body
and began to worry the carcase. His recent undignified retreat
before the bull elephant, and the fact that he had to abandon his
sambar kill, was annoying him intensely. He felt he had to vent
his spleen on something.

Only now did I realize how difficult was the task that lay before
me. I had to kill the tiger with my first shot, or at least cripple it
effectively so that it would not turn upon me. My quarry was a
mere ten yards away, but I could just see it as a blur. I had no
torch, no nightsight, no white card as an index, that we read
about so often, to fit to the sights of a rifle to make night shooting
easy. My old .405 did not even have a phosphorescent foresight.

I realized I would have to act quickly while the tiger was still
venting its wrath upon poor Muthu’s remains. Once it became
calmer and settled down to feed, it would notice any slight
movement of my rifle and attack me. In fact, if it had eaten
enough of the sambar it might just pass on, to return later in the
night when it became hungry again, or perhaps not return at all.

Very cautiously I raised the stock of the .405 to my shoulder,

taking the greatest care not to knock the barrel against any of the
stones we had erected. Holding it firmly, I pointed the barrel as
best I could at the front portion of the dark shape that was the
tiger.

I knew there was no possibility of picking my shot of firing at

some vital place. I would have to take a chance. Perhaps I would
miss altogether. Very likely I would just wound the tiger
superficially and it would then turn and attack me. There was a
hundred-to-one-chance that I would kill it with my first shot.

Steadying my hand and holding my breath, I pressed the trigger.

Pandemonium broke loose as the sharp report of the rifle

thundered out and echoed against the opposing range of hills. The
tiger roared lustily. Fortunately it had been facing away from me
when I fired. Not knowing whence the shot had come, it imagined
the foe was somewhere in front and sprang upon the nearest bush
and began to tear it to shreds. As I feared would happen, I realized
I had only wounded the tiger. It had been in a bad temper then.
Now it was furious.

And then I made a mistake. Had I done nothing, the tiger would
have reduced the bush to nothing and probably have gone away
after that, without discovering my presence. But I fired again at its
dark shape.

After that the tiger’s behaviour was fearsome. Hit a second

time, it catapulted itself into the air, fell to earth with a thud, and
then began grubbing around in a circle. Evidently the spine was
broken, for the animal appeared to be unable to stand upright. But
this time it knew where its attacker was concealed, and the
grubbing circle it was taking brought it directly down upon me.

Scrambling to my feet, I fired my third shot into its head at a

range of scarcely two yards. Then I vaulted over the stone parapet
by using my hands and promptly fell down the other side. My feet
pricked as if there were a thousand needles in each, for I had been
sitting crosslegged for some eleven hours and they were numbed.
 Fortunately the tiger remained on the other side of the stones. A
dreadful bubbling, gurgling sound was coming from it, showing
that the animal was still alive but grievously hurt and probably
dying.

I scrambled to my knees as the blood flowed back to my legs and

peeped cautiously over the intervening boulder. The tiger lay on
the other side, twitching and gasping and gurgling. My fourth shot
ended its suffering.

When the noise died away, I could hear Byra calling to me

frantically, asking if all was well. I answered him in the
affirmative and told him to come along. A few minutes later my
friend appeared out of the darkness and I told him the whole story.
On the streambed the elephant trumpeted again.

Unerringly Byra led me through the dark jungle back to Manchi

hamlet. There, for the second time, I repeated all that had
happened. The inhabitants turned out to the last child, brought
lights and returned with us to bring in the bodies of Muthu and
the tiger.

My first shot had entered the stomach. My second had smashed

the spine high up at the shoulder. It was this second shot that had
anchored the tiger and prevented it from escaping. As we had
anticipated the man-eater turned out to be a young animal, and
this accounted for his inexperienced, erratic ways. The poojarees
asked why we had used the body of Muthu as a bait. We asked
them why they entertained a sorcerer of such poor calibre in their
midst. We also reminded them we had rid them of the man-eater.
The end justified the means.

To this they said nothing.

_____________
* See Man-eaters and Jungle Killers, Chapter 1.
 2

The Lame Horror of Peddacheruvu

F YOU were to travel from Guntakal by the metre-gauge

I railway eastwards towards the city of Bezwada, now known as
Vijayawada, you would traverse some of the best-known and
densest forests of the state of Andhra Pradesh soon after leaving
Dronachellam Junction, when you pass Nandyal and go through
the stations of Basavapuram, Chelama, Bogada and Diguvametta.

The forests on either side of the track are the only areas in
southern India where the once-numerous giant antelope, known
as the nilgai or blue bull, are still to be found. They are especially
numerous in the jungles around the Forest department Rest House
at a place named Chinnamantralamanna. These great animals,
which once abounded everywhere, are now extinct in all the
other forests of the South.

In addition to the blue bull, the others found in the Indian

subcontinent are numerous here, together with huge sounders of
wild pig, and all these animals in turn attract tigers and panthers
who are always to be found where sufficient food is available. But
when this natural food becomes scarce for any reason, the
carnivora are forced to prey on the herds of cattle, sheep and goats
tended by the herdsmen who live on the outskirts of the villages.
Then, and only then, do they fall foul of the men who attend the
herds, and who naturally endeavour to drive away the marauders
with spears, traps, bullets and other devices. Tigers and panthers
are wounded or hurt in other ways too. This incapacitates them
for normal hunting, and in time they take to man-eating as the
easiest way of appeasing hunger.
 In the course of years many man-eaters have appeared in these
areas. I have already told of one of them that haunted the railway
tracks between some of the stations I have named* and what
follows is the story of another that appeared in the same general
locality, but some miles to the north.

To reach the spot, you do not alight from the train at

Diguvametta, but travel another forty miles to Markapur Road.
You detrain there and go by road in a northerly direction for
another forty miles. The road winds down a picturesque ghat to an
insignificant place known as Srisailam, overlooking the winding
course of the Kistna river that formerly separated the Madras
Presidency in the south from the dominions of the Nizam of
Hyderabad in the north. The British have now gone, and so also
have the Nizam’s dominions, all these areas having been brought
within the extensive state of Andhra Pradesh, the second largest
in India, while Srisailam, hitherto merely the site of a large
temple and of only religious significance, is becoming famous as
the centre of a great twin project involving an irrigation and
electricity scheme.

In former years, when conditions were undisturbed, this road

from a point about twenty miles from Markapur Road railway
station as far as the Kistna river was covered with the type of
forest that tigers delight in—not too dense and not too thorny—
with sufficient high grass and low trees to afford cover for
themselves and grazing and shelter for the wild deer and pig that
form their natural diet. Low, rolling hills with interesting streams
provided plenty of water for them in even the hottest weather,
while the tiny jungle-ticks that are the scourge of the forests
further south, and the voracious leeches of the Western Ghats,
both of them hateful to all carnivora who cannot rid themselves of
these pests, seem to be entirely absent. At least the leeches are,
while the ticks appear only after the rains and then in
insignificant numbers.
 So tigers and panthers, particularly the former, were plentiful.
They fed on the Nilgai and the deer, and sportsmen did not visit
the area very often. Elephants and bison strangely enough, are
entirely absent from these jungles. The rare blue bull makes up for
them in a way, but as it is protected and there is a total
prohibition against shooting them, these areas have never been
popular with tourists or sportsmen. The climate, too, is difficult:
hot in winter and savagely hot in summer.

Another factor that has saved the carnivora to a large extent is

the paucity of motorable tracks into the interior. If you want to
travel away from the main road, you either walk or travel by
bullock-cart. But all this made the jungles of Srisailam very
pleasant to me. In their fastnesses I could lose myself, away from
the crowd.

There is a village named Peddacheruvu situated to the west of

the road from Markapur to Srisailam. To reach it you go by
bullock cart through eighteen miles of forest where you generally
do not meet another human being. Peddacheruvu is a small
village, and to the south of it lies a pretty lake. The bullock-cart
track passes this lake and wends southwards for a few miles more
till it reaches a hill. At an impossible gradient the track descends
this hill to the hamlet of Rollapenta, where it meets another main
road leading from the village of Doranala to the town of Atmakur.
Further south yet is the Rest House of Chinnamantralamanna,
where the Nilgai abound.

The lake I have just told you about is ringed by the jungle, and
in this jungle many tigers are to be found. So many, in fact, that
they have killed and eaten all the panthers that at one time lived
there too. From November to January each year, during the
mating season, after sunset and often during the daylight hours
too, you can hear the moaning call of a tigress seeking her mate,
and sometimes the awful din of tigers fighting for the female
whose roars have summoned them from afar.
 I have told you in earlier stories that the natural food of tigers
and panthers is the wild game of the forest, and when these
become scarce, the herds of domestic cattle and goats that are
taken out to graze. Man-eating is invariably the result of a tiger or
panther becoming unable to hunt its normal food by some injury
caused, in every case in my experience except the one I am going
to tell you about, by a wound inflicted by man. Generally it is a
gunshot or rifle wound, or injury brought about when escaping
from a spring trap, when the animal has had to tear itself free from
the teeth of the steel jaws that have fastened on its face or foot.

But in the case of the man-eater of Peddacheruvu it was none of

these things. For after I shot him I found that this tiger, well past
his prime, had been involved in a fight with another tiger. He had
lost an eye and an ear as the result—both on the right side, where
his adversary had gripped him—and the tendons of his right
foreleg had been chewed through and through, causing him to
drag that limb as he walked and to leave a distinct trail behind
him. These disabilities, together with his advancing years, had
prevented this animal from being able to kill his normal prey. A
tiger’s forepaws, and particularly the right one, are essential to
him in normal attack, for with them he grips his victim while he
bites the neck or throat, causing the animal to topple over and
break its neck by its own weight. With his right foot maimed, this
tiger could not hold any animal larger than a mouse-deer. So he
went through months of starvation while his wounds healed, and
then he took to killing and eating every human being that came
his way, for he found them slow in movement and quite helpless
to resist him, even with his handicaps.

The people of Peddacheruvu told me later that they had heard a

tigress moaning for some days. That was when this story really
began.

It was just before Christmas and the mating season. Two tigers
had begun to fight for her. The quarrel had started at sunset and
had lasted half the night. Both contestants had evidently been
badly hurt, for one of them had come down to drink water at the
edge of the lake, where he had left a pool of blood on the muddy
edge. The other had crossed the sandy track leading from
Peddacheruvu to Rollapenta, on the Doranala-Atmakur road. The
soft earth showed a distinct blood trail and three sets of pug-
marks, while a faint furrow in the sand showed that the animal
had been dragging one of his limbs and could not put his weight on
it.

Time passed, and then a sheep or goat here or a village dog there
disappeared, while as often as not the pug-marks of the ‘limping
tiger,’ as he came to be known, showed that this contestant at
least had survived the epic fight.

The older men in the village shook their heads and conferred in
whispers. Some of them had heard of such cases before. A few had
actually seen them. But they all knew that the taking of the
sheep, the goats and particularly the village curs, meant that a
man-eating tiger was in the making. For tigers disdain such food
and will only stoop to kill and eat such insignificant prey when
they are on the verge of starvation, or when they are unable, for
some good reason, to kill anything bigger.

The first human victim was taken very soon after that, and the
old men wagged their heads and their tongues yet more. He was a
cartman and had been returning to the village in the evening with
his cart laden with bamboos that had been cut in a valley five
miles away. The cart track skirted the lake I have told you about,
and here the man had stopped to water his bulls without unyoking
them, for his cart was too heavily laden and it would have been
impossible for him to re-yoke them again single-handed.

Perhaps just before or after watering his animals, the man had
got down from his cart to drink himself. That was when the
‘limping tiger’ took him.
 The bulls, terrified at the sight of the tiger, had dashed madly
away, dragging the laden cart behind them. They had not kept to
the road, as a result of which the cart had fallen down an incline,
the weight of the bamboos dragging the two unfortunate bulls
with it. One had broken its thigh and the bone, protruding
through the outer skin, had stuck into its belly, while the cart lay
on top of the animal, effectively anchoring it. The second bull had
been more lucky. The yoke had slipped off its neck, leaving the
animal free to dash to the village. Its arrival there had caused
consternation, but as night had fallen already nobody would
listen to the pleadings of the cartman’s wife and three children
that the men should form a search-party with lanterns to look for
the breadwinner.

The sun was already up next day when the able-bodied men of
the hamlet, two of them armed with matchlocks and the rest with
spears and sticks, eventually left the village. Very soon they came
upon the capsized cart, and the unfortunate bull with the broken
thigh. Of the owner there was no trace.

They followed the tracks of the cart to the edge of the pool and
there they saw in the mud the prints left by the limping tiger.
Some of the searchers had wanted to look for the remains of the
cartman, but the two individuals armed with matchlocks had
become faint-hearted. One said his weapon was useless and would
not fire. The other, more truthful, admitted he was too afraid. As
a result the whole party returned to the village and the remains of
the cartman were never found.

The second victim was a woman. This incident also took place
in the evening, but at a spot within a hundred yards of the village
where she had taken her water-pot to the community well. No
jungle grew there, but nearby was a grove of peepul trees which,
in turn, adjoined a coconut plantation. A thick hedge enclosed
this plantation, and on the further side was wasteland, covered
with scrub and grass. The jungle proper began more than half a
mile away. The well was at a spot where no tiger had ever been
known to come within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and
he was well over a hundred years old.

But the limping tiger came that evening. Two other women saw
him in the act of carrying away his victim when she screamed.
They turned around at the sound and were dumbfounded to see a
great tiger, with a distinct limp, dragging the woman by her
shoulder and moving at a fast pace towards the peepul trees. They
had waited no longer and fled screaming to the village.

Human kills had followed in rapid succession after that, and

one day I received a letter from an old friend of mine, a Telugu
Indian gentleman named Byanna, who lived near the Markapur
Road railway station, telling me of the goings-on at Peddacheruvu
village and asking me to come and shoot the tiger. Moreover,
Byanna offered to accompany me in order to render what
assistance he could, and suggested I should travel by train to
Markapur Road, from where he would take me in his Land Rover
to our destination.

Such a summon is impossible to resist, so I sent Byanna a

telegram informing him I was leaving by express the following
night. The next forenoon found us together on the platform of
Markapur Road railway station.

Mr Byanna is meticulous, and looking after a guest is to him a

matter of great importance, so important that at times it is all
rather embarrassing. I was taken to his house where a hot bath
had been ready for the last two hours. Then a huge dish of chicken
pilau was placed before me and I was almost commanded to eat it
all. I knew I would have to put up a good show, for Byanna is
rather sensitive and would be greatly offended if I did not do
justice to the meal.
 When this feast was over, I was taken to the garage at the rear of
the house. There stood Byanna’s Land Rover, laden to the brim
with all manner of unnecessary things intended for my comfort.
There was a spring-cot and mattress, camp chairs, camp tables, a
canvas camp tub, a camp basin and stand, a small refrigerator and
a fan, both worked by kerosene oil, and heaven knew what else.
As for foodstuffs! There were gunny bags in large numbers
crammed with stores; enough, I should think, for a whole month.
Four Primus stoves, one of them with a double-range cooker, had
been provided; and pots, pans and storage drums for water were
tied on at inconceivable points and at incredible angles. Where he
and I were going to sit seemed an insoluble problem.

Byanna asked me if I would like to sleep the night in his house

and start next morning, to which I said I was as fresh as a daisy
after that hot bath and marvellous chicken pilau. Could we start
right away? Wonderfully obliging, he consented at once, and an
hour later the Land Rover, looking more like one of those covered
wagons from the prairies of America, took the road northwards
that led to Srisailam.

We left the main road a little beyond Doranala village and

negotiated the rough track of eighteen miles that eventually
brought us directly through the jungle to the village of
Peddacheruvu, passing another hamlet named Tummalabayalu on
the way, the scene of an encounter with a man-eater in my young
and inexperienced days. There I tumbled out of the Land Rover
and sat on someone’s doorstep, while Byanna rattled away in the
Telugu dialect to the throng of villagers that gathered around us.

It transpired he was trying to find a suitable room for us to

occupy. This did not take long, for the headmaster of the local
school who had joined the crowd to learn the purpose of our visit,
at once volunteered to let us live in the main hall of his little
school.
 We drove the Land Rover there and unloaded. By the time we
had taken everything out of the vehicle we had crammed that
room to capacity, though more than half the objects were quite
unnecessary.

Water was fetched for us in pots by several willing villagers. We

were conducted to the bathroom, in a separate building, where we
bathed; and we were shown the lavatory, in yet another building.
It was a long time before we could sit down to our first meal of
curry and rice that Byanna had brought from his home at
Markapur.

Dusk had fallen by now, but people from the village still kept
coming and going, to stare at us and ask innumerable questions
which Byanna answered in Telugu at great length. Finally I took
matters into my own hands. Selecting three or four of the villagers
who seemed to know something about the man-eater, and
carrying my rifle, I asked them to follow me outside.

It was moonlight. The main street of the village led directly to

the track that skirted the lake on its way to the Doranala-
Atmakur road. Half a furlong away the lake began, and I could see
the water glinting in the moonlight.
 I walked along the street with my companions, who very soon
told me that it would be dangerous for us to leave the precincts of
the village because of the man-eater. I said I wanted to talk to
them where we could have peace and quiet, which was impossible
in that infernal schoolroom, and I reassured them about the tiger.
Finally we reached the edge of the lake and sat down by the water.
It was delightfully cool there and the moonlight was so bright that
we could see right across the wide expanse of the lake to the
jungle on the other side.

I noticed that my companions kept glancing nervously around,

but as we were in the open with no cover for the tiger, there really
was no justification for their fear. Little by little I learned of the
tiger’s doings, as I have already set them out, and my companions
ended their narrative with a fervent plea that I should shoot the
beast at all costs.
 I think Byanna must have wondered at my sudden departure, for
he came looking for me with about twenty people and joined us
just at the water’s edge. We discussed plans as to what to do on the
morrow.

And that was when a tiger started to roar. From directly

opposite us, on the other side of the lake, where we could see the
dark edge of the jungle coming down to the water, he roared at
regular intervals. To me that sound was pleasing, exciting,
tempting and challenging. I had been told enough to know I would
be able to recognize the man-eater at once by his limp, if I could
only see him. I had talked enough and eaten enough; and those
roars were very, very inviting. And the moonlight was so
wonderfully bright.

On an impulse I jumped to my feet and told my companions I

was going after the tiger. They were aghast. But before they could
remonstrate, I set off almost at a trot along the track that I knew
skirted the lake closely for nearly half its circumference till it
reached the other side, before breaking away into the jungle. I
judged the tiger was roaring at least a mile away, maybe further,
and I wanted to reach him before he stopped. Obviously he was
coming down to the lake for a drink.

In less than fifteen minutes I was almost there, and the tiger was
still calling, although at longer intervals. I knew that very soon he
would stop. He was so close now that the earth seemed to tremble
with each roar as I left the track I had been following to cut
through the jungle towards the sound. That was when my
difficulties began.

I knew very well that if I attempted to walk through the

undergrowth the tiger would hear me. He would either go away
then or, if he was the man-eater, he might creep forward to
ambush me by a flank or rear attack. My hope lay in finding a
footpath if possible, and in following it in silence so as to try to see
him first—an almost impossible thing to do.

Luckily I discovered that footpath. Rather it was a game-trail

that went down to the water and not a footpath; but it offered
salvation, for it was leading more or less in the general direction
from which the tiger’s roars were still coming, although at longer
and longer intervals.

I started to follow the path, glancing down frequently to make

sure I did not stumble or tread upon something that would betray
my presence. I judged the tiger was well within 200 yards when he
ceased to roar. I stopped advancing as soon as I realized this, for it
would be impossible for me to locate him. Whereas he would
assuredly hear my footsteps in spite of all my precautions in the
complete silence that now enveloped us both. I thought quickly
and had an idea. An acacia tree grew to the right of the game
trail. Its trunk was hardly thick enough to hide my body when I
sheltered behind it, but provided I remained absolutely motionless
there was a hope that the tiger would not detect—at least, not too
soon.

Quickly I stepped behind the acacia, drew in my breath, and

imitated the roar of a tiger with all the force of my lungs. Twice I
did this, in rapid succession. Then I remained silent to await
events. And happen they did, in real earnest. The tiger in front of
me, apparently amazed and greatly annoyed at the impudence of
the intruder who dared to come so close to him and roar twice,
although those roars must have sounded miserably puny and
weak, lost his temper. I could hear him coming, grunting and
snarling as he bounded forward. Fortunately, the acacia had been
growing at a spot where the pathway followed a straight course
for a few yards, rather than at a bend.

Before long, down the pathway came the tiger in short bounds,
so intent upon looking for another of his kind that he failed to
notice me behind the trunk of that acacia tree. He had passed
when I was forced to put him to the test. I coughed almost
imperceptibly.

The tiger whisked around in his tracks to face this new sound.
He knew it did not come from another tiger but from a man, and
his reaction would show whether he was the man-eater or not.

I did not move a fraction of an inch as the beast stared at the

acacia. Having no sense of smell, he could not locate me exactly,
although he must have seen some part of me and knew that
something was sheltering behind that tree. He hesitated, and then
stepped three or four paces to his left from where he would be able
to get a better view of me.

Recognition came to both of us at once. He found out what I

was and where I was standing, while I found out that he was not
the man-eater. For there was not the faintest trace of a limp in his
walk. We stared at each other.

The next three or four seconds would decide our fate. I certainly
had no wish to shoot a harmless tiger provided he left me alone.
But would he? I had excited and irritated him by roaring, and had
made matters worse by coughing. An angry tiger cannot often
control itself.

The tiger sank to his haunches and I knew the charge was
coming. I aimed and was about to press the trigger when one of
those unaccountable events, that often make a tiger’s behaviour
unpredictable, occurred. He turned and bounded into the bushes!

Allowing time for him to get away and for my nerves to calm
down. I retraced my steps along the game-trail to the roadway and
back to the village where I told Byanna and the others, who
admitted they had never expected to see me again, what had
happened.
 To say I was disappointed would be putting matters lightly, but I
was glad I had not made things worse by shooting the wrong tiger.

During the next three days we bought four baits and tied them
out at the most likely spots where nullahs and pathways crossed
each other, and within a mile or so of the big lake, and above each
bait we constructed an almost perfect machan.

That was how I came to meet an individual who, as events were

to prove shortly, was as brave a man as any I have met. He was a
Chenchu—the name by which the aboriginal jungle men of these
areas are known—and he carried a bow and a quiver of arrows like
most Chenchus do. These, and a filthy rag as a loin-cloth, were
apparently his sole possessions. One more thing he had, and I
think it was his greatest asset. Appu—for that was his name—had
a most infectious smile, a marvellous sense of humour. He was as
happy as the day was long.

Appu offered his services in selecting suitable places in which to

tie my baits and in building the machans, and I was quick to
accept, for his smile won me completely. What wonderful
machans he built! He concealed them so cleverly that, even when
staring at one from the ground and knowing its location, it was
difficult for me to realize a machan was there. Indeed, little Appu
added greatly to my knowledge of the art of machan-tying, for
with him it was an art indeed!

Nothing happened the first night, nor the second. The buffalo
heifer that we had tied a quarter of a mile from the spot where I
had met the roaring tiger was killed and half-eaten on the third
night, so that on the fourth night I sat over this heifer’s remains,
awaiting the return of the killer.

Would it be the lame tiger, the man-eater, or would it be the

‘roaring tiger’—as I had come to call him—that I had encountered
a few days earlier? Unfortunately the ground was so hard that no
tracks were visible to answer this question in advance. The tiger
returned before darkness had set in, which is something rare for a
tiger to do, although sunset is the usual time at which panthers
come to their kills. He did not even glance upwards at Appu’s
perfect machan but walked boldly up to the heifer’s carcase and
gazed down upon it.

There was nothing wrong with his walk. He was not the lame
tiger I had been told to look for. He was not the man-eater.

The thought came to me to try a little experiment from that

wonderful machan. I made the grating call of a panther. The effect
on that tiger was astounding; he was galvanized into fury. He
whirled around to locate the puny but audacious panther who had
dared to challenge his right to his own kill. Where was this
intruder?

‘Hah-ah! Hah-ah!’ I called again. Then stopped.

‘Wrauff! Wrauff! Wrauff!’ roared the tiger, and charged directly

at the tree in which I was hidden. I had carried the joke too far.
The tiger was furious and hellbent upon exterminating what he
thought to be his spotted foe, hiding in the tree. Moreover the tree
was an easy one to climb and I was only about fifteen feet above
the ground.

The tiger disappeared from view as he got below the platform of

my machan. The tree shook as he sprang into the first fork and I
could hear the scraping of his claws upon the bark as he scrambled
upwards, growling furiously. It was not a big tree and his efforts,
together with his weight, set up a strange trembling that made my
whole machan vibrate.

Matters had gone far enough. In another moment those

enormous paws would reach up and tear the platform on which I
was seated to shreds. I would be thrown off the tree and the tiger
would probably jump down upon me before he could realize I was
no panther.

‘Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!’ I screeched in desperation, leaping to my feet

as I pointed the rifle downwards, waiting for his head or paw to
show over the edge of the platform. The unfortunate tiger really
got the shock of his life. He recognized the human voice and must
have wondered what sort of panther could be above him, since it
had, all of a sudden, turned itself into a man. And courage was
not his strong point, as he had shown a few days earlier when he
had met me behind the acacia.

The growling stopped and the tree shook furiously as the tiger
hurled his bulk to earth. He did not stop for a moment, but
bounded into the undergrowth; then I heard the noise of his
precipitate departure through the dry bushes.

When I got back to camp I told Byanna and Appu and my other
friends of the joke I had at the tiger’s expense. They were all
amused, but little Appu was tickled to death. He slapped his
thighs with the palms of his hands and laughed and laughed and
laughed. Almost gasping for breath, he choked over his words:
‘But yesterday, the tiger heard a tiger that turned out to be a man.
Today it heard a panther that became a man. It must be thinking
it’s going mad!’

Next day, I replaced the heifer that had been killed, and that
very night this new heifer was killed. We had not changed the spot
nor the machan where I had teased the tiger the day before. We
were after the lame tiger, the man-eater, so it was an advantage to
use the machan from which the other tiger, the stupid ‘roaring
tiger’ as we had named him, had been driven away. By using this
machan again, we could at least be sure the ‘roaring tiger’ would
not interfere. So it followed that, when the slaying of the new
heifer was reported at about 9 a.m. by Appu and the half-dozen
men armed with axes and staves, who had gone to inspect the
various baits, my spirits rose in anticipation. At last I was to come
to grips with the man-eater himself, for surely here he was at last!

Filled with this hope, I climbed into the machan early that
afternoon and had not been there long when a mongoose
appeared. He must have been extremely hungry, for he nibbled at
the dead heifer and then started bolting mouthfuls of flesh until he
was bloated and could hardly walk, before he toddled away.

As if they had been awaiting his departure, a bevy of what are

known in this part of India as ‘gerjers’—a species of small quail—
appeared in the clearing within a short time. They did not touch
the putrefying flesh but started. pecking at the myriads of tiny
beetles and other insects attracted by the stench from the carcase
that was increasing with the heat of the day. Bluebottle flies
settled in hordes upon the exposed flesh. There they would lay
eggs that in a short while would hatch into myriads of white
grubs. These would eat up the flesh and would, in turn be eaten by
birds and insects that would come to prey upon them. In less than
twenty-four hours that carcase would be reduced to mere bones by
the action of maggots alone, apart from the scavengers of the sky,
the vultures, that were already gathering for the final feast, and
the scavengers of the night—hyaenas and jackals—that would
arrive for the scant remains after darkness had fallen.

Then, of course, there was the rightful owner—the lame tiger as

I hoped he would be—who should turn up by eight o’clock at the
latest.

My reverie was rudely interrupted by the raucous but happy

crow of a junglecock nearby: ‘Wheew! Kuck-kaya-kaya-kuck’m’
he called, and I knew without looking at my watch that it was
nearing half-past five. Evening had come and I began to hope that
the man-eater would be as obliging as his inoffensive cousin, the
roaring tiger, by putting in his appearance before nightfall.
 Down by the lake which, incidentally, was behind me, two
families of peafowl began to call to each other: ‘Mi-aow!’ while
what is known as the ‘Gollamothi Bird,’ from far away, gave her
mating call: ‘Gol-a-mothy! Gol-a-mo-thy!’ Every male within
earshot, hearing that irresistible, enticing cry, would fly to her
and before sunset she would have a number of suitors from whom
to make her choice.

Twilight soon enveloped the jungle, that period of uncertainty

between daylight and dark, when the eyesight is most easily
deceived and innocent shrubs and bushes assume the menacing
appearance of crouching, watching beasts.

Phutt! Phutt! Phutt! A number of birds flapped heavily in

headlong flight from a tree somewhere behind me. They gave
voice to a shrieking alarm ‘Kee-ya! Kee-ya! Kee-ya!’

Something had aroused a flock of crimson-headed parrots from

their roosting place and they fled to seek another. Now why did
the parrots do that? Maybe they saw a wild cat on the prowl. Or
could it be the tiger?

Time slipped by.

‘Keech! Keech! Keech! Keech!’ A number of miniature bats of

the insect-eating variety swooped and dived at their invisible
prey, taking them on the wing and screeching in sheer joy in such
high notes, I am told, that it is beyond the human ear to register
them. And I am right glad of that as the screeching, creaking
noises they were making at the moment that I could hear were
loud enough.

A nightjar fluttered overhead and settled somewhere behind

me. He started the chorus of calls that would soon be repeated by
a number of his fellows: ‘Chuck chuck Chuck Chuck Chuckooooo;
Chuck Chuck …’
 Then he stopped abruptly and took flight. I could see him sailing
over the treetop to my right. And a second later I heard a deep sigh
beneath my machan, followed by complete silence. Although I
could not see him, I knew the tiger had arrived.

He was standing directly below me, and I sensed that he was

inspecting the kill and his surroundings with the utmost care to
make quite certain no hidden danger threatened. Would he look
up and discover the machan? A nerve-straining period of
inactivity followed. Then I heard a continuous small sound which
I shall not try to describe, although I could easily identify it. The
tiger was answering the calls of nature.

I was elated. This was a good sign indeed. It showed he was not
at all frightened or suspicious.

The next instant the tiger walked boldly into view from under
my tree. In spite of the fact that it had become very dark I could
make out those cautious but purposeful strides that took him to
the kill. There was not the vestige of a limp in his walk. He was
certainly not a lame animal and therefore not the man-eater.

I voiced my disgust beneath my breath. The tiger stopped as if

he had heard me. Then he continued till he reached the dead
heifer, where he halted to look down upon it.

Without doubt he was my old friend, the roaring tiger. For a

moment I was tempted to shoot him, for this animal was
becoming a nuisance. He had taken two of my baits and probably
would take a lot more. And baits cost money.

Then I stopped to think. Could he be the man-eater, after all?

What evidence did I really have that the man-eater was lame,
beyond hearsay? Perhaps the story was all wrong. Maybe this was
the man-eater, standing there, just waiting to be shot.
 But I recalled his behaviour on the two occasions when he had
seen me and found I was a man. That was not the conduct of a
man-eater: he had acted more like a scared rabbit. Nevertheless,
there was no getting away from it. This animal was becoming a
nuisance. So I raised my rifle, aimed quickly at the ground under
his belly and fired.

The bullet struck the earth between his legs and in spite of the
near darkness I could see the puff of dust it raised as it buried itself
in the ground. As for the tiger, he arched his back like a frightened
cat, then became elongated as he stretched himself for a mighty
spring that took him clean out of sight.

I came down from the machan in disgust, shouldered my rifle,

and using a pocket torch to light the way in case I trod on a snake,
made my way back to the village.

The next day I bought yet another heifer and tied it out at the
same spot. Surely the roaring tiger would not take it this time?
And I made up my mind that, if he did, I would shoot him without
compunction.

This time he did not kill. Oh, he came there all right. The whole
village and I heard him. He roared from about ten till near
midnight. He had seen the heifer and was very hungry. But,
mindful of a tiger that had turned into a man, followed by a
panther-man or shall we say a ‘leopard-man’, and then of some
strange thing that made an awful bang and hit the ground
between his feet with tremendous force, he could not summon
enough courage to kill the tempting bait. He roared his frustration
and displeasure instead.

Next morning no kills were reported. But little Appu had some
news to give. He had found the trail of the lame tiger near one of
the further baits. It had passed within a few yards of the heifer,
even halting to look at it. Yet it had not killed the buffalo. Appu
said he felt that the man-eater was averse to buffalo meat and
would therefore not take any of our baits, however long we might
try. He suggested I exchange the buffaloes for bulls and try again.

He said he had another plan in mind. I inquired what it was.

Appu grinned hugely as he suggested that he and I might go
looking for the man-eater every night until we found him.

A good idea, I replied. As good a notion as looking for a needle

in a haystack.

It took a little time for Appu to understand me. With haystacks

he was familiar. But not with needles. After all, why should he
want one? He wore no clothes! I suggested a pin, instead of a
needle. That did not register, either. What had Appu to do with
pin? Then I had a brainwave. I picked up a dried twig and twisted
off the largest thorn growing on it. I went through the motion of
hiding the thorn in a haystack and asked Appu how long he might
take to find it. He shrugged.

I said that this was like looking for the lame tiger in an area of
jungle that extended for miles and miles. Appu’s face brightened
as he caught my meaning at last. He laughed and he laughed and
he laughed.

All this talk had made breakfast late, but we set out as soon as I
had finished. Appu led me in a southwesterly direction from the
lake, over the brow of a low hill and into a valley on the other
side. A dry streambed wound along this valley and one of my baits
had been tied at a spot where a fire-line crossed this stream.

The path we had just followed from the lake also crossed the
stream at its intersection with the fire-break and led onwards to a
Chenchu settlement about three or four miles away. Chenchus do
not live in villages. One stumbles upon a tiny circular hut of sticks
and grass, scarcely noticeable in the surrounding jungle. A whole
family of ten persons may live in one such hut. There may possibly
be another hut nearby, or you may have to cover many miles
before reaching the next.

We had deliberately selected the junction-point as the best spot

for tying the bait, for a tiger coming upstream or downstream, or
from either side of the fireline or footpath—that is, from any one
of six directions—would see it immediately. And now, clearly in
the dust of the footpath and coming from the opposite sides, were
the footprints of a tiger.

I studied them closely. There were the pug-marks of three feet,

instead of the four distinct impressions a tiger makes when he is
ambling along, or the two marks he leaves when he is stalking by
placing each hind foot upon the place vacated by the
corresponding forefoot as it is moved forward to avoid treading
upon a dried leaf or a twig. There was no doubt about it: this
animal was using only three of his feet, and there was something
wrong with the fourth. Hence he was unable to leave the
quadruple trail normally made by a roaming tiger.

At last I was looking at the man-eater’s pug-marks. The uneven

distance between them indicated that he was limping badly,
almost hopping along, while an occasional drag-mark in the dust
showed where he had tried to put his weight on that right foreleg
but could not do so. It was clear that the injury was severe and
that the wound had not yet healed. I came to the conclusion that
it could not be a very old one.

By tracking backwards for about 200 yards we reached the place

where the tiger had come out of the jungle intending to cross or
follow the footpath. Here he had spotted our bait and had
deliberately walked up to it. We could see where he had halted to
inspect the heifer from a distance of ten feet and then continued
on his way.
 This conduct puzzled me. Judging from the severe handicap
from which the beast was suffering, he must be very hungry
indeed, if not in a state of starvation most of the time. In that
emaciated condition, why had he refused a meal that was his only
for the taking? One could only conclude that he was not so very
hungry after all, for hunger is an urge that neither a starving
human nor a starving tiger can resist.

We followed the tiger’s trail after leaving our heifer. He had

continued along the pathway for only another five or six yards
and had then broken into the jungle where he had turned back to
recross the streambed and enter the forest on the other side. Here
we lost the trail among the dry leaves and hard ground. It
appeared as if the tiger had decided to resume his walk to
wherever he had been going before he had spotted our buffalo and
moved closer to examine it.

Appu and I decided we would ramble in his wake, or rather in

the general direction he had been going, for as I have just said, the
dry ground afforded no further trail. In a little while we came
upon a game-path. The ground was still too hard for us to see any
pug-marks, but we could make out the abrasions and scrapes left
upon the baked earth by the pointed hooves of sambar and spotted
deer, while a little further on a bear had recently been engaged
upon heaving over boulders that bordered the path in his search
for grubs and roots.

Appu suggested that, after all, the lame tiger might have been
making for this game-trail and had probably followed it, although
we could see no traces, and I agreed with him. The track seemed
to be much used by wild animals, for not long afterwards we found
the marks of a sounder of wild pig, coming from the opposite
direction. Of the tiger there was still no trace.

But a little further on we found we were right. A nullah cut

across the path almost at right angles. The trail we were following
led sharpy down an incline into this nullah and up the other side,
and clearly imprinted upon the loose earth of this nullah were the
tracks of the lame tiger, leading away from us. They had been
made the previous night and we had been correct in thinking that
the game-trail we were following was the tiger’s route. We were
interested and decided to find out where the tiger had wanted to
go.

We had covered more than a mile along that game-trail when

we reached the crest of a small hill and looked down the other
side. Below us, leading across a small clearing, we could see a
distinct pathway and knew that it was the rough road that led to
the Chenchu settlement I have told you about. The game-trail we
were following had been but a short cut that had led across the
hill instead of going around it, and the lame tiger had been
moving towards the settlement.

We continued, and within the next half-mile we discovered that

our game-trail led across the Chenchu roadway. Here the tiger had
left the game-trail and had walked along the roadway, for his
tracks lay clearly in the dust before us. We followed him for nearly
another mile, when we heard voices approaching from the
opposite direction. Around a bend appeared some ten Chenchus,
walking rapidly and talking loudly among themselves. All carried
bows and arrows and half of them were armed with crude spears
and axes in addition.

They caught sight of us and came forward, talking excitedly,

but before they could reach us we had overheard and knew the
reason for their agitation. The man-eater had carried off a
Chenchu from the hamlet the previous evening.

When they reached us they told us the story. They had all
known of the presence of the man-eater for some time and went
about, when they had to, in groups armed as they were now. But
Kalla, one of the their number, had always been a hunter and held
all tigers, including man-eaters, in contempt. He had proclaimed
that he was afraid of no tiger, while on the other hand every tiger
walked in fear of him. Kalla had taken his axe and his bow and
arrows and his long spear that morning and gone out hunting. He
had returned for a late lunch and had informed his wife that he
had failed to kill anything, but consoled her with the news that he
had discovered a beehive in a hole in a tree almost within a
stone’s throw of the village.

Kalla had left his bow and arrows and spear behind as
unnecessary impediments and had taken his axe, a box of matches
and some straw with which to hack out the hive and smoke the
bees away, and also an empty tin in which to collect the honey. In
a short while, some of the Chenchus heard the sound of his axe
and had wondered how they had been so foolish as not to detect
the presence of the hive before Kalla had done.

At that moment they were startled by a scream: Tiger! Tiger!’

Kalla had shrieked, and ‘Help! Help! Help!’ Then there was
silence.

Kalla had not been popular and nobody, including his own wife,
was in too great a hurry to rush to his rescue. They waited to see
when he would return, but Kalla did not show up. In due course
the menfolk gathered together, armed themselves as best they
could, and went to the hollow tree where Kalla had found the
beehive. The tree and the bees were there, and the axe, but no
trace of Kalla. Instead they found fresh gum oozing from the deep
abrasions that had been made in the trunk of the tree as the tiger
had stood on his hind-paw and grabbed at Kalla with the only
forepaw he could use—his left. Necessarily, the operation had
been a clumsy one, as the handicapped tiger must have had to
support his weight against the tree trunk while reaching for his
quarry with one foreleg. This had given Kalla time to scream for
help. Had the tiger not been maimed, the Chenchu would not
have heard or seen his attacker, while had the tree been a few feet
higher, Kalla would have been beyond the reach of the man-eater,
which could not have followed him.

The man-eater had dragged Kalla through the bushes into the
jungle, where they came across blood and the remnants of his
loincloth. They had followed for a short distance after that and
then stopped, for nobody seemed to have liked Kalla very much.
They knew he was dead. What was the use of following? Then
they remembered that somebody had told them a couple of dorais
had come to the village of Peddacheruvu to shoot this man-eater,
and they had decided to go there to tell them. But it was too late
and darkness had already set in.

So next morning some of the Chenchus had leisurely finished

breakfast before setting out to bring Byanna and me the news.
That explained how Appu and I came to meet them on the way.
My guide and I now knew where the lame tiger had been heading
when he had observed our buffalo, and we also knew why he had
not killed and eaten the heifer.

Evidently he had made a good meal of the Chenchu the previous

night and had then wandered away for water. As likely as not he
had visited the lake for a drink. There he had remembered his
human kill and had decided to return and finish off what was left.
He had been on the way back when he saw our bait but was not
hungry enough to kill and eat it, and as likely as not he preferred
the taste of the Chenchu’s flesh to tough buffalo meat, even
though by now there could be little of the Chenchu left.

We told our part in these happenings to the Chenchus, who now

became enthusiastic and offered to help in trying to trace where
the tiger had gone. We knew that if we succeeded we would find
Kalla’s remains. But to them this appeared of little importance.
Primarily, they wanted me to shoot the tiger, for as long as he
remained their lives were in danger. With the eleven Chenchus to
follow the trail, we went in the wake of the lame tiger for another
few yards before we found he had again turned into the jungle.
This time his passage could not escape those eleven pairs of
searching eyes and in due course we came to a small, dry nullah,
up which our quarry had turned. We could see his footmarks,
while one of the Chenchus whispered that their settlement was
hardly a quarter of a mile away. Within a short time we got the
smell of the cadaver, and a little later we heard the hum of a
thousand bluebottle flies. At last we had come to what remained
of the unfortunate Kalla, the man who had been a little too
cocksure. He had met the fate of many a hunter before him, and
the fate that is in store for many more the world over. The fate
that comes to those who are overconfident and careless.

There was very little left of the Chenchu. His head had been
spared. Also his hands and feet, the usual portions of the human
anatomy left by a man-eater. Even his shin-bones had been
chewed and splintered, and some of his ribs, while sections of his
spinal column lay about with hardly any flesh on them.

The man-eater must have been very hungry. Indeed, he must

have been almost starving to have made such a meal. Again I
wondered why he had spared my buffalo bait, which would have
provided him with a far bigger repast.

A short distance away one of the Chenchus discovered a thigh

bone. Of the other there was no trace. A hyaena or jackal had
probably carried it way.

We discussed the situation in whispers. My companions were

divided in their opinions. About half said that I should sit up for
the tiger that night in a machan they offered to construct, while
the other half were convinced it was a waste of time, as the man-
eater would never return. There was nothing left for him to eat.
Yes indeed: a hyaena would come, certainly jackals. A tiger?
Never. Tigers were not carrion-eaters!
 Then I remembered that the lame tiger appeared to be a very
hungry animal, and I had no doubt of the course I should follow. I
would sit over the remains of Kalla that night, come what may.
There was a chance, albeit a slim one, that the tiger would return.
I told my companions this and even the doubtful ones now saw my
point. With enthusiasm, one and all set to work, and under the
direction of that expert on machans, Appu, once again a
wonderful structure took shape before my eyes.

Appu had selected a bushy tree that grew some thirty-five yards
away, and from the machan the Chenchus built on it, rather
higher than usual, being some twenty feet off the ground in order
to gain an uninterrupted view of the remains, I would await the
doubtful return of the man-eater. We brought the solitary thigh-
bone to where the other bones lay, so as to keep them as closely as
possible together and offer a more tempting sight that might at
least bring the man-eater forward to sniff at them.

Leaving Appu to the task with the other Chenchus, I hurried

back to Peddacheruvu for something to eat and also for my night
equipment. Byanna was excited when he heard the news and
wished me luck.

It was past four o’clock when I returned to find Appu and two
others perched on the machan. They had covered the few remains
with leafy branches to conceal them from the keen sight of
vultures, and these branches they removed when they left for the
Chenchu settlement, where Appu had elected to spend the night
with the others.

With the departure of my henchman, I began to think about the

lame tiger. I wondered if he had really been maimed in a fight
with another tiger as reported, or by a gunshot wound fired by
some poacher, as frequently is the case. Undoubtedly the animal
was very severely handicapped, so much so, in fact, that he must
have lacked the confidence to tackle the heifer I had tied out for
him. I concluded that this was the real reason why he had left it
alone. This tiger would indeed prove to be in a very emaciated
condition, necessarily dependent on the few small animals and
other creatures that he could stalk and tackle upon his three
sound legs till such time as some lucky chance presented itself and
he found and killed some unfortunate human being.

With this thought came fresh hope. A tiger as hungry as this

would surely be tempted to return to the scraps that were left,
even after the full meal he had made the night before.

The evening drew to its close in comparative silence. There

were few birds and small animals, such as monkeys, in this part of
the jungle, or they were strangely quiet for some unaccountable
reason. This was unfortunate, for not only are the sounds of the
forest for me endless source of delight, but it is upon the cries of
alarm made by these smaller creatures, as well as the members of
the deer family, that I largely rely to tell me of a tiger’s
movements. Once or twice, in the distance, a partridge called, but
of jungle fowl and peafowl there was no evidence. I wondered
about this till the answer came suddenly. The Chenchu
settlement! Those little marksmen, with their bows and arrows,
had wiped out all the edible birds within a considerable radius.

Darkness began to fall and the birds of the night, being less
edible in Chenchu opinion than their unfortunate cousins of the
day, and certainly far more difficult to hunt, began their calls. I
welcomed the sounds that broke the monotonous silence of the
evening I had just passed. A night-heron wailed in despair from
the bed of some dry stream, and his cry was answered by a
companion further down the valley. Far away, a pair of jackals
raised their haunting call.

A squat kind of wood-cricket inhabits the forests of Andhra

Pradesh in large numbers, which I have never come across nor
heard in the jungles of Madras and Mysore. This little insect
chirrups loudly, and when hundreds of them chirrup together the
noise is loud enough to drown all other sounds. At times these
vibrations synchronize and the resultant throb has the intensity of
a tractor working nearby.

I had been listening to this noise that had started soon after
sunset. It appeared to be growing steadily in volume and intensity
as more and more of the insects joined in the chorus. Nothing else
could I hear. Suddenly there was a sharp diminution of the sound.
The crickets in the distance appeared to have stopped chirruping,
and in a matter of seconds those nearer to me, becoming aware of
the silence of their distant companions, stopped chirruping too. It
was as if the tractor had come to a sudden halt.

The ensuing hush was relieving to the nerves in one sense but in
another way it was strangely foreboding and terrifying. Just what
had made the crickets stop their chorus?

The night-herons were still wailing to each other in the distance

when I first heard the cause: the call of the man-eater! He roared
in the valley. Once, twice and again.

Now I knew why the crickets had ceased their chorus so

abruptly. They had heard the first roars of the tiger that had been
inaudible to me because of the din they were making. Only after
they had stopped was I able to hear him. But what had the man-
eater got to do with crickets? Why should they fear him? I fell to
wondering at the answer to this question. It intrigued me so much
that I decided to put it to a friend of mine in Madras, who is a
naturalist. The answer, as I found out later, is a simple one, and I
shall tell you about it before I end this story.

The tiger was still roaring. He roared and roared as he came

closer and closer. Obviously he intended returning to the remains
of Kalla, the Chenchu, but why was he roaring in this fashion? It
was as strange as it was unusual. When a tiger returns to his kill
he does so in absolute silence, using the utmost caution to conceal
his every movement with each step he takes. He certainly does not
advertise his presence by roaring.

I was intrigued and awaited the answer in what he would do in

the next thirty minutes.

He came as close as about fifty yards from my machan, but

there he stayed put, hidden in the undergrowth, while he
continued to roar. Never for a moment did he come out or show
himself, although after some time he started to move around my
machan and Kalla’s remains in a wide circle, while his roaring
grew louder and more fierce.

It did not take long to realize that the man-eater knew all about
my presence in the tree overlooking his kill. But how could he
have found out? He certainly could not have discovered my
machan, for he had started roaring a long while back and quite a
considerable distance away. Thus it was clear that he had known
about me and the machan from the very start, and that he was
trying to frighten me away.

There was only one way in which he could have found out. The
man-eater had been lying in concealment all the time and had
watched us build the machan. He knew some hated human enemy
was awaiting his return, and that a return spelt great danger to
him. Like all man-eaters, this tiger had an inherent fear of the
human race, but in this instance the urge to eat again, in spite of
his last big feed, was making him bold enough to think he could
drive his foe away by roaring loudly and often. He had evidently
followed Appu and the other Chenchus as far as their
encampment and had now come back in the hope of being able to
gnaw a few bones.

The man-eater continued to roar as he circled again and again,

and I waited in patience to see what he would do. There could be
only one answer to this intriguing situation within the next half-
hour or so. Either the man-eater must become impatient and take
a chance, or I would become impatient and go down in search of
him. The third alternative was that the tiger would go away and I
would lose him. At all costs, I must not allow that to happen.

Time passed. Half an hour. Then another ten minutes. But the
man-eater did not show himself. Instead of continuing to move
around in a wide circle as he had been doing, the tiger was now
evidently lying on the ground, or perhaps sitting on his haunches,
in a thicket that I could just make out as a big, black void in the
darkness that was softened by the stars that shone brilliantly from
a clear sky. And from this thicket he was roaring and roaring with
unabated vigour and fury to drive away the person or persons he
well knew were hidden in the tree where he had noticed such
activity in the afternoon.

When there is something to be done, I am not a very patient

person, and the urge to act was growing stronger with each
moment. So at last I started to descend the tree as silently as
possible. As stealthily as I moved, I knew the man-eater would
hear me. If only he would give me time to reach the foot of the
tree and walk the few steps to where Kalla’s bones lay! Danger lay
in the risk that he might attack while I was halfway down. Then I
would be helpless, as I would not be able to use my rifle. I could
feel the sweat of fear pour down my face and my hands were
slippery with it. But I controlled my feet to move as silently and
surely as possible. To fall now and hurt myself would mean lying
on the ground entirely at the man-eater’s mercy.

I was about halfway down when the roaring ceased. He had

heard me and guessed that his quarry was on the move. Would he
come closer to investigate? Naturally, he would. He might even
then be only a few feet away.
 The thought made me shaky and I quickened my descent,
almost slipping once or twice. I had to feel for each foothold,
although the stars gave enough light to make the ground visible. A
great feeling of relief and thankfulness surged through me as my
foot touched the earth at last. Quickly I brought my loaded rifle,
which I had to sling over my right shoulder while making the
descent, to the ready, while I stood with my back to the tree to
meet the charge I expected at any moment.

The quietness was intense. Not a leaf stirred. The crickets were
silent. The man-eater must be creeping towards me now. Surely he
would make some sound, the faintest of rustles that would tell me
where he was and give me a chance. But he made no sound. There
was no rustle. Only an unearthly stillness.

Then it happened! The strain on the tiger had been as great as it

had been on me, and he could contain himself no longer. With a
shattering roar, he charged.

But he came from quite a different direction from what I had

expected. He launched his attack from behind and not from the
bush in which he had been hiding.

I heard the roar and whirled around. The tree-trunk was in my

way and I could not see him coming, although I had switched on
the torch. The stream of light was thrown back into my eyes by
the trunk before me and a dark void lay beyond.

The tiger could not now check himself despite the bright light
that faced him. A mass of snarling fury, he was suddenly before
me, appearing out of the darkness from behind the tree-trunk and
to my left. I leaped to the right, desperately keeping the tree
between us, and fired hastily from the shelter of the trunk at the
massive head, not more than two yards away.

The tiger tried to turn while continuing his blind rush forward
and had reached the tree before my scattered wits responded to the
urge to work the underlever of the .405. The spent cartridge case
flew out of the breach and I had time for a hasty second shot at the
confused, blurred hindquarters of the tiger.

He disappeared, and silence fell once more. I listened intently

for the sounds I hoped to hear: the gurgling death-rattle of a dying
animal, or the deep, sad moaning of a badly-wounded beast. At
least the angry roar of an infuriated creature that has been hit in
some place. I listened for the crackling, crashing noise made by a
wounded animal in headlong flight, heedless of where it is going
so long as it succeeds in getting away.

But none of these sounds was to be heard: absolutely nothing at

all. I waited perhaps for ten minutes—or fifteen—with the beam
of my torch still on the spot where the tiger disappeared from
view.

Still the silence continued. No distant alarm-cries from sambar

or spotted deer marked the movements of the man-eater. Could my
first shot have been fatal? Perhaps the tiger had dropped dead a
few yards away.

Then at last I heard a sound. It was the chirruping of a cricket.

Others joined in, singly and in twos and threes, till once more the
jungle was filled with that vibrating, rasping, uneven sound. It
was as if the hidden tractor had been put to work once again.

Of one thing I could then be certain: the man-eater was no

longer in the vicinity.

Relieved of the tension, I lowered the beam of the torch on my

rifle to examine the ground at the spot where the tiger was when I
fired at his head. Then I moved slowly forward, looking closely at
the earth in the direction he went. I passed Kalla’s bones and
reached the place where he disappeared. But nothing was to be
seen.
 I moved forward till I reached the thick undergrowth and the
ground was hidden from view. I examined the leaves, the twigs
and the blades of high grass as I moved on in the direction taken
by the fleeing man-eater. But there was not a drop of blood to be
seen, nor any sign of disturbed, bitten or clawed undergrowth, no
evidence of any wounded creature having passed that way.

Then I remembered the deep silence that followed my two shots

and was convinced at last of the shocking fact that I had missed,
not once, but twice, and the first at point-blank range.

Not knowing the way to the Chenchu settlement in the

darkness, I climbed back into the machan and spent the rest of the
night in bitter self-recrimination. The man-eater would now
become more cunning than ever and would never return to a kill
again. As a result he would be hungry more often, and this would
lead to him killing more frequently. The Chenchus, and other
unfortunate people who lived in that area, would have to pay the
penalty. The man-eater would now exact an indirect payment for
my poor shooting.

It was 4 a.m. before I fell asleep, to be awakened shortly after

dawn by Appu and nearly a dozen Chenchus who had
accompanied him to ascertain the result of the shots they must
have heard the previous night. Shamefacedly, I related what had
happened. Appu said nothing. He merely looked at me with one
raised eyebrow. There was a wealth of disdain in that look, and he
knew I knew it.

There was nothing to do but ask our Chenchu friends to report

at once if they heard or saw anything, more of the man-eater, and
then Appu and I took the weary trail back to Peddacheruvu.
Neither of us spoke the whole way. We both felt that, under the
circumstances, the less said the better.
 Byanna tried to cheer me up when he heard the story by giving a
short discourse on the law of averages. In effect he said I had to
miss some time if I did not want to miss every time. I was not
impressed and went to sleep.

Nothing happened during the next two days and Byanna said
that we would have to return to Markapur very shortly for fresh
supplies, for, incredible as it might seem, that great stock of
foodstuffs we had brought with us was running low. Personally, I
think he had given up hope and had come to feel that the man-
eater was too cunning for us.

Here was where little Appu showed his mettle. He told Byanna
to go to town for the fresh supplies while he and I would scour the
jungle from dawn to dusk in an attempt to meet the tiger. My
friend agreed, but added that he thought we were wasting our
time.

Byanna left for Markapur at six next morning, while Appu and I
set off at the same hour to try to meet the lame tiger. This time the
Chenchu brought not only his axe but his dog, a lanky,
cadaverous cur, whose ears had been cut off as a puppy to avoid
attracting the hordes of ‘horse-flies,’ as they are called in India,
that pester horses and dogs in later life by collecting on their ears.
I do not know the real name of these pests, but I am told that they
belong to the same family as the African tsetse fly. Their bite,
unlike that of their African cousins, is quite harmless, although
very sharp and painful.

This apparition of a dog, which Appu addressed as ‘Adiappa,’

looked as if he had not eaten for at least six months. Now Adiappa
is a man’s name in the Telugu dialect and definitely not that of a
dog. I asked Appu the reason and he replied that Adiappa was his
neighbour’s name, a person whom Appu disliked intensely. He
had, therefore, named the cur after him to insult the neighbour. In
this strategy, however, Appu had come off second best, as he went
on to add with great resentment that the neighbour, who washed
clothes for a living, had retaliated by giving the name Appu to one
of his donkeys, which he used for carrying the bundles of dirty
linen to the tank for washing.

So Appu and I, with the cur Adiappa dodging between our legs,
circled the lake once again, this time along the eastern shore and
not by the western approach where the track from Peddacheruvu
made its way to the Atmakur- Doranala road. The scrub was
thinner at this end of the lake, and as a consequence feathered
game like peafowl and partridge were quite plentiful. We also put
up a small herd of blackbuck, an animal normally not found in
the vicinity of big jungles and usually confined to wastelands
bordering the cultivated areas. One old stag, with a jet-black coat
and white underbelly and an enormous pair of corkscrew horns,
regarded us with studied indifference till Adiappa took it into his
head to give chase with a series of hungry yelps. The stag and his
harem disappeared and the cur came back to regard us with
mournful, accusing eyes. Very plainly he was upbraiding us in his
doggie mind for having missed the chance of giving him something
to eat.

The blackbuck, which is the most beautiful of the few species of

the antelope family in India, was also at one time the most
plentiful and roamed the wastelands all over the peninsula in
thousands. Since those days they have been relentlessly pursued
with bows and arrows, firearms, dogs and all manner of ingenious
traps, till today they are but few and far between, scarcely to be
seen in their old haunts and in real danger of extermination. Rules
for their protection exist on paper, written in Government offices
and printed in notifications and gazettes, but nobody pays heed to
them, and the eventual disappearance of this beautiful creature
from the face of this earth seems a certainty.

To make matters worse, the blackbuck belongs to the order of

animals that chew the cud. That is, their food is swallowed after
being partly masticated and passes into the stomach where
digestion begins. From here it is returned to the mouth again for
further mastication before being finally swallowed. During this
process the animal is incapable of quick or prolonged movement
and tires easily. If chased for a distance, it falls to earth exhausted
and helpless. The indigenous hunters and village poachers know
this, and they also know exactly how long after grazing the
second digestive process begins and for how long it lasts. So when
they observe a herd feeding, they watch patiently till the animals
squat down to ‘chew the cud.’ They wait for a few minutes more
and then give chase with packs of dogs, guns, bows and arrows and
what not. The frightened antelope tries to escape, but the younger
members and the females cannot go far. They collapse exhausted
and are either torn to bits by the pursuing dogs or killed at close
range when the men come up.

To continue with my story! Appu and I had not gone far after
seeing the blackbuck when we crossed the tracks of a family of
four nilgai or bluebull, as they are better known. As a rule these
animals graze alone. This quartet had gone down the previous
night to water at lake. These big antelope leave tracks that look
very like those of their cousins of the jungles, the giant sambar
deer, the difference being that the former are much more pointed
and rather more elongated. At this point we halted. For,
superimposed over the tracks of the four nilgai were the pug-marks
of a big male tiger.

Appu and I studied the ground carefully and started to follow

the tiger’s trail for a short distance. Soon we confirmed that he
was not our quarry; the lame man-eater. This animal had all four
of his feet intact and was suffering no handicap whatever.
Undoubtedly we were looking at the pug-marks of our old friend,
the roaring but very timid tiger that seemed to insist on haunting
us as well as the precincts of the lake. He was no good to us
anyhow, while the lame man-eater, being also a male, was hardly
likely to keep him company.
 We went on and on, working southwards, till by midday we
judged we were at least ten miles from the lake which, according
to my pocket compass, lay directly north of us. We did not want to
go too far as the man-eater had hitherto confined his activities to
within about this radius. So after a whispered consultation Appu
and I changed direction and set off on a northwesterly course that
should, before evening, bring us to a point due west of the lake
and within a couple of miles of the little Chenchu settlement
where I had met my last adventure.

Here we ran into difficulties. Such game-trails as we did cross

ran at right angles to our course, from southwest to northeast, as
the animals that had made them through the years had gone
towards the lake for water. So we could not avail ourselves of the
natural assistance they afforded by following them, but had to
follow a direct course towards our destination by struggling
through the jungle. This made for very hard going and slow
progress. Every few yards we would come up against thorny bushes
or clumps of heavy vegetation. These we had to circumvent. Thus
the distance we had to cover was more than doubled and took
much more time than planned and required frequent reference to
my compass.

The sun was scorchingly hot at 3 p.m., and we were both bathed
in perspiration when we reached a small hillock. There was an
overhanging rock facing us on one side of this hillock, and from
the base oozed a tiny trickle of fresh water, only a few drops at a
time, which had formed into a puddle no more than a couple of
feet in diameter. The supply of water was so small that a stream
could not form and the liquid soaked into the ground at about the
same rate as it dripped from the rock. As a result the water was
fresh and crystal-clear, and to our overheated and tired bodies as
welcome as an oasis in the Sahara.

But there was this difference. Clearly imprinted in the moist

earth were the tracks of the tiger we were looking for; in fact there
were many pug-marks to be seen, for by accident we had
discovered his regular drinking-place. Among the tracks was the
blurred drag of his limping foot in places where he had rested it on
the ground while he drank.

There was no doubt about it. We were looking at the tracks of

the lame man-eater at last! Jubilation filled us, both at discovering
the tracks and at finding water to drink. I placed the .405 on the
ground and lay on my stomach with just one thought for the
moment and that was to drink, and drink and drink. I never
bothered to see what Appu was doing or even to think about him.
I suppose with the usual sahib’s accustomed attitude of taking
things for granted, my subconscious mind, if it thought at all,
expected Appu to wait till I had finished.

It was good that Appu actually did so, for my subconscious mind
was apparently not up to form that day. For, as I was enjoying the
ice-cold water, the man-eater decided to charge.

There came a tremendous roar from the right of us; ‘Wrr-off!’

And again: ‘Wrr-off! Wrr-off!’ And then the man-eater was upon
us!

Groping for the rifle with my right hand, I crouched on my

knees, turning around as best I could to face the rush. A terrifying
apparition greeted me. The snarling form of the tiger was racing
towards us in lop-sided, bobbing bounds. He was but fifteen feet
away! Appu stood his ground, maniacally flourishing his axe in
sweeping circles to meet that onslaught. Yelping frenziedly in
front of his master, the dog Adiappa, which up to this moment had
showed no sign of being any more than a ludicrous, half-starved
cur, stood with bared teeth to meet that awful onslaught.

I suppose the tiger, too, thought the sight before him

frightening. The people he had so far killed had been taken by
surprise. They had screamed but offered no resistance. In this case
a man stood before him, whirling something round and round,
while a despicable cur, that he would not have condescended to
look at, seemed to want to fight. The only craven thing in the
scene and up to the tiger’s expectations was the second individual
who was rolling on the ground, evidently in abject fear and
unable to get up.

The tiger halted for a moment, and in that moment the man-
eater had made his greatest and last mistake. The man on the
ground—myself—had found his rifle at last and did not get up
because he was kneeling to take aim. I fired then, and twice again.

An examination of the dead animal confirmed what I had been

told. He had been turned into a man-eater by the severe damage to
his right leg suffered during a fight with another tiger. At least, in
this case, man was not to blame!

To Appu and his dog, Adiappa, I am grateful that I was able to

tell Byanna, when he returned from Markapur very late that
evening with a fresh stock of foodstuffs, that his labour had been
in vain. Had the stocky little Chenchu and his large-hearted dog
not stood their ground but run away, the man-eater would never
have paused in his rush and I would not have lived to tell the tale.

To conclude, I will explain why the crickets ceased their

chirruping when the man-eater started roaring. My naturalist
friend at Madras says it is because the tiger’s roars made the
ground vibrate. Apparently crickets cannot hear, but they have an
acute sense to touch. The vibrations had given them cause for fear
—perhaps even an earthquake in the offing? The crickets had
stopped shouting at least.

_____________

* See The Black Panther of Sivanipalli, Chapter 4.

 3

The Queer Side of Things

ISITS to the jungle are not always for the purpose of hunting
V and killing. Far from it. As I grow older, I find that I have no
urge to slay, except when occasion calls for it. So for a change I
will tell you of a few incidents of another kind that I have
experienced in my forest wanderings.

Among the foothills to the north of the Nilgiri range of

mountains lies undulating country, covered by heavy forest to the
west where the rainfall is plentiful, and slightly lighter jungle to
the east where the monsoon, having expended itself against the
lofty Nilgiris, is unable to bring so much rain. Centuries ago, all
this land was cultivated and densely populated too, and the
remains of quite a number of ruined villages, temples, forts and
viaducts are to be found in the forest, covered now by the jungle,
where evidently civilization thrived in days gone by.

I have in mind the cattle patty of Chemanath, where half-a-

dozen wattle huts now stand, enclosed within a rough circle of
perhaps two acres of land. The circumference of the circle is
outlined by a low barrier of cut, piled thorns, three feet high. The
surface within is inches deep in cow dung, accumulated over
decades by the hundreds of cattle that have sheltered in this
‘patty.’ In summer time, when there is no grazing in the forest and
the cattle are taken away, this cow dung dries as hard as cement.
Then the rains come, and the cattle return. The rain, and the
urine passed by hundreds of animals quartered within the thorn
enclosure at night, make a quagmire of the accumulated dung.
The herdsmen live in the centre of the enclosure, so if you wish to
speak to them you must be prepared to wade through the
malodorous morass, which may reach to your ankles or higher.
 It is not about this patty itself that I intend to tell you, but
about the ruins of a great temple that stand perhaps half-a-mile
away. The roots of massive fig trees grow within the temple walls,
but the sanctuary, the holy of holies which only the Brahmin
priests were allowed to enter, remains fairly well preserved. A
courtyard encloses this sanctuary, and you pass great pillars of
hewn rock, leaning at a crazy angle, till you reach a massive
wooden door at least six inches thick. It is studded with great brass
knobs and has a mighty lever for opening the door from the
outside. The huge draw-bar that closes it on the inside is still
there. The rusty hinges, made of crude wrought-iron, still exist,
and the two doors creak eerily when you open them to pass inside.
Of their own weight, perhaps, or maybe due to the angle at which
they hang, they come together and once shut you are immured
within the sanctuary and can never escape.

The temple itself is built of solid granite, and a few yards in

front are the remains of what must, in its day, have been a
magnificent stone well. It is lined with granite and is over 150 feet
deep by about the same in diameter. Many of the granite blocks
have fallen in now and no sign of water is to be seen at the bottom
of the well.

Just over a mile from this temple and well, as the crow flies,
stand the remains of a stone fort, surrounded by a moat. The forest
now covers everything. Nobody goes there and the Irilas of the
jungle give the area a wide berth. For they say the spirits of the
thousands who perished there in a matter of a few days still haunt
the place. No one knows exactly when the catastrophe happened.
The story has been handed down from father to son for many
generations and has always been the same. It may have occurred
two or three hundred years ago or it may have been much earlier.

The Great Fever came at that time, so they say, and it mowed
the people down in thousands. The victims never saw the light of
a second day. There were no remedies and no doctors. The people
just died where they collapsed and there was nobody to bury
them. It is said that the stench of death and decay was so great
that people at Kalhatti, seven miles away and halfway up the
mountains, could smell it. The few that survived fled from the
valley of death, not waiting to take their belongings with them,
and civilization came to an end. The jungle took over and blotted
out human habitation, while its creatures fed on the rotted flesh
and the countless bones of the dead for a whole year.

What this great fever could have been nobody knows, but from
the havoc it wrought, its contagious nature and quick end, people
say it could only have been that most dreaded of all infectious
diseases, the plague, in one of its most virulent forms. Certain it is
that human habitation in the area ended completely, and it has
never returned.

Into the holy of holies of the temple no outsider was ever

allowed in times past, particularly a meat-eater or one of foreign
race. The ancient priests, all Brahmins, would attend bare-bodied
arid with bare feet. This makes you wonder whether you are right
when you stand within the sanctuary with your boots on.

There is a raised earthen platform at one end, and resting upon

it are a number of images, carved in stone, of the sacred animal of
the Hindus, the bull. There are about five of them if I remember
correctly, varying in size. The bull is always depicted in sitting
posture. The largest stands a little over a foot high by about two
and a half feet long; the smallest about four inches by ten. To one
side is an ancient lamp, perhaps six inches high. It is made of
brass, completely dulled with age and oxidization, and consists
merely of a hollow cavity to hold the oil, and a lip to support the
wick that rests in the oil, the whole standing on a pedestal which
is a carving of some deity.

And thereby hangs a tale, for some years ago I went to this
temple accompanied by some tourists. They were strangers whom
I had met casually in the jungle. They had heard of the temple and
asked me where it was, and because it was difficult to locate I had
brought them there in person. They were four. We stood inside the
holy of holies, looking at the stone bulls which, incidentally, are
called ‘nandies,’ when one of the tourists, let us call him Captain
Neide, who came from Australia, noticed the brass lamp and took
a fancy to it.

‘I think I’ll keep this as a souvenir,’ he remarked, picking it up

and thrusting it into his pocket.

‘You shouldn’t do that.’ I remonstrated, and his wife supported

me. ‘Put it back, John; we don’t need it,’ was her comment.

‘But why not?’ argued John. ‘I need it.’

The top of the lamp protruded from his pocket as we went away
and I could not help thinking to myself that it was a shame that
the lamp was leaving its abode after no one knew how many
hundreds of years. I returned to my camp, while the party of
tourists went up the hill to the town of Ootacamund, seventeen
miles away. They had mentioned they were spending four or five
day there, before moving on.

Four days later I was walking along the main road when a black
and yellow taxi, coming down from Ootacamund, overtook me
and then halted. Taxis do not generally come to jungles, so I
approached it curiously to see who was inside. To my great
surprise I saw Captain Neide at the back, propped up with pillows,
covered with a blanket, and looking very sick. Next to him sat Mrs
Neide, pale and anxious.

‘Thank heaven we met you, Mr Anderson,’ she burst out.

‘Something terrible has happened to John.’

Then she went on to explain that the very evening her husband
and their friends reached Ootacamund, he developed a high
temperature and became extremely ill. A doctor was summoned,
who diagnosed sunstroke and treated the patient accordingly.

But during the night Neide’s temperature rose to 106 degrees. He

became delirious. His distraught wife and her friends called the
doctor again. Neide was taken to hospital, where it was thought
he was developing blackwater fever, or an extremely bad bout of
malaria. Quinine was administered, but there was no
improvement. On the third day Neide was desperately ill, and the
hospital staff confessed they could not discover the cause. Neide
himself provided the solution on the morning of the fourth day.
Delirious most of the time, due to his high temperature, there
were short periods when he regained his senses, and during one of
these he gasped to his wife, ‘Margaret! That lamp! I must take it
back to the temple. Get a car, a taxi, anything. I must take it back
to the temple today, or I shall die tomorrow. I must take it myself.’

Haltingly he explained that he had had a dream in which he

had seen the lamp back in its place on the altar of the old temple.
His wife told the house doctor, who merely smiled and said briefly,
‘Delirium, madam; he imagined it all.’

But Mrs Neide knew this was not so. On the table in their room
at the hotel stood that dreadful lamp. It seemed to draw attention
to itself and she could not take her eyes from it.

‘I think I shall take him and the lamp by taxi, doctor,’ she
argued. ‘I feel something dreadful is going to happen if we don’t
return it.’

‘Mrs Neide, if you move your husband in his present condition,

I’ll not be responsible for what happens. He is far too ill and I will
not give my permission.’

She went back and told Neide what the doctor had said.
 ‘If you don’t help me to return the lamp, I shall be dead by
tomorrow. I know it, Margaret,’ he gasped.

‘I’ll take it back in the taxi for you John;’ she offered.

‘No, no,’ he was adamant. ‘I brought it away and I must return

it,’ he insisted. And that was how I came to meet them on the
road.

Without comment, I got in beside the driver and directed him to

the track that led off the main road to the Chemanath patty. A
little beyond was the temple, but the car could go no further.
Captain Neide, who was conscious now, wanted to carry the lamp
to the temple, but it was obvious he was quit unfit to walk.

So I said to him, ‘John, I think you have done enough to show

you’re sorry for taking the lamp away. You’ve brought it back as
far as you possibly can. The temple deity will understand that. Let
Mrs Neide and me take it back for you while you rest here.’

He was too exhausted to reply but nodded his consent and, with
his wife carrying the lamp and me leading the way, we went back
to the temple. The ancient door creaked open and closed of its
own volition behind us. We stood at the altar before the five
nandies and Mrs Neide reverently replaced the old brass lamp on
its pedestal. She was weeping, and I could see she was praying.
Then we returned in silence to the car.

Neide was sound asleep. Involuntarily, I stretched out my hand

to touch his forehead. He was perspiring profusely, the sweat
running down his forehand and cheeks. The fever had left him,
and he was quite cool to my touch. Helped by his wife, I tucked
the blanket more closely around him, wound up the glass windows
to prevent a draught, and instructed the driver to take him back to
the hotel at Ootacamund.
 For there was no need to go to the hospital. Neide was cured.
There were tears of joy on his wife’s face as the taxi drove away.

That, my readers, is exactly what happened. You may offer any

explanations you like. Autosuggestion? I will not argue with you.
All I know is that it happened!

* * *
Another curious incident that I witnessed recently at a hamlet
within half a mile of Mavanhalla settlement, which is exactly
fifteen miles from Ootacamund, was a case of avowed black
magic.

A comely girl living in the hamlet was engaged to be married to

man living in the village of Garupalli, twelve miles away. In India
couples do not get engaged of their own volition. These things are
arranged for them by the parents of both parties, who barter and
bargain till they arrive at a settlement. Normally, the principal
parties do not even see each other till they are actually married.
But in this case there was a difference. The man and his parents
visited Mavanhalla. He saw the girl and approved of her, and the
date of the wedding was tentatively set.

These people are known as Irilas, and it is their custom for the
man’s parents to pay the girl’s parents a certain sum of money for
her hand in marriage. In plain words, they purchase her. This is
different from the normal Indian custom of dowry, whereby the
girl’s parents are required to put down an agreed sum.

In this case, however, the boy’s parents at the last moment said
they could not, or would not, pay. The girl’s parents, in a rage,
broke off the engagement and found another candidate willing to
pay the price they had fixed for their daughter.

Then things happened. The Garupalli lad, furious at being

turned down, and mad with jealousy, walked through the jungle
for a distance of over a hundred miles to the town of Kollegal,
near the banks of the Cauvery river, where lived a black magician
of very great and evil repute. He had to spend money through the
nose, for the magician made him buy a whole sheep for sacrifice,
its blood being offered to the spirit which was now to take a hand
in matters, while its flesh went to the magician. The unholy
ceremony was performed at three in the morning of the night of
the full moon.

A hundred miles away the girl was sleeping in the hamlet near
Mavanhalla when, at precisely three that morning, she awoke
with a pain in her stomach and hastened outside the hut to
answer the call of nature. A few yards to the rear of each hut is
the spot where the inhabitants usually go for this purpose.

She reported that she had finished and was just coming away
when two unknown men materialized as if from nowhere, laid
hold of her sari, and urged her to come at once with them to
Gorupalli. Sensing that this was a ploy by her late betrothed to
entice her away, the girl said she would try to come as soon as it
was daylight. To this the men replied that she should come
immediately, when the girl said that the distance was too great.
At this they offered to carry her.

The exchange of words had reached this stage when the girl
happened to look down. Horror gripped her when she noticed that
neither of the men had feet; at least their feet did not touch the
ground, which she could plainly see in the brilliant moonlight.
Rather, she could see the ground in the brilliant moonlight, but no
feet where there should have been feet!

She screamed after that. The men vanished and people came
tumbling out of their huts in response to her yells. She told them
what had happened, but the neighbours thought she had had a
nightmare, for no men were to be seen.
 The girl was upset for the rest of that day and would not eat, but
at the usual time of about 7.30 p.m., sat down for her supper, a
simple meal of curry and rice. In the usual way she fashioned with
her right hand a ball of rice and curry and put it into her mouth.
Then her mouth burned as if on fire and the food appeared to
become hard. In a panic she spat it out. But what came out of her
mouth and into the plate was a stone.

This sort of thing continued for eight days. Then I happened to

visit Mavanhalla and was told about it. Apparently the girl could
eat her morning meal undisturbed, and also at any other time of
the day. The phenomenon occurred only after sundown, when she
attempted to eat her supper.

Being always interested in things unusual, I hastened to the

hamlet, where I saw the girl and her parents and spoke to them. I
spoke also to the neighbours; in fact nearly every adult in that
settlement. They had all witnessed the phenomenon and told me
the story that I have just related. The father had collected these
stones and some other miscellaneous articles that the girl had spat
out. I asked him to give them to me, which he did, and they are
before me as I write. The items are as follows: stones of various
sizes and shapes—six items, the largest weighing three ounces;
broken bits of pottery—six items; charcoal—two pieces; lastly, a
piece of broken bottle-glass.

As I have said, the time for these phenomena to occur was at the
evening meal. So I returned just after seven o’clock that evening
to witness things for myself.

The girl was lying on the ground in a sort of daze, with more
than a dozen people around her. Her face was damp with sweat,
and every little while her mouth would work, twist and pout, as if
something was inside.
 By nature I am sceptic. The thought came to me that the girl
was putting on an act and the reason seemed simple enough. She
wanted to marry the man at Garupalli and had invented the
whole story. In the course of the day she herself, or perhaps an
accomplice acting for her, would procure a stone or a piece of tile
in advance and conceal it somewhere on her person. This object
the girl would put into her mouth some time before the evening
meal and keep it there till the time she spit the object out,
together with the food. So I determined that I would expose her
trickery before all the people who had gathered around her.

I told her to open her mouth widely. She did so. I had brought
my torch with me, as it was dark outside. I shone the torch into
her mouth. Nothing appeared to be there. Suddenly, and without
asking her permission, and risking a bite from her, I thrust my
forefinger beneath her tongue to see if anything was hidden there,
then into both the cavities formed between her cheeks and jaws,
holding her firmly with my left hand by the back of her neck in
order that my probing finger would find the stone I was convinced
was hidden in her mouth.

The girl choked, but surprisingly enough did not struggle or

protest. Rather, she appeared to be going to sleep. There was
nothing in her mouth and finally I released her. The working and
pouting and twisting of her mouth stopped after that, and time
passed.

In about half-an-hour her evening meal was brought to her. She

sat up to eat it, stretching forth her hand to take the first
mouthful, but I stopped her. Calling to her mother, I asked the old
woman to break up the rice in the girl’s hand as the thought came
to me that a stone might be concealed in the rice or curry.

The girl stretched out her hand again, took up the grains we had
examined between her fingers, mixed them with the curry, made
a small ball of them and put it into her mouth. Then she started to
chew. Everything was normal. I smiled to myself in satisfaction.
The vixen has not been able to dodge me.

The next instant I heard it. A jarring, crunching sound as the

girl’s moving teeth came down on some hard object in her mouth.
The look of abject terror that came into her face was genuine
enough. I could see fear in her eyes, genuine fear, not assumed.
With a muffled scream she spat the object out. A stone fell with a
dull plop into the earthen plate containing the curry and rice.

At that moment I shouted to her to open her mouth, seized the

back of her neck again with my left hand, and thrust my right
forefinger into her mouth. Believe it or not. There was not a grain
of rice or food of any sort in her mouth! The mouthful she had just
taken had vanished entirely. The stone had taken its place!

Now the girl had not the time to chew the food, nor could she
have swallowed it, for I had been watching intently all the time.
To swallow a fistful of rice and curry requires a visible swallowing
movement of the muscles of the mouth, throat and gullet. There
had been nothing of that sort. The stone she spat out that evening
is the one weighing three ounces which is now before me.

But the story does not end there. I witnessed the same thing the
next evening. Once more I looked into the girl’s mouth and
searched carefully for any hidden object as she began to eat her
food. As if to reward my diligence, the piece of broken bottle-glass,
with jagged edges, emerged this time. It also lies before me as I
write. How the broken edges did not cut her tongue and mouth I
do not know. And once again there was not a grain of food left in
her mouth after the glass had dropped out. This time a larger
crowd of people than ever before witnessed the incident.

News of these happenings, as may well be imagined, had spread

far and wide, and the next afternoon a healer arrived. He was an
Indian of about my own age, a Christian, and an unpretentious
individual. I had gone a little early to the girl’s hut that evening,
for I was still curious and wanted to see this thing once more for
my own satisfaction. The strange Indian was squatting at the door
when I arrived. He rose and smiled affably. Speaking softly and in
faultless English, he introduced himself and said he was on a visit
to Ootacamund. He had heard about the girl there and had come
down by the evening bus, walking the three miles alone through
the jungle from the village of Masinigudi, where the bus had
dropped him.

Very modestly, but with strange self-confidence, he claimed

that God had given him the power of healing and that he had
come to heal the girl. Rather taken aback, I am afraid I spoke
somewhat caustically.

‘What you mean is, you have come to try to heal her!’

‘No, sir, I have come to heal her. I was impelled to come from
Ootacamund for this purpose. God will not fail, sir. He cannot.’

I felt rather sheepish, faced with such simple confidence, and

said nothing. Then this stranger, who had introduced himself by
the simple Indian name of Puttaswamy, began to question the girl
and her parents. In a short while these, together with several of
the bystanders who had witnessed the phenomenon on many
occasions, told the whole story. Finally I told him of my own
experiences on the two preceding days.

By this time the girl had begun to perspire and her mouth had
begun to work. The symptoms I had seen twice before were
starting. Puttaswamy sat beside her and said nothing. Hie eyes
were closed and his lips were moving faintly. He appeared to be
muttering to himself—perhaps he was praying.

Once again, regardless of the healer’s presence, I made the girl

open her mouth and examined it more carefully than ever before,
looking down her throat questing with my finger beneath her
tongue, between her jaws and cheeks, everywhere I possibly
could. Very definitely there was nothing concealed in her mouth.

Then came the final act in this strange drama. The evening
meal was brought to the girl in the form of the usual rice and
curry, for the Irilas knew no other. The girl made and put the ball
of food in her mouth and started to chew. Peremptorily the silence
was broken by Puttaswamy. In a strangely confident, loud voice,
he cried:

‘In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whoever you are, I

command you, come out of her!’

There came the unmistakable crack and crunch of stone in the

girl’s mouth. She screamed and rolled on the ground in a frenzy as
if in an epileptic fit, tearing her hair and grinding her teeth.
Puttaswamy knelt beside her. His eyes were like coals and were
moist with emotion. Once again he cried:

‘In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, leave her this instant!’

The girl was violently convulsed, bending backwards as if in the

throes of tetanus. She spat out the rice and curry she had taken. A
horrid screech came from her throat. She shuddered, then was
still. A few minutes later she moved again. Gently Puttaswamy sat
her up. There was no stone in her mouth—only a few grains of rice
and curry.

Softly, but quivering with deep emotion and joy, Puttaswamy

said, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’

The girl was cured. Instinctively we all knew it for we could feel
the power that radiated from this strange and simple man.

I saw these for myself and know they are true!

* * *
 The man I am now going to tell you about was a dacoit—a thief
and murderer of nine people!

The story began many years ago. The man’s name was Selvaraj.
The police records described him as: ‘aged 36 years; height 5 feet 7
inches; of average dark complexion; usually sporting a heavy,
twirled moustache reaching almost to his temple; has a distinctly
protruding upper lip and a scar reaching from the corner of his
right eye to the lobe of his right ear.’

The trouble started with a family feud. Selvaraj’s father had

quarrelled with a neighbour. The latter assembled a gang of
relatives, waylaid the elderly man one night, murdered him and
tied the corpse to a tree bordering the highway for everyone to see
as an example the following morning.

Selvaraj was a young man then. He knew about the feud, but
had contrived to keep himself aloof. But the cruel murder of his
father was too much for him. With his brother to assist, and five
others, the seven avengers raided the home of the murderers and
hacked all nine of them to death with wood-choppers.

There was a hue and cry after that, the cause of mass murders
and the identity of the perpetrators being well known. Three of
Selvaraj’s relatives, who had assisted him, were caught, convicted
and hanged. He, his brother and two others went into hiding.

The feud spread and police help was not asked by either side.
The relations of the nine men who had been killed came to find
out where Selvaraj, his brother and the two others were hiding. As
usual, it was because of a woman that the information leaked out.
Selvaraj’s brother had taken up with another man’s wife and was
living with her, along with Selvaraj and the other two men. The
aggrieved husband gave the information to the relations of the
nine men. They came at night with petrol and set fire to the hut in
which their enemies were sleeping. The brother and the woman
were burned to death, while Selvaraj and his two companions
escaped.

The police came again, arrested the avengers, and got two of
them convicted and hanged. Both sides had now gone into hiding
in the forest, afraid of the police and thirsting for each other’s
blood.

Bereft of all his possessions, lands and livelihood, Selvaraj had

to live somehow. He could not earn an honest living in any town
because the police would arrest him on sight, so force of
circumstances compelled him to turn to robbery, but even this he
tried to do in an honourable way, if one can associate such a term
with crime.

Selvaraj became a dacoit, a sort of Robin Hood of South India.

He robbed the rich to feed the poor. Landlords, wealthy business
men, shopkeepers and thriving merchants were his prey, but he
kept only a portion of his extortions for his own maintenance. The
rest he gave away to the maimed, the poor, the sick and the needy.
So much so, indeed, that there was a sharp division of feeling
about him. The large majority of people, including the farmers
and poor ryots, loved and respected him. The small majority of the
rich, and of course the police, feared and hated him intensely.

Selvaraj, at about this time, began to acquire a nickname. He

had a protruding upper lip and became known as ‘Mumptyvayan’
meaning ‘the man with a mouth like a ‘Mumpty.’ ‘Mumpty’ is the
local name for a shovel. He lived entirely in the jungle and his
domain was here, there and everywhere, over an extent of many
miles, ranging from the banks of the Cauvery river into the eastern
portion of the district of Kollegal, into Salem district, up
Doddahalla or the Secret river and across the mountains to the
Chinar river and the outskirts of the town of Pennagram.
 He appeared and disappeared like the Scarlet Pimpernel, and the
authorities could never catch him. Like Man Singh, the notorious
dacoit who ranged the fastnesses of the Chambal valley of
Rajasthan in the north of India, Mumptyvayan in the south was
equally loved by the poor who inhabited the forest regions and
their borders. The authorities could never gain information
regarding his whereabouts and could not lay hands on him. On the
other hand, people would inform him about the movements of the
police when the latter sent armed squads periodically into the
jungles to try to catch up with him.

Mumptyvayan’s modus operandi was simple. From a host of

willing informers he would gain information about the sources of
income of landlords and merchants. Mysteriously he would then
appear at dead of night in the homes of these gentry, threaten
them with knife and gun, and make away with the large sums of
money they would hurriedly hand over to him in order to save
their lives.

Another thing he did was collecting money from timber thieves.

At dead of night these poachers would bring lorries and a gang of
workers to some quiet corner of the jungle, hack down a tree, cut
it up into sections, load the wood on to their vehicles, and
disappear before dawn. But just at the crucial moment, as the
engine was being started, Mumptyvayan would appear at the
driver’s cab, his gun pointed at the people inside, and demand fifty
rupees as the price of his silence. Invariably the sum was paid.

But on one occasion the enterprising driver engaged his gears

and tried to make a run for it. Mumptyvayan did not shoot the
man; he shot at both the rear tyres in quick succession. The driver
paid up after that. He was put out of business too, for the lorry
carried only one spare wheel. Daylight came before the party
could go to town and return with a second spare. The poachers
tried to off-load the lorry and hide all the timber they had stolen,
but they were discovered, arrested and sent to jail, while the lorry
was confiscated. In any event, each tyre cost Rs. 600 and the
dacoit had only asked for Rs. 50. Mumptyvayan gained much
prestige after this incident, while the poacher greatly regretted
having refused his reasonable demand.

From reports that were made to the police, it was estimated that
Mumptyvayan collected Rs 25,000 a year by robbery, on an
average, but the figure could be doubled to include amounts that
were taken by him but not reported to the police, as
Mumptyvayan was astute enough to rob many whose activities
were such as to make it inconvenient, if not impossible, for them
to seek police aid.

He invariably worked alone for, very wisely, he distrusted

accomplices. His usual costume was a Khaki shirt, rather ragged
khaki shorts, a belt around his waist to which a huge knife was
strapped on the left side and a dagger on the right, a cartridge-belt
across his shoulder, filled with home-loaded 12 bore cartridges,
both ball and shot, while he carried an old but well-kept harmless
.12 bore Geco gun that he had stolen. Sometimes he wore a green
turban to simulate the uniform of a Forest Guard, but generally
was bareheaded.

Mumptyvayan was extraordinarily courteous to women, of

whom he was, unfortunately for himself, rather overfond. His
legal wife lived at the village of Mecheri, ten miles from the
Mettur Dam, and he never forgot her in spite of his many
concubines who ranged, like his activities, all over the jungle. For
six months the police watched the wife’s house at Mecheri and
still the husband visited her. He came once, disguised as a woman
and all covered up; the police only knew about it after he had left.

A month later another muffled figure approached. The police

pounced on this one, knocked it down and fastened handcuffs on
hands and feet. But to their chagrin, and the open derision of all
the villagers who had turned out to enjoy the fun, this figure
turned out to be a real woman. She abused the police, but also
grinned widely and admitted that Mumptyvayan had sent her to
make of them a laughing-stock.

This incident appears to have increased the vagabond’s

confidence in himself and he regarded the custodians of law and
order with contempt, for overnight a notice appeared on the gate
of the police station, duly signed by the dacoit, intimating a week
in advance that he would visit that very village on a particular
day. Two wagons, loaded with constables were rushed to Mecheri
and every one of the men was ordered to learn, by heart, a
description of the rogue so as to be able to recognize him on sight.

Nobody answering to the description put in an appearance, but

at the time of the midday meal a rather troublesome mendicant,
without a vestige of hair on head or face and who had met with an
accident and lost his right eye, turned up at the police station and
begged for food from the constables who were squatting on the
verandah and eating their food. One or two of the more kindly-
natured gave him a fistful of rice, but the others kicked him out
unceremoniously.

Later, they found that a small aluminium tiffin carrier

belonging to one of them was missing. The beggar must have
taken it—for all beggars are thieves! At dawn, two mornings later,
a bleary-eyed policeman found the tiffin-carrier at the gate of the
police station. Inside it was a note from Mumptyvayan thanking
the owner for the loan of the carrier.

Greatly incensed at this, the authorities are rumoured to have

sent about 300 armed policemen, in gangs of fifty, to scour the
jungles and bring the dacoit in, dead or alive. They were
particularly enjoined to be very alert in dealing with him because,
shortly after the tiffin-carrier incident, the rascal had purloined a
rifle from a landlord whose house he had raided, although the
weapon had had no ammunition with it and it was felt the dacoit
would not be in a position to secure any.

While the police were out in the forest searching for him,
Mumptyvayan came to town and visited a travelling cinema that
had come to the large village of Pennagram. He sat through the
show till it was half over, then visited the box-office and relieved
the cashier of all the evening’s takings. The cashier pleaded that
he would be sacked and jailed, as the management would say he
had invented the story in order to take the money himself. So the
chivalrous dacoit, seeing his point, hastily scribbled a note
certifying that it was he, Mumptyvayan, who had taken the
money and not the cashier. He also gave the latter a five rupee
note from the takings to buy himself a good meal at the local hotel
before news of the robbery was given to the owner and trouble
began.

The very next morning he visited the largest shop in the hamlet
of Uttaimalai, eleven miles away, and relieved the owner of sixty-
three rupees. On that occasion he appears to have been wearing a
black muffler, closely wrapped around his neck and up to his ears,
and an overcoat, from beneath which he produced two straight
double-edged daggers, holding one in each hand to frighten the
shopkeeper into silence.

About this time a jail guard, whose home town was the same
village of Pennagram, but who had been working at the prison
situated in the city of Salem, was dismissed. He returned to his
home at Pennagram very disgruntled and heard there about the
recent exploits of Mumptyvayan and how anxious the police were
to lay hands on him. The thought came to this ex-guard that, with
a little subterfuge, he might be able to find the dacoit and gain his
confidence; then he could go to the police and make a bargain in
advance. A promise would have to be made to reinstate him in his
old job at Salem prison, in return for which he would deliver the
dacoit, duly fettered, to the police.
 With commendable cunningness the ex-jailer pursued his plan.
He gave out that he was an aggrieved man who wanted to work
for the dacoit and give him information as to where easy money
was to be had from the rich landlords and merchants of Salem city.
This news was carried to Mumptyvayan in due course and the
dacoit fell for the story. Through an agent he contacted the man
and had a preliminary talk with him. It was arranged that they
should meet again under a certain tree at a secret place near the
cattleshed of Panapatti, about eight miles from Pennagram, at ten
the following night and come to an understanding. The man
hurriedly informed the police at Pennagram, who planned to
swoop on the rendezvous at 10.30 p.m., next day, by which time
the dacoit was to have been securely fettered. The police also
promised to see that the informer was reinstated as jailer at Salem.

Promptly at 10 p.m. the next night the two men met and sat
down to talk. Unfortunately, the ex-jailer was rather careless and
allowed the handcuffs, which the police had lent him, to clank
against a stone as he sat on the ground. Mumptyvayan’s sharp ears
caught the sound and he became suspicious.

‘What have you got there that sounds like iron brother?’ he
asked.

This,’ replied the ex-jailer and, realizing that the game was up,
leaped upon the dacoit at once. Both men were well-built,
powerful individuals and a terrific battle was fought in silence,
neither side asking nor giving any quarter as they struggled upon
the ground like beasts.

Then, for the second time that evening, the stone on the ground
aided Mumptyvayan. The ex-jailer was sitting astride him, trying
to choke him to death, when the dacoit felt the stone sticking into
his side. Gripping it in his right fist, Mumptyvayan smashed it
against the side of his antagonist’s head. Momentarily stunned,
the ex-jailer tumbled off and the dacoit in turn got on top. Once
more the struggle began, but Mumptyvayan had his dagger out by
now. As his adversary reached up to grapple with him again, a
quick slash of the razor-sharp weapon severed three of the man’s
fingers. He screamed with pain, realizing that the dacoit, in his
fury, would kill him for his duplicity. He begged for mercy and
said he was sorry for what he had attempted to do.

Just then, Mumptyvayan heard the sound of the approaching

police van. He disappeared in the darkness of the forest, leaving
the would-be police agent rolling on the ground while trying to
staunch the jets of blood that spurted from his injured hand.

The dacoit became a little more cautious after this incident. He

disappeared from the jungles for three or four months and was
heard of in the towns of Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri, where he
robbed shops and people on a petty scale. He also filched a pair of
binoculars from the owner of a car three miles out of Dharmapuri.
Then Mumptyvayan came back to his old haunts, and the manner
of his return was dramatic.

The Superintendent of Police and his family went down to the

Hogenaikal Waterfalls on the Cauvery river on a Sunday, to enjoy
a picnic and a bath beneath the waterfall. They had left their jeep
scarcely a hundred yards away. After completing their ablutions,
they ate a picnic lunch and returned to the vehicle to find that the
camera that had been left there had been stolen. Scribbled upon
the grey paint of the jeep, in chalk, and in five separate places,
were these words in the Tamil dialect: ‘Mumptyvayan, the rajah
of dacoits!’

During my visits to these areas from time to time, I had of

course heard many tales of Mumptyvayan and his exploits. The
early incidents in his history had aroused my sympathy, but this
to a large extent disappeared when I learned of his more mundane
actions and the thefts he had committed. I then regarded him as a
complete rogue. But when I heard from the police of his daring, his
sense of humour and his undeniable bravery, I confess I became
attracted by this personality and entertained a great desire to
meet him.

One day I brought a party of friends on a fishing expedition to

Hogenaikal and found much excitement prevailing at that
otherwise peaceful and sleepy hamlet. Mumptyvayan had struck
again, and dramatically.

For at about this time an engineer from the government of

Madras state had been commissioned to explore the possibility of
constructing a dam across the river above the waterfalls, and
survey work of every kind was in progress. Just a mile upstream, at
a point where the actual construction was contemplated, a camp
site had been made and over a hundred labourers were engaged in
building a road, drilling holes and helping generally with the
survey work. A shed had been erected for the engineer and his
associates. A payroll centre had been established, and a clerk had
arrived to pay the labourers at the end of each week.

So had Mumptyvayan just two days earlier and he had relieved

the pay-clerk of Rs 350 from the pay for the following week
without touching an anna of the pay for the week just completed
and about to be paid out to the labourers.

Not content with his exploit, he had tapped upon the door of
the quarters where the Inspector of Fisheries lived at the
neighbouring hamlet of Uttaimalai, a mile away, announcing he
was the forest guard and had urgent news of the presence of fish
poachers. The Inspector opened the door to find Mumptyvayan,
but no forest guard. In a flash the dacoit had stepped within and
closed the front door. Then, drawing his usual two double-edged
daggers, he had intimidated the official. Luckily there were only
Rs. 51 in the house at the time and all of this was handed over to
the dacoit.
 I met the Fisheries Inspector, and then the engineer, who
allowed me to talk to the pay-clerk, and they confirmed the tales I
had heard.

But at the moment I was more concerned about the dam than
the exploits of the bandit. A dam here would mean the
destruction by inundation of thousands of acres of jungle. There
would be the erection of quarters for the staff and the township
that would follow in the wake of the dam. The whole hamlet of
Uttaimalai, including the little hut I had built and owned there
for over twenty years, would disappear beneath the water.

I questioned the engineer regarding these things and he very

kindly offered to take me around in his jeep and show me exactly
where the construction might begin. I accepted his invitation
gladly. A third man then joined us, carrying what at first seemed
to be a service rifle. He was bareheaded, with a white dhoti
around his waist and a khaki shirt hanging over it. Great
ammunition boots without socks adorned his feet.

As we drove off, I asked the engineer who the armed man might
be. He grinned and replied that the man was a police guard
deputed to accompany him whenever he went into the jungle, for
fear of what was generally thought that he would certainly be
robbed by the dacoit, if not captured and held to ransom. Actually
my friend seemed to be enjoying the situation.

Very soon we reached the site of the projected dam, alighted and
wandered down the river bank together, followed by the armed
policeman, who thumped over the river stones in his great boots or
dragged them through the soft river sand. Winking to the engineer,
I opened a conversation with the policeman, asking him about the
dacoit. The man soon gave voice to his pent-up feeling. He was a
government servant, he admitted, but the government consisted of
fools. Fancy deputing him, single-handed, with a ridiculous
weapon such as he held in his hands, to guard so august a
personage as the engineer against such a notorious person as
Mumptyvayan!

I asked what was wrong with the rifle. The policeman spat with
disdain, unslung the weapon from his shoulder, and handed it to
me contemptuously.

‘It’s not a rifle at all, although made to look like one,’ he

asserted. ‘It’s only a gun.’

I took the weapon from him and was surprised to find it was
only a .410 shotgun with a wooden casing to make it look like a
.303 service rifle. The policeman then opened the leather pouch on
his belt and showed me ten rounds of ammunition for the weapon.
They were merely .410 cartridges.

‘With this pea-shooter,’ he continued bitterly, ‘the government

expects me to guard this great man and outshoot this rascal
Mumptyvayan, who is a marksman, as everyone knows.’

‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘these rounds won’t carry for more than
fifty yards. Mumpty has only to sit on a rock sixty yards away and
laugh at me, and I can’t do anything about it. From there he can
kill me, and the engineer sahib, as full of holes as a sieve. Bah!
Thoo!’ and he spat again venomously.

Keeping a serious face, I asked, ‘What will you do, then, my

friend, if Mumpty should suddenly appear from behind yonder
rock or tree?’

With a start, the policeman looked up fearfully at the big rock

and the phalanx of trees beyond it, some seventy-five yards away.
In a burst of confidence, he addressed both of us.

‘Sirs, I’m a family man. I have a wife and six children, the
youngest yet a baby. Who will feed them if this bastard kills me?
Forgive me, sirs; but if he should appear this instant I shall down
this toy gun and run away.’

We laughed to ease his embarrassment when he realized he had

said the wrong thing, and I added, ‘Please pass the word to
everyone to tell this character Mumptyvayan that Anderson dorai
is looking forward to meeting him some day.’

Three or four months had passed after this incident when I went
to my twelve-acre plot of land on the banks of the Chinar river, a
dozen miles upstream from the point where this river joins the
Cauvery river at Hogenaikal, to camp for a few days. I had
allowed my old friend and shikari, Ranga, of whom I have spoken
in other stories, to live on this land and cultivate it for himself,
and in his usual manner he urged me to spend the time with him
in the hut he had erected at one corner of the land, rather than
pitch the tent I had brought along with me, and usually occupied,
at quite another spot.

Tor there’s a bad elephant about, dorai,’ he urged. ‘It sometimes

prowls around at night. Seeing your tent, it may trample upon it
you before you can wake.’

‘Bad elephant?’ I queried. ‘How extraordinary! The Forestry

department has not told me of any such creature.’

It was midsummer. Everything was bone-dry, and the jungle like

timber. There was a not a drop of water in the Chinar river. This
was scarcely the time of year for an elephant to be around.
Elephants would keep strictly to the banks of the Cauvery river,
the only place for many miles where water was to be found.

‘Are you quite certain?’ I asked again, and suspicion lurked in

my tone.

Ranga tried to avoid my gaze. The he spoke in a whisper.

‘Mumptyvayan is here,’ he confided. ‘He came to my hut by
moonlight last night and spoke to me. He’s known to me, and will
not harm you if you stay with me, dorai. But if you stay alone—
who knows? He may rob you! He may kill you! Who can tell?’

‘That’s just wonderful.’ I exclaimed in ecstasy. ‘I have for long

wanted to meet this character. Just you go and tell him to come
along to my tent tonight. I’d like to speak to him.’

Ranga feigned surprise and indignation. ‘Why should I?’ he

asked. ‘Am I the friend of a dacoit?’

‘You are,’ I affirmed ‘just that. But have no fear, I won’t tell
anyone.’

So we pitched my tent at the corner of the land where I usually

camped. That night, till about 10 p.m., I had a long talk with
Ranga beside the camp fire and then retired, while he walked back
to his hut at the other end of the plot. I remember that I did not
leave the lantern burning, for it usually attracts mosquitoes,
which are plentiful in that area. The moonlight made everything
almost as bright as day, and I could clearly discern the heavy belt
of trees, nearly a quarter of a mile away, that marked the course
of the Chinar river. I fell asleep still thinking of the dacoit.

Suddenly I awoke. No sound had disturbed me, but I knew that I

was no longer alone. The figure of a man stood at the entrance of
my tent, brilliantly lit from head to foot by the moonlight. With
both hands he held a shotgun at waist level, the weapon pointed
directly at me. A khaki shirt overhung a ragged pair of short, and
strapped to the man’s belt were two long, wicked-looking daggers,
one on either hip. Crosswise from one shoulder was strapped a
cartridge-belt, the brass heads of the .12 gauge rounds winking in
the moonlight. Across the other shoulder hung a pair of binoculars
in leather case! A scarf was wound around his head like a turban,
but I could see the enormous black moustache that curled upwards
to his temples. Brown, rubber-soled shoes were on his feet.
 I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but he was still there. My watch
showed that it was exactly 2 a.m.

I sat up and spoke joyously: ‘Welcome Mumptyvayan! I’ve

wanted to speak to you for a long time.’

‘This is no time to talk, white man. I mean business.’ He spoke

truculently, in a harsh tone. ‘Don’t attempt to run, or cry out, or
I’ll kill you. Just come out of your tent and stand here in the
moonlight, where I can keep an eye on you, while I collect your
rifle, gun and money. I want all three.’

I was disappointed. I had been looking forward to meeting this

fellow, but our meeting was not going to be the pleasant one I had
hoped it might be. Well, if he wanted it that way, he could
certainly have it.

‘Mumptyvayan,’ I replied sternly, not attempting to move from

where I sat, ‘I had been looking forward to meeting you and to
talking to you as a friend. I’ve heard of your exploits and I confess
I admired some of them, but not all. At least, I thought you were a
brave man. Now I’m disappointed—greatly disappointed. For
you’re a coward, a braggart, and a bluffer!’

The man choked with rage. ‘Do not provoke me too far, white
man,’ he hissed, ‘or—.’

‘Look, Mumpty,’ I interrupted firmly, but with my heart in my

mouth. ‘You can’t get away with it. You know that. You know
very well you are bluffing. For you dare not shoot me! As it is, the
price upon your head is too high. If you murder a white man just
to rob him, the government will really come down upon you with
a heavy hand. They’ll send the paltanwallahs (soldiers) here.
They will scour every corner of the jungle till they ferret you out
like a jackal. Then they’ll kill you, like a rat! Besides, I had hoped
to be your friend. I had looked forward to meeting you. What a
pity things have ended in this way.’
 It was a game of bluff. On my part and on his. Nevertheless, fear
gripped my heart. This man had murdered many people already.
Would he shoot me like a dog? Perhaps kill me with one of his
great knives? I could see that he was a man of tremendous
physique.

He knew I was bluffing, but I was not quite certain how far he
was bluffing. I only wished I knew. He overrated me, for he was
certain that I was certain he was bluffing, and the next second his
actions confirmed this.

For Mumptyvayan grounded the butt of his gun and leaned

upon the weapon. Then he spoke in a changed voice:

‘Dorai, you’re a strange man, indeed, and the first one who has
not begged for mercy. A man after my own heart. Do you give me
your word of honour that you won’t try to arrest me or harm me?
Will you promise that you’ll tell nobody, not even our friend
Ranga, that we met tonight?’

‘I promise, most willingly, Mumpty,’ I said in genuine relief,

getting up and walking out into the moonlight. ‘Let’s shake hands
on it.’

The dacoit laid his gun on the ground and very solemnly we
shook hands. It would have been a strange sight to a watcher, to
see this fierce and ragged multi-murderer vigorously shaking the
hand of a white man in blue-and-white pyjamas, whose heart was
still beating abnormally fast.

We squatted on the ground there, and we talked and talked. I

was clear from the beginning that this poor fellow wanted the
company of someone to whom he might talk freely, someone to
whom he could pour out his heart. And he did just that. He told
me his whole life story, every detail. When he began talking there
was pride and boastfulness in his words, but as he proceeded a
certain wistfulness crept in. I could see that he was genuinely
sorry for all that had happened, that he was genuinely repentant.
Mumptyvayan was earnestly looking for a way out. I was deeply
moved by his words and I wanted to help him all I could.

He came to the end of his story at last, and silence fell upon us
for quite some time. Looking straight into his face in the
moonlight, I began to speak:

Two wrongs don’t make a right, Mumpty,’ I said. ‘They never

have; they never will. Just because those wicked men murdered
your father you did not acquire the right to murder them.
However, the harm has been done now. I think you can see that
for yourself and you’ll admit it, eh?’

The dacoit nodded in silence.

So I continued. The proper thing for me to do is to advise you to

give yourself up, but I am not so sure it would be practical advice
so far as your interests are concerned. You would probably be
hanged; come to think of it, I’m sure you would be. If I were to
advise you to continue as your are doing, it would be bad advice,
Mumpty. For every man’s hand is against you….’

But here the dacoit interrupted vehemently. ‘What about my

friends, dorai?’ he protested impetuously. ‘What about my many
informers, who tell me so many things, including every movement
of the police? They even told me about you!’

Then in a burst of confidence he admitted: ‘The policeman who

escorted the engineer told a constable that you wanted to meet
me. That constable passed the message to me, for once I befriended
his father, who is very poor. And so he gives information to me
about the movements of his brother policemen. Even Ranga is my
friend.’

I tried another line of persuasion. ‘Don’t you feel lonely at

times, Mumpty? Don’t you long for human companionship? A
person to whom you might talk, to whom you may pour out your
heart just as you’re doing at this moment, to me? How many could
you trust to talk to in this way?’

‘Indeed I do, dorai,’ he responded wistfully. ‘I realize that inside

myself I am most unhappy, most miserable, most lonely. But tell
me what I can do!’

I was deeply touched by the man’s quite evident sincerity, by

the magnitude of the problem confronting him. Silence fell
between us as I thought awhile. Then all of a sudden it came to
me. I felt I had the solution.

‘You can do this, Mumptyvayan. Go to the Cauvery river at

night. Throw your rifle, your gun, all the ammunition, your
knives, the glasses you stole, everything, into the “Big Bannu,” the
pool below the Hogenaikal Falls where the water is perhaps 200
feet deep. They will never be seen again. Keep nothing you now
have, even your clothes, for they will incriminate you. Throw
everything into the “Big Bannu”.

‘Remove your moustache and hair. On second thoughts, burn

your khakhi clothes and shoes and don’t throw them in the river,
for they might float. Then walk to Biligundlu and onwards to
Dodda Halla. Traverse this stream three miles above the place
where it reaches the Cauvery and go through the Tagarthy forest
to the town of Oregaum. Keep straight on, and you will soon cross
the Madras state frontier and enter Mysore state. The police there
will not know you. You will arrive at a main road eventually.
Turn to your right then, and inquire the way to the town of
Kankanhalli. Thirty-three miles north of Kankanhalli is the city
of Bangalore, where I live. If you reach Bangalore and come to me
there, I will help you further.

‘It will take you some days to do this journey on foot. Don’t ever
let your hair or moustache grow again for if you do, you’ll
certainly be recognized. Try to get work along the way. The
money you earn will help you. Don’t carry too much money from
here or it will make people suspicious. I will give you my address
at Bangalore.’

‘Money I have enough of, dorai,’ he assured me, ‘but write your
address on a piece of paper, so that I may find you easily at
Bangalore.’

I shook my head sadly. ‘That I will not do, Mumpty. For, if you
are caught and my address found on your person in my
handwriting, I shall be in serious trouble. However, I’ll give you
clear instruction. Memorize them. Okay?’

Mumpty nodded, and I proceeded.

‘My name is Anderson. Ask for “Anderson dorai.” Repeat the

name each day to yourself so that you don’t forget it.’

He repeated my name several times. Then I proceeded. ‘I live

next to the “Tamasha Bangla” (the Museum), close to the statue
of the “Great White Queen!” Queen Victoria). Remember that.
When you reach Bangalore, ask the way to the statue of the
“Great White Queen” and the “Tamasha Bangla” which is close to
it. In between is a big red house. That’s where I live. Anderson
dorai. Got it? Now keep repeating these directions to yourself,
several times a day, so as to be sure you won’t forget.’

We were both sitting on the ground, as I told you, and the dacoit
threw himself forward touching my feet. This big man was crying
like a child.

‘Dorai, You are my father and my mother’ he cried, ‘the only

real friend I have in this whole world. And to think that only a
little while ago I wanted to kill you. I will do as you say.’
 There was a strange lump in my throat as I tried to remain calm
while patting his matted hair. The muffler he had been wearing as
a turban had unwound itself and lay on the ground.

When he began to regain control I raised him to a sitting

position, placed a hand on each shoulder and, looking into his
eyes, said earnestly:

‘You must go now, my friend. You’ve not realized it, but it’s past
five o’clock. The junglecocks are crowing and the moonlight
wanes before the coming sun. Soon dawn will break, and nobody
should see you here. Be brave now, my friend; be determined; be
true to yourself and to me and do as I have said. And may Krishna
be with you till we meet again.’

Impetuously he dropped to his knees, bent to kiss my feet. Then

he scrambled to his feet, salaamed, picked up his gun.

The next instant Mumptyvayan the dacoit had vanished into

the fading moonlight. I was alone. Or so I thought. For within a
couple of minutes my old friend and companion, Ranga, stood
before me.

The dorai does not appear to have slept soundly,’ he inquired.

There are dark circles under his eyes. I trust no elephant disturbed
him, or was it just the mosquitoes?’

The man could be very annoying at times and I was in no mood

for banter.

‘I slept soundly enough,’ I countered, cutting him short, ‘and

you know very well that I’m an early riser.’

Ranga coughed, then continued in a casual tone. ‘Perhaps I ate

too much last night, for I appear to have been dreaming since the
early hours of this morning. In my dream I saw two figures sitting
in the moonlight, before this very tent. One of them was you,
dorai; the other was a man in khaki and he carried a gun. You just
talked and talked. Wasn’t it a strange dream, dorai?’

So he had been watching us all the time! Abruptly I swung

around and thrust my face forward, almost touching his.

‘It was a strange dream, indeed,’ I said fiercely. ‘But it was only
a dream. Only a dream. Remember that always, Ranga. And now,
forget about this dream. Don’t ever talk about it again. For if you
do—to me, or to any other man—our friendship that has lasted for
over thirty-five years is over!’

In a changed voice, he spoke cheerfully. ‘I slept soundly last

night, dorai. Nor did I even dream after all that heavy dinner.’

I smiled and laid my hand on his arm, and he smiled in return.

Our long friendship was to continue.

Often did I think of Mumptyvayan after that night and nearly

three months passed. Then one day I had finished lunch at home
when the dogs barked. My Alsatian, followed by a little woolly
nondescript about one-tenth its size, dashed out of the back door.
They were barking at a mendicant, one of the many that present
themselves almost every day at everybody’s house in India.

This beggar was leaning on a staff. He was bald headed and

clean-shaven, wore only a dirty loin-cloth and an ancient, broken
pair of sandals and large, rounded glasses. Around his neck hung a
necklace of wooden beads, each the size of a walnut and covered
with grime. Smeared horizontally across his forehead from temple
to temple were white and red caste marks alternately.

His coal-black eyes looked at me haughtily, even disdainfully.

Almost with contempt he asked, ‘Can any charity be expected in
the abode of a white man?’
 Impertinent blackguard! I felt like throwing him out. I advanced
threateningly, my intention to abuse him roundly. The proud
black eyes stared back into mine. Then I noticed that, beneath the
white and red caste marks, a scar extended from his right eye to
his temple, only visible when one came near enough to see it.

Mumptyvayan! By all that was wonderful! He knew then that I

had recognized him. His eyes were no longer haughty. They shone
and were moist with pleasure.

Donald, my son, had gone to work. My wife was out. Only the
Chokra (boy-servant) was on the premises.

Motioning with my hand to Mumpty to wait, I shouted to the

Chokra, and when he came gave him instructions to go to the
railway station nearly two miles away to inquire the time of the
arrival of the mail train from Madras. That should keep him away
for the next ninety minutes at least.

When the Chokra had gone, I called Mumpty inside, offered him
tea and what odds and ends were to be found in the cupboard, and
asked him how he fared.

‘I did exactly as you instructed me, dorai. It broke my heart to

throw my firearms and cartridges into the “Big Bannu” in the
river. But I did so. The rest was comparatively easy. I reached the
Mysore state border and the town of Kankanhalli in due course.
There I got work as a labourer under a rich landlord. Dorai, how
that man oppressed his poor workers! How I longed to be
Mumptyvayan again, if only for a few minutes, to deal with him
suitably! His behaviour made me decide never to work for any
other man again.

‘But by this time I had noticed that there were many

mendicants on the roads, most of them in some religious guise.
None ever appeared to be hungry. Somehow, somebody fed them.
So I decided to become a sadhu. My name is Omkrishna, and I am
making quite a good living out of it. I’m touring the south and
hope to make my way to the city of Madras, where I’ll settle down
eventually.’

‘Not Madras, Mumpty—I mean, Omkrishna,’ I corrected myself,

‘Somebody in uniform might want you there. It’s too close and you
might be recognized. I suggest you go northwards instead, into
Hyderabad state. The further you are from the scene of your
operations the better, remember.’

He thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘I think you’re right,

dorai.’

Then he rose to go. I offered him money, but the sadhu refused
it. ‘I’m indebted to you, sir,’ he said, ‘not you to me. Which
reminds me, I’ve brought something for you. It’s the only link I
have with the old days.’

He rummaged in his loincloth and produced a ring—a gold ring!

‘Where did you steal it?’ I inquired sternly.

‘I didn’t steal it,’ he replied. ‘I got it from the engineer who

went to Uttaimalai to build a dam.’ Mumptyvayan was laughing
now, as he thought of the incident. ‘He was walking by the
riverside with an armed policeman to keep guard over him. The
stupid policeman had one of those toy guns disguised as rifles.
They didn’t know that I knew it.’

Omkrishna grinned more widely at the recollection. Then he

continued: ‘I called to the policeman from the shelter of a rock
that I would shoot him dead if he tried to resist.’

‘The poor devil was terrified. He threw down his ridiculous gun
and bolted. I went to the engineer then, but made sure to throw
the policeman’s weapon into the river first. Strangely, the
engineer sahib was not frightened. He was grinning at the
policeman’s hasty departure. In my usual rough voice, I demanded
money from him. The engineer spoke strange words to me: “Don’t
threaten me, Mumptyvayan. Learn to ask nicely.”

‘He gave me ten rupees. He also took this ring off his finger and
handed it to me. I tried to return the money and the ring, for the
engineer sahib was indeed a good man and a brave one; a
gentleman, too. But he refused to take them back. So I wore the
ring myself for some time. I knew that if I tried to sell it, I might
get caught. However, and this happened before I met you that
night, dorai,’ Omkrishna hastened to add, as if in apology. ‘After
that meeting I have kept straight and have never robbed again, I
can swear to that. And I kept the ring as a gift for you.’

So the unexpected had happened! My friend, the engineer, had

longed to meet the dacoit Mumptyvayan. They had met, and as a
result I now had his ring!

Omkrishna went away shortly after that and I never saw him
again! A whole year passed, during which I often thought of
Mumptyvayan but never heard of him. Several times I visited
Hogenaikal and other areas that were his old haunts, but nobody
spoke of him, nobody had seen him for a long time. Apparently he
had disappeared for ever. Two months later the land was agog with
the news! Mumptyvayan was dead! He had been shot by a friend
who then claimed the reward that the government of Madras had
placed on his head two years earlier. The reward was Rs 500, I
think, and five acres of land, dead or alive!

Various stories were abroad about how his death had come
about. Some said that Mumptyvayan had gone back to visit his
wife, others that he had returned to visit a concubine who had
been a great favourite. Wife or concubine—the woman had
betrayed him! She had a brother, who was in debt and needed the
reward badly. The story went that she had prepared
Mumptyvayan’s favourite dish for him, but into the food she had
put follidol, a very powerful chemical supplied to the ryots by the
government for killing insect pests that attack their crops.
Mumptyvayan ate the food. In a few minutes he was in the throes
of death. At that moment the woman’s brother, who had been
awaiting the propitious moment, came in and shot Mumptyvayan
dead! For the reward stipulated that the dacoit should be brought
in alive, or shot dead in self-defence, but it did not say anything
about poisoning him.

The story has it that the reward was granted. Mumptyvayan’s

dead body was brought by the police to the town of Dharmapuri,
where crowds gathered to witness his hasty burial.

* * *
My next story is about an animal and has nothing to do with
magic or evil men. It is the story of a bull elephant, and an
unusual one at that.

We met this elephant for the first time at about four-thirty one
evening while motoring through the jungle, about two miles short
of the forest lodge at Anaikutty and about ten miles beyond the
old temple I told you about at the beginning of this chapter. He
was grazing peacefully in the jungle some fifty yards to our right.

The car was filled with sightseers and amateur photographers,

and they took innumerable pictures of the old elephant. He
ignored us completely, both cars and people, behaving as if he
were all alone, with no other creature within miles of him.

I was seated at the back of the car, on the right side, while a
friend was driving. The other members were foreigners who had
come to India to see the jungles. One of them, who had seen
elephants before but only in zoos and circuses, stepped out from
the car and, against our whispered advice, walked around the
vehicle and half the distance towards the elephant. This was an
extremely dangerous thing to have done and the rest of us called
to him to return. So he stopped and took a picture. He took several
more and then started asking for trouble by shouting at the
elephant, waving his arms about, and finally by hurling stones at
the animal. The first missed its mark by a narrow margin. The
second struck a branch of the tree under which the bull was
standing and bounced off, falling directly on his back. The third
stone stuck the elephant in the face at the base of the trunk and
rolled down, thudding against the left tusk before falling to the
ground.

The bull did not retaliate. He merely turned his back on us,
walked behind the tree, faced about and peered at us quietly as if
to say, ‘Can’t you go away and leave me in peace?’

His behaviour was astounding. No other elephant would have

acted thus, particularly no bull, after such provocation. The
normal reaction would have been to make itself scarce at the first
sight, or even the sound of the car. Allowing it had not done this,
any wild elephant would certainly have been provoked by
somebody repeatedly hurling stones at him. I confess I was certain
it would charge, and the gentleman who had been so brave and
foolish would soon cease to exist, together with the car and all of
us in it. We could not have done anything to save ourselves, for it
is against the rules to annoy wild elephants, to bait them, hurl
stones at them, if they show resentment.

With difficulty we got our friend away from the place and
continued on our drive in search of other animals to photograph.

It was 6 p.m. when we returned the same way, speculating on

whether we would meet the elephant again. We had yet a furlong
to go when we saw him once more, this time standing on the
opposite side of the road, even closer to the track we were
negotiating and facing us. We stopped again to watch, but he went
on chewing placidly, every now and then stuffing his mouth with
leaves from boughs he had broken down. We noticed that in the
process he even ate the wood of the smaller branches on which the
leaves were growing.

We studied the animal carefully. He appeared to be in good

condition, not emaciated. There were no signs of a wound or of
sickness to account for his oddly placid behaviour. The only thing
noticeable was that he was an old animal, as could be judged by
the fact that the tops of his ears folded over, and by the hollows in
his forehead.

Once more my new acquaintance got out of the car and started
his stone-throwing. The elephant was closer to us now than at the
first encounter, being barely twenty feet away and facing head-on.
Something was bound to happen.

But the bull turned his back in obvious disgust and went on
feeding. His behaviour was quite unaccountable. Even a
domesticated elephant would not have tolerated such treatment
from total strangers. To say the least, he would have moved away!
Finally our acquaintance—brave, or mad, or both—called out to
us that he was going to walk up to the bull. The rest of us then got
out and seized him, practically dragging him back to the vehicle,
while the elephant continued to graze placidly.

‘Rats to your Indian elephants!’ he exclaimed in disdain.

‘They’re as harmless as rabbits.’

At dinner that night the subject was the same. Questions were
fired at me that I could not possibly answer. Was this how fiercely
wild elephants actually behaved? I was worried. Why had the bull
acted in such a strangely docile manner? I fell asleep determined
to solve the puzzle the following day.

After breakfast the next morning, I enlisted the aid of two

Karumba trackers and taking my rifle we motored to the place
where we had met the elephant the evening before. We left the car
there and followed his progress through the jungle. This was an
easy task for the Karumbas and we came upon him again, a little
over half-a-mile away, headed in the general direction of the
Anaikutty river, which was still about a mile and a half distant.
He was not grazing now, but standing placidly under a tree.

The Karumbas, of course, acted with great caution; but

emboldened by our experience of the evening before, I walked
towards the bull, the jungle men following at a considerable
distance and ready to take off at the first sign of trouble. Nothing
happened, although I came as close to the elephant as had my
friend the evening before. The bull took no notice of me whatever.

I walked around him. I was convinced he was sorely injured. Or

perhaps he was a very sick animal. Then the idea came to me:
maybe he was blind in one or both eyes. Or he was deaf. Or he
could not smell. There was something seriously wrong with him;
of that I was convinced.

For a second time I circled him. At that moment I noticed him

following my movements with his small eyes. But they were not
inflamed, and there was certainly no sign of the discharge that
would show on a bull in ‘musth.’ And the animal was not blind.
He then lifted his trunk a little towards me and then I knew he
could even smell.

What could be wrong with him? Lazily he lifted his trunk, broke
a twig above him and stuffed it into his mouth. He could not be
wounded or sick, for then he would not be eating so well. All that
I was able to discover was that he was a very old animal indeed.
Apart from the hollows in his forehead and temples, and the
turned-down skin at the tops of his ears, the ivory of both tusks
was blackened at the roots with age.

The two Karumbas had been standing at a safe distance while I

had been circling the bull. One of them now called out to me,
‘there’s no mystery here, dorai. The Wise one (the manner in
which the Karumbas usually refer to elephants) is very old. His
days on earth are over, and he has come to the river to die in it
peacefully.’

We left it at that and returned to camp. The following day I had

some business at the town of Gudalur, nineteen miles away,
which is the headquarters of the district. A string of carts, laden
with lengths of sugar cane, passed me on the main street. I
thought of the old elephant then and of an experiment I would
like to try with him. So I bought a dozen pieces, each over six feet
in length.

Next morning I went to Anaikutty again, this time with three

Karumbas. Two of them carrying the sugarcane. We trailed the old
tusker from the spot at which we had seen last and found him on
the bank of Anaikutty river. He was standing in the shade of a
muthee tree.

I approached cautiously with one of the Karumbas who was

carrying six of the sugar-cane stems. I can assure you he came
with the greatest reluctance. The bull saw us and half-turned
slowly. Now he was facing us. The Karumba stopped. I took two
lengths of the sugar cane in my left hand, holding my loaded rifle
cocked in the crook of my right arm, and advanced slowly and
deliberately towards the animal, staring into its eyes but with
only conciliatory thoughts in my mind. The next few seconds
would show whether this strange animal’s behaviour would
culminate in a sort of friendship or in enmity.

When I got to within a few feet, the bull became very nervous.
He blew air through his trunk and began curling it inwards to
protect it from possible harm. His ears flapped. They came
forwards and then went backwards against the side of his head.
Bad signs indeed! He was about to charge!
 I halted, extending my arm to hold out the sugar cane towards
him. I did not speak, for I know the human voice annoys and
frightens animals.

The elephant became less restive and my arms began to ache

with the weight of the sugar cane. After some minutes, I inched
forward again, continuing till the broad leaves at the end of the
six-foot piece of cane were within reach of his trunk. Then I
stopped, holding it out invitingly. With a nervous swish of his
trunk the elephant tore the cane from my grasp, pulled it towards
himself, and then beat it repeatedly against the ground. He
hesitated. I knew he was pondering the question as to what to do
next. Put it into his mouth? Stamp upon it and crush it with his
weight? Throw it away? Or perhaps attack the puny intruder?

Cautiously, the bull placed the cane sideways in his mouth and
bit it. That did it! He tasted the sweet juice, perhaps for the first
time in his life, for there were no sugar cane fields in this area. Or
maybe he hailed from far-off parts and had eaten sugar cane before
and remembered the taste. Anyway, he obviously liked it. For he
munched at the cane, while his small eyes stared at me
unwinkingly. There was no enmity in them, but there was
nervousness still.

I handed him the second length of cane after he had finished the
first. He took it readily enough and munched it.

The Karumbas, with the rest of the sugar cane had stopped some
distance away and refused to approach any nearer. I knew they
regarded my actions as sheer madness. As I was reluctant to
dispense with my rifle, I had to make two more trips from the
elephant to the Karumbas and back again before I had fed him the
remaining ten pieces of cane. But at last they were done and the
strangest friendship that ever was heard of had been established
between the old wild bull and myself.
 The next day I motored to Gundlupet, twenty-one miles away,
where sugar-cane could be had, and bought a whole load of the
stuff. On the return journey I passed my old friend, Mr Chandran,
one of the Forest Range Officers attached to the Mudumalai Game
Sanctuary that came very close to the area where the old bull was
living out the last days of his existence. I told him the story and he
was amazed, adding that he had never heard of anything like it in
all his service with the forest department. Mr Chandran reminded
me of an incident about two years earlier, when he and I had been
in a government jeep, conducting a German friend through the
sanctuary.

On that occasion, the jeep had been travelling downhill along a

narrow track when we had turned a corner and almost run into a
wild tusker feasting on a clump of bamboos he had knocked down,
which lay across the road. The tusker saw us and came straight at
the jeep. I forgot to tell you that none of us carried firearms, as the
area was a game sanctuary and no rifles or guns were allowed.
Fortunately the driver kept his head and did not capsize the
vehicle by running down the steep slope to our right. The hill
banked upwards on the left, so we could not escape that way.

The bull reached the radiator, halted, smacked the bonnet with
his trunk and—did nothing more! The driver came to life then and
backed the jeep as far as he possibly could. Meanwhile, the tusker
had gone. After ten minutes we advanced once more towards the
bamboo-clump that lay across the track and got out to cut a
clearing for the jeep when back upon us in great rage came the
bull!

We scurried into the vehicle while the elephant mounted guard

over his precious bamboo. This time we had to reverse the jeep for
about a furlong before the track was wide enough to turn it
around. Needless to say, we left the tusker with the bamboo as his
prize!
 Mr Chandran related another incident that had occurred more
recently. He was again accompanying a party of tourists in the
same jeep and with the same driver. A baby elephant suddenly ran
across the track, frightened by the sound of the jeep, and its
mother came after it. Fury seized her when she saw this strange
thing, which she took to be an enemy, so close to her calf.
Without further ado she overturned the jeep and then herded her
calf to safety. Fortunately, the presence of the calf and her anxiety
to get it out of harm’s way had distracted her and prevented her
from killing the jeep’s occupants. As it was, the vehicle was
damaged and several of the inmates injured, although not by the
elephant directly.

The docile behaviour of the old bull at Anaikutty was all the
more amazing in the light of these occurrences.

I returned the next day to feed him again. He accepted the cane
readily enough, but did not seem very hungry, as he took only two
pieces. The third and fourth pieces I offered him he refused, merely
touching them with the tip of his trunk.

The following day we were back once more, but this time the
old bull would accept nothing. He just stood in front of me,
acknowledging my offering with the tip of his trunk, but taking
nothing. His eyes were watery and seemed to hold a sad
expression. When I left him, he even turned his head as if to bid an
old friend farewell.

For some reason I could not visit him as usual the next day, but
at about nine o’clock on the morning of the fourth day, I went to
see him again, along with the Karumbas and the sugar cane. But
he was not there. However, we knew well enough where we would
find him. He would be at the ‘Big Pool’, half a mile upstream, the
‘place where the elephants come to die,’ as the Karumbas call it in
their own language.
 And we found him there, right enough. He was dead. The
weather had been dry and the pool was only four feet deep. But
the tusker had deliberately lain down in it on his side and placed
his head and trunk beneath the surface of the water to drown. His
flank protruded above and that was how we found him.

There lies the answer to the great secret: where do the elephants
go, and how do they die, when they become too old to live? They
drown themselves in a river. I had solved the mystery and at the
same time had enjoyed a unique friendship with a full-grown wild
tusker, although it was but a brief one.
 4

The Dumb Man-Eater of Talavadi

HAVE met many unforgettable characters in my time and most

I of them have been jungle men; Indian, Anglo-Indian and
European. For the forest appears to develop a man’s personality.
The more time he spends there the clearer his personality
becomes. One such character was my friend Hughie Hailstone,
who lived in a wonderful home he had built for himself called
‘Moyar Valley Ranch,’ down at a place named Mudiyanoor, near
Talaimalai, in a corner of the North Coimbatore district and not
very far away from the Moyar river, which separates North
Coimbatore from the Nilgiri forest division.

Now Hughie was a character if ever there was one. He attended

the same school as I did, but passed out much earlier. From that
time he followed a varied career. But the man had brains.
Everything he touched turned to gold. With some of this money he
bought a large tract of forest land and on it he built his Moyar
Valley Ranch.

Hughie had a fine collection of firearms, the best that money

could buy, but among these he had a great fancy for a .023 Mauser
rifle with a hexagonal barrel with which, if I remember rightly, he
told me he had shot nine elephants and over twenty tigers. Later,
Hughie took a great liking to my son Donald and presented him
with this very weapon. Donald was, of course, delighted. But
what enhanced the value of the gift was the fact that it was
Hughie’s favourite weapon. Frankly, I do not believe I could ever
part with my ancient, but lovable, old .405. It has been my
companion and solace for over forty years.
 My story begins at a point where in some part of India Hughie
either found or heard of a special kind of grass, the stems of which
when dry were stronger than the ordinary matchstick, and not so
brittle. They would not break easily, and they burned readily. So
Hughie conceived the idea of cultivating this grass on a large scale
on the lands of his Moyar Valley Ranch with a view to starting a
match factory that would turn out a product to be sold at about
half the price of those already on the market, and of much higher
quality.

He obtained seeds in quantity, ploughed his lands with the first

shower of the monsoon rains, and sowed them. Up came the grass
in fine style. Acres of it. The land was virgin and the grass grew to
five feet and more. I remember watching it as it bent and rippled
to the breeze. But before Hughie’s grass could be turned into
match sticks there came herds of deer, particularly chital, and
large sounders of wild pigs. The deer, of course, ate the grass,
while the wild pigs made it their home and did considerable
damage by digging it up at places, though for the most part they
burrowed a maze of low tunnels through it, leading here, there
and everywhere. In these tunnels they sheltered and multiplied to
the extent that Hughie wondered eventually whether he should
persevere with the match factory or run a ham and bacon concern!

Best of all, with deer and the pigs came tigers and panthers to
eat them. Rather I should say more tigers than panthers, for the
former arrived in such numbers as not only to decimate the deer
and pig population, but to kill and eat the panthers too, so that in
the course of time the smaller cats learned to give the match-grass
a very wide berth.

Now Hughie employed an assistant, a man named Sweza (a

corruption of D’Souza), who came from Mangalore on the west
coast of India. Sweza was a most versatile individual: he did
everything for Hughie, whose problems he not only knew but
anticipated.
 He once said to me with reference to his employer, ‘I don’t know
why master spend much money to make more money. Master got
plenty money to enjoy and enjoy. But no; he want to make
matchsticks, tooth powder from babul bark, fertilizer from jungle
seeds mixed with elephants’ dung, invention for finding
underground water, digging ground for getting some stones master
says got iron, all sort of things. Only spending money. Why for?
This very good place. Master should enjoy. Plenty girls got it here.
Young girls; not ‘nuff husbands here. I tell-it master. He get very
angry. He say-it, “Sweza, you bloody rogue you got it one wife and
three more women already. I saved you from one more wife. Now
you want to put me in the same trouble!”’

But he was a good fellow, this Sweza, game for anything and as
keen as mustard. And he ate well! His paunch and his jolly smile
showed this.

One Easter, Sweza felt that his master and himself were entitled
to roast pork or venison. So he borrowed his master’s small-bore
rifle after confiding his good intentions to Hughie, and waded into
the match-grass, now somewhat withered and thinned down by
the summer heat, in search of quarry. Sweza had not gone very far
when he saw the snout of a medium-sized wild pig regarding him
with grave suspicion from between the stems of the grass. He fired.
The pig fell, picked itself up again, and disappeared. Sweza started
to follow hard on its trail.

Just then there was a great swishing in the grass where the pig
had disappeared, a snarl, and the scream of a dying animal. Sweza
beat a hasty retreat and told his master.

Hughie came out with one of his heavy rifles and Sweza led him
to the place where he had fired at the pig, pointing out the
direction in which it had gone. Hughie went on and Sweza made
to follow him from behind, but Hughie very wisely objected to
this. He did not want a bullet from Sweza’s rifle in his back. So he
asked his servant to go back and wait for him in the open.

Hughie came to the spot where the pig had been killed, but
there was no trace of its body. The killer had carried it away. Bent
and broken stems of dried grass showed the direction he had taken
with his burden. Moving cautiously forward, he had gone for quite
a hundred yards when suddenly a loud growl from in front told
him the killer was feeding somewhere ahead and resented his
intrusion. But Hailstone had seen and shot many tigers and was
not to be intimidated by a growl. He moved forward stealthily and
the tiger growled more loudly. Hughie knew the charge would
come at any moment.

A little later the tiger charged. It came in great leaping bounds

through the dried match-grass. Hailstone waited till he could see
the contorted face clearly, till the final spring would land the
beast right on top of him. Then he fired. Thus was born the man-
eater of Talavadi! Hughie’s bullet struck the tiger full in the face.
The impact tended to stop it, but the weight of the body behind
still pushed it forward, with the result that the tiger somersaulted
just a few yards away. Hughie worked the bolt of his rifle rapidly
to get in a second shot. The magazine jammed.

He did the right thing after that. He turned and fled.

Evidently the tiger was temporarily blinded or maybe too hurt

to follow. It floundered about in the grass, digging great holes in
the earth as, in agony, it bit and tore the ground with its claws
and teeth.

Hughie dashed into the bungalow to get another rifle, Sweza

running after him and asking what had happened. But by the time
Hailstone got to the spot again, advancing one step at a time, the
tiger had vanished, while splashes of blood and saliva on the
ground made it plain he had received a severe wound in the region
of the mouth or throat.

It is a common belief among some hunters that a wounded

feline should not be followed up immediately. Sufficient time
should be allowed to pass in which the animal might possibly
bleed to death. At least, the wounds would stiffen to the extent
that the beast would be disinclined to move far, or it might even
be incapable of movement. But there is another school of thought
which advocates following up at once. The theory in this case is
that the wounded animal should not be given time to recover from
the shock and pain of its wounds and from its immediate fear. The
advocates of this theory feel that, with the passage of time and
long hours of pain, the wounded beast becomes vicious and bent
upon revenge, whereas immediately after being wounded it seeks
only to escape. They also argue that on humanitarian grounds it is
very cruel to allow an animal to suffer hours of intense agony with
a vital organ shot away.

Now I am not going to give my own judgment on these theories,

except to say that both are partly right and partly wrong. Each
animal has its individual characteristics and special nature and
will react in its own way. Hughie was a firm believer in the second
theory and lost no time in following up.

The blood trail through the long match-grass was clear. It left
Hughie’s land and entered the forest, where things became a little
more difficult. Hughie had to rely on his own abilities as Sweza,
still trailing behind with the other rifle, was no tracker. They
followed it across a dry ravine, where the tiger had lain down and
then continued, and across flat country the other side. The fact
that the tiger had lain down indicated that it was badly wounded,
and as Hughie had followed up at once, the animal could not be
very far away. Probably it had heard him and Sweza and was
taking cover in the undergrowth. The third item of information
was that this animal appeared to be a coward; it should have
taken advantage of the terrain and plenty of cover in the ravine to
ambush the two men.

By now the bleeding had lessened and after crossing the flat
stretch for another furlong the trail began to lead downhill, where
the ground became increasingly stony. Hughie had to slow down
and keep looking about for the next drop or two of blood. Soon
even this ceased and he could go no further. On that hard ground
no pug-marks were visible.

For some unaccountable reason the tracts of forest in the

Mudiyanoor area are entirely devoid of jungle tribes or aboriginal
population. It is believed this has been so since the days when
Tippoo Sultan, the Muslim ruler of Mysore, invaded the
surrounding country, sweeping all before him. So Hughie had no
opportunity to return later and follow the tiger, as there was
nobody in all that area who knew anything about tracking.

The village of Talaimalai is about two miles south of

Mudiyanoor, where Hughie had his farm. It is a small hamlet
surrounded by fertile country. Nearly two months later, one of the
villagers from this place bought a tract of land from his neighbour,
or rather arranged to buy it, for the sale deed pertaining to this
transaction had necessarily to be signed and registered in the
office of the sub-registrar and the money paid by the purchaser to
the seller in the presence of this august individual whose
headquarters were at a larger village named Talavadi, situated
seven miles north of Mudiyanoor. So the vendor and the
prospective purchaser, the latter carrying the money he was going
to pay for the land, which came to Rs 400, including the
incidental expenses involved in the sale deed, set forth together on
foot to cover the nine miles between Talaimalai and Talavadi.

They had covered two-thirds of this distance when they crossed

a stream that had a little water in it. Here they stopped under a
large tree to eat the curried balls of ragi flour they had brought
with them as a midday meal. The purchaser then went down to
the stream to drink and wash while his companion watched him
with sleepy eyes.

Suddenly something huge leaped down upon the drinking man

from the opposite bank of the stream and back again across the
stream to disappear as abruptly as it had come, except that there
was no longer any sign of the unfortunate purchaser. He had
disappeared, along with that horrible apparition!

The vendor, now fully awake, leaped to his feet and ran as fast
as he could towards Talavadi, covering the three miles to that
place in record time. There he gasped out his story before the sub-
registrar and the clerks sitting in the office. All this being
something out of the ordinary, the sub-registrar sent the man to
the police station, where the whole tale was repeated.

In the opinion of the constable in charge there was nothing

strange about the story. As he reasoned it out, here we have A
reporting that he is selling some land to B for Rs 400. A and B set
out to register the sale, B carrying Rs 400. On the way, A says that
some strange creature appeared out of the jungle and disappeared
again, taking B with it. A reports he was more than half-asleep
and cannot describe what this strange something was. But the
facts remain that B has vanished, the Rs 400 have vanished with
him, and the land still belongs to A.

Without further ado, the head constable arrested the

unfortunate vendor and locked him in the police station’s solitary
cell. Then he wrote a lengthy report, stating why he suspected he
had caught a murderer. He did not forget to add that the sub-
inspector at Satyamangalam, which was the headquarters of the
Police and Forest departments and the place to which the prisoner
would have to be sent, might please bear in mind when he read
the report that it was the humble prayer of the head constable
that promotion was long overdue and this brave and dramatic
arrest of a dangerous murderer and thief should forthwith clinch
matters and lead to the said promotion without delay. He closed
the report by saying that he offered daily prayers for the sub-
inspector’s continued long life and prosperity.

It was not till a week later that the fourth constable attached to
the police station at Talavadi returned from leave. The head
constable then felt he could manage with two policemen while he
sent the other two on escort duty with the prisoner, and his report,
to Satyamangalam, where the sub-inspector resided, forty miles
away. They should reach there in three days, for they had to walk
the whole distance.

Hailstone happened to be standing at the entrance to the

grounds of his farm, which abutted on the track leading from
Talavadi to Satyamangalam, when he saw the two policemen
coming along with a prisoner handcuffed between them.
Conversationally he inquired what wrong the man had done and
where he was being taken. The constables, glad of the respite, said
they were escorting a murderer, while the poor vendor burst into
tears, sobbing out his innocence and his story afresh.

Hughie pricked up his ears.

‘Stop weeping, you idiot,’ he said kindly but firmly. ‘If you want
me to help you, just answer a simple question. What was this
strange something that you say carried away your companion? At
least, what did it look like?’

‘Dorai,’ the man replied, striving to control himself, ‘I saw my

friend stoop to drink water. At that instant I must have fallen
asleep. I heard nothing, but seemed to see some huge, long body
jump down from the jungle across the stream and jump back
again. Then only did I notice the man had gone! I woke up and ran
all the way to Talavadi. Now these policemen say I have murdered
my friend and taken his money.’
 Then he started crying once more at the thought of his plight.

Hughie remembered the tiger he had wounded just two months

earlier. He had often thought about it and wondered if the animal
had died or had recovered from its wound. And if it had recovered,
Hughie knew that sooner or later he would hear about the animal
again. Could this be it?

‘Did it look like a tiger?’ he asked abruptly.

The policemen looked at him stupidly, but the man in handcuffs

replied quickly, ‘Come to think of it, dorai, it might have been a
tiger. As I said, I was more than half asleep and the whole thing
happened so quickly. But it was nothing in human form that
carried away my companion, of that I am certain. It was
something long and big.’

‘Don’t take this poor man to Satyamangalam,’ Hughie advised

the policemen. ‘Save yourself the journey, for he is no murderer. I
think I know what really happened.’

But the officers of law and order the world over are dogged in
their purposes, especially when they have someone in handcuffs.
The policemen continued on their way to Satyamangalam with
their captive, while Hughie went in his car to Talavadi. To his
mortification, he discovered from the head constable that nobody
knew exactly where the incident had taken place except the
prisoner himself, as nobody had taken the trouble to investigate
the story or make an inspection of the spot.

Hailstone considered telling the head constable about the

wounded tiger but decided against it. A man of his temperament,
with a one-track mind, might do anything. He might even lock
Hailstone up! So he left the police station without further ado and
set out for Satyamangalam, overtaking the two policemen and
their prisoner some ten miles beyond Mudiyanoor. Glad of the lift,
the three men piled into the car and in less than ninety minutes
the whole party were with the sub-inspector.

The sub-inspector read the head constable’s report and then

listened to what Hughie had to say.

‘And this man wants a promotion’ was his comment after

Hughie had told him that the head constable had not even
troubled to visit the scene of the tragedy. ‘I shall see him reverted!
Please take me to Talavadi in your car.’

Back they went, all five of them, to give the head constable at
Talavadi the nastiest surprise of his life. Then the vendor took
them to the place where the would-be purchaser and his money
had vanished. The head constable was made to go too.

Over a week had passed, but when they crawled to the top of
the bank they found the pug-marks of a tiger at the spot where it
had clambered back with its burden, the unlucky would-be
purchaser. Casting around, a little distance away but still to be
seen in the sand, were the fainter imprints of the tiger before it
had launched its attack.

Hughie had not brought his rifle. The sub-inspector inquired

nervously if the tiger might still be there. Hailstone said ‘no,’ and
the six men started searching the immediate surrounding for the
remains of the victim. Strangely enough, it was the vendor, now
no longer in chains, who stumbled upon the gnawed bones. A few
rags and the ten-rupee notes that had been scattered by the breeze
in a wide circle in the grass and undergrowth, confirmed that the
remains were indeed all that was left of the purchaser. There were
only a few, as most of the bones had been removed by the vultures,
jackals and hyaenas that had visited the carcase after the tiger
had finished.

The man-eater struck a second time scarcely a month later. This

was at the village of Nagalur, about halfway between Hughie’s
place and the Moyar river which bounded the Nilgiri district. The
third victim was an old man who was walking behind his two sons
on the old Sultan’s Battery Road, a couple of miles behind
Talaimalai village. This killing took place in broad daylight—at
noon, as a matter of fact.

The three men had set out together from Talaimalai to Nagalur,
where the second victim had been taken. For some distance their
way lay along the old road I have named, a relic of the days of
that fierce Muslim conqueror who long ago brought terror to this
region. They had not gone far when they came to a mighty wild-
mango tree. Monkeys had knocked down some of the ripe fruit and
the three men stopped to eat. When they started walking again
the father had fallen behind, from where he continued to talk to
them about the business that was taking them to Nagalur.

He had reminded them that it was getting late and they had all
begun to walk faster, when a sudden choking cry made the two
sons turn around to see a huge tiger with its jaws firmly in their
father’s throat, in the act of springing into the undergrowth that
closely bordered the road on both sides.

Where the beast had come from they never knew. It had
certainly made no sound whatever, not even a growl or snarl,
which was rather unusual, for attacking tigers generally roar or
make some sort of noise to inflate their own courage before
springing. In this case, all they had heard was their father’s last
gasp. By this time the attacker had disappeared and the two boys
took to their heels, running as fast as they could back to
Talaimalai.

Consternation spread among the village folk and the man-eater,

as if he knew very well that his name had struck terror in the area,
increased the number of his attacks as he began to roam over a
wider circle. He killed as far north as the high road connecting
Satyamangalam with the large town of Chamrajnagar in Mysore
state. He killed to the east as far as Dimbum, a hamlet standing on
the escarpment of mountains overlooking the Satyamangalam
plain. He crossed the Moyar river and went into the Nilgiri district
to the south, and on the west he trespassed into the Bandipur area
which lies in Mysore state.

Unfortunately, at just about this time Hughie, who had always

been a vigorous man, fell ill. It happened suddenly and
unexpectedly. I know he felt deeply about all that had taken place
and was happening, for he held himself responsible for starting the
tiger on its man-eating career by wounding it, and he chafed at
the illness that prevented him from going after it, which he would
otherwise have assuredly done. So he wrote to me, and that was
what took me in my Studebaker to Moyar Valley Ranch.

Sweza met me at the gate and I found Hughie asleep in a canvas

chair on his verandah. He had not heard my car. The change in his
appearance since we had last me was almost frightening. A robust
man, he had shrunk to half his normal size and looked haggard
and very ill. He apologized for dragging me away from home and
then, as I sat beside him drinking tea and eating the most delicious
mangoes that grew on his land, Hughie told the story as I have
told it here, not sparing himself and full of self-recrimination not
only for wounding the tiger but for not finishing it off after that.

These things happen, Hughie,’ was all the comfort I could offer.
‘You must pull yourself together now and join me in killing it.’

He looked at me wryly and said, ‘Kenneth, my hunting days are

over. My next shikar will be in the happy hunting grounds—if
there’s such a place!’

Indeed, he never hunted again. Shortly after the end of this

episode he went by air to England. He had already bought a house
there, a nice place in the country. But he was not to enjoy it, for
he had been there only a few days when he slipped and fell down
the staircase, injuring himself severely. Soon afterwards he died of
a heart attack.

However, we now discussed what should be done. It was clear

that it would not be worth my while to visit Nagalur and
Talaimalai and other places where the tiger had killed, in order to
question the people about the animal’s habits and peculiarities.
Hughie had already done this before falling ill and told me all he
had discovered. To begin with, there was scarcely any doubt that
it was the animal he had wounded that had now become a man-
eater. The few people who had seen it clearly, particularly the two
sons of the old man who had been snatched on the Sultan’s Battery
Road, affirmed that the glimpse they had got of the tiger’s face
showed there was something seriously the matter with it. The face
had been hideously scarred and contorted. Secondly, the animal’s
uncanny silence on every occasion when there had been a witness
to its attack proved that it was either a very strange animal by
nature, or that something was wrong with its vocal chords.
Moreover, nobody remembered having ever heard this tiger roar.

Of course, tigers had often roared in the area. This was to be

expected, because it was full of tigers. But in no locality where
any of the human kills had taken place, or at least not for a few
days before or after that killing, had any tiger roared in the forest.
For this reason the rumour spread that the man-eater was dumb.

The procedure normally followed in trying to shoot a man-eater

is as unexciting as it appears to be self-contradictory. The hunter
purchases three or four live baits in the form of buffalo heifers or
young bulls and ties them out at pre-selected places where
machans have already been put up, in the hope that the tiger may
kill one of them. The hunter then sits in the machan the following
night to shoot the tiger when it returns for a second meal.

Having heard that man-eaters eat men, you may wonder why
an animal bait is tied out. Would a man-eater want to kill it? The
answer is that man-eaters do not confine themselves to a diet of
human flesh. They merely prefer the flesh of men to other meat.
Perhaps a man is easier to find. He is certainly easier to stalk and
kill. Maybe there is something appetizing about human flesh. But
anyway, one cannot very well tie out a human being as bait.

With Hughie’s influence and Sweza’s help I purchased four

young bulls at Talaimalai village. The two boys whose father had
been killed volunteered to help me in tethering the animals and
building machans, so I recruited them and two more to assist.
With Hughie and Sweza we formed a committee of seven persons
when we sat down to deliberate on where to tie our baits.
Strangely, it has become customary to tether a bait as near as
possible to the spot where a kill has already taken place. I do not
really know why this is so. It is certainly wrong reasoning to infer
that a man-eater, like a murderer, may have a guilty conscience
and come back to the scene of his crime. To a man-eater his action
is no crime. It is merely his dinner.

I admit I have fallen into the habit myself, but now I come to
think of it, the practice follows faulty reasoning. As a matter of
fact, a man-eater is more likely to avoid the scene of one of his
former kills rather than go there again, because he knows of the
publicity it occasioned and the number of people who have visited
the spot since the occurrence.

The real thing to do, as I have related in earlier stories, is to try

to work out the line of beat the killer has been following by
studying a map of the locality and marking on it the places where
each human kill occurred and the date of each event. When the
tiger is a man-eater of long standing, with many crimes to his
discredit, such a study reveals that he has been following a fixed
route over and over again, returning to the same localities (but
not the exact spot) in which he has killed before, once in so many
weeks or months as the case may be. In shikar parlance, this habit
or practice is known as the ‘man-eater’s beat.’
 I suppose in a way this answers the question posed earlier as to
why it has become more or less an accepted practice to tie a bait
near the spot where a human kill has already occurred. One hopes
it will be on the tiger’s beat and that he will come again. But this
may not happen for many weeks or even months, for every man-
eater does not follow a beat. Most do, but there are exceptions.
And in any case such a beat can only be worked out with a man-
eater of long standing. The animal I was after had started recently
and his killings so far had been haphazard.

All of which brings me back to the fact that it was difficult for
us to decide precisely where to tie out and there was much
difference of opinion. The two boys advocated trying the Sultan’s
Battery Road where their father had been killed. The other two
men I had recruited to help me said the track leading from
Talaimalai to Talavadi would be best, as tiger pug-marks were
seen along it nearly every day. Hughie suggested tying the four
baits a mile apart from each other and in a straight line, two to
three miles south of Talaimalai, where the ground fell away
abruptly to the valley of the Moyar river. Sweza suggested tying
up somewhere in Hughie’s match-grass, where the tiger was first
wounded, because he felt it would return there to eat the spotted
deer and wild pig that were still abundant.

Of all these suggestions, I decided the last was the least likely to
bring success. The man-eater would never return to a place where
it had been so badly hurt. So we ruled it out. All the other
suggestions were equally good and it appeared to be a matter of
luck where and when the tiger would next show up.

Eventually we decided to tether one of the baits on the Sultan’s

Battery Road, another on the Talaimalai-Talavadi track, and the
third and fourth baits at two of the most likely spots along the
ridge south of Talaimalai that overlooked the Moyar river, as
suggested by Hughie. I felt that the kill, if and when it took place,
would be one of these two baits, as tigers passed to and from the
Nilgiri forests to the Talaimalai Reserve across this ridge.
However, as there was more than one tiger in the area, we would
not know whether the man-eater or some quite innocent tiger had
made the kill, and the only course open would be to shoot it in the
hope that it turned out to be the man-eater. The selection of the
exact spot for each tie-up was to be left to me.

I told my four helpers to return at dawn the next day with

another eight men, so that there would be a dozen of them
altogether, allowing sufficient men for the task of erecting each of
the four machans that were to be put up before the baits were tied
out.

I have found it wise to erect the machan first and only

afterwards to tie the bait in a suitable line of fire. Then, when a
kill occurs, the hunter is ready to take his place. The other way
around much disturbance is caused in tying a machan after the
bait has been killed, and should the tiger be lying in concealment
within hearing he generally fails to return.

The machan I favoured using at that time, and still think is best,
is an ordinary charpoy cot with its four legs cut short. For those of
you who don’t know what a charpoy cot is, I may explain that it
consists of a rectangular wooden or bamboo frame of four pieces,
about six feet by three. Rope, or wide cotton tape, is laced across
this frame, while four legs at each of the four corners complete the
cot. Most villagers sleep on the ground, but in certain places
unduly infested with snakes and scorpions, charpoy cots are the
only type that are favoured, for they are made in the villages and
cost in the region of five rupees each, including the rope used.
Where cotton tape or webbing is employed for more comfort—the
price, at the most, is doubled.

My machan consisted of a cot of the latter type. Each of the four

legs had been shortened to a foot in length, sufficient to provide
something by which to tie the cot to the branches of a tree. The
cot itself was cut into two and folded on two hinges for
convenience of transport. Its advantages are obvious; it provided
maximum comfort with minimum weight and noise should I be
forced to move about, which, incidentally, is the one thing you
should never do in sitting up!

Hughie favoured another type of machan, which was nothing

more than a folding canvas chair with a footrest to keep your legs
from dangling downwards. Sitting in one of these always gave me
a sense of insecurity—a feeling that I would either fall out of it, or
that the whole structure would collapse at any moment. Of
course, this was only prejudice, as in reality there was no real risk
either way and I was grateful when Hughie offered to lend me his
canvas chair-machan to be used in one of the four places we had
selected. This meant that the remaining two machans would have
to be constructed on the spot with bamboos and wood cut in the
jungle.

Work began in earnest next day, when the dozen men arrived
carrying their sharp knives. Hughie supplied all the rope we would
need, so with four of the men leading the bulls I had purchased to
serve as bait, we were soon on the Talaimalai-Talavadi road,
where we were to tie the first machan.

We had gone scarcely a quarter of a mile along this track when

we saw, clearly imprinted on the soft earth, the fresh pug-marks of
a tiger that had come down the bed of a small nullah that crossed
the road. The tiger had passed in the early hours of the morning,
which was revealed by the fact that the powdery dust bordering
the edges of the track had not yet fallen into the depressions made
by the tiger’s pads. With the passage of a few hours and the action
of the wind, this would certainly have happened were the tracks
more than six hours old.

Walking up the nullah, both to the left and right of where it

crossed the road, we saw several older tracks, indicating that this
dry streambed was much used either by the tiger whose tracks we
had just seen or by other tigers in the locality. Unfortunately, due
to their age, these tracks could not be identified for certain with
the fresh ones along the road which undoubtedly had been made
by an adult male of rather bigger than average size.

A banyan tree grew on the farther bank of the nullah just before
it crossed the road, and all agreed that this would be the ideal
place for the first machan. It was an old tree, and many of the
roots that had dropped to the earth from the higher branches had
in the course of the years, themselves taken root and grown into
the thickness of minor tree-trunks. Within this network of the
roots and trunks it would be easy for us to put up an inconspicuous
machan, and I decided to save my charpoy and Hughie’s chair for
one of the other places where natural construction might not be so
easy. We completed that machan in ninety minutes, and after
tying the first bait in a convenient position, set out for our second
selection, which you will remember was the Sultan’s Battery
Road.

The sons of the old man who had been killed showed me where
the tragedy had taken place, and within a couple of furlongs of
this spot and once again where a nullah crossed the road, we
erected the second machan. This again was constructed on the
spot, but took much longer to do, so that it was nearly noon before
we set out for the ridge, two miles away, overlooking the Moyar
Valley and Nilgiri jungles whence the tigers generally came.

My guides, who had lived in the area all their lives, pointed out
first one then a second game trail that led up from the valley to
the south of us, down which in the distance flowed the Moyar
river, its course easily recognizable by the thick belt of giant trees
on its bank. From the height at which we were standing, the
Moyar looked like a great green python, writhing its course
through the forest.
 On convenient trees we tied our remaining machans, my
charpoy first and finally Hughie’s canvas chair, while with the
tying-up of our fourth unfortunate bull-bait, the work of the day
came to an end. The sun was sinking across the jungles of
Bandipur to the west when we started on our walk back to
Hughie’s farm quite five miles away. It had been a long day and
we were very tired, but I was very satisfied by the four jobs we had
completed. All I had now to do was scour the jungle in other
directions by day in the hope of meeting the man-eater
accidentally. Meanwhile, I would sleep peacefully at Hughie’s
place by night till one of my baits was taken.

Little did I know what was going to happen.

The two sons of the old man and the first two men who had
volunteered to help me had been instructed to visit the four baits
next morning, and every morning thereafter, and to feed and
water them, till a kill occurred. They were to begin with the most
distant baits, the two animals we had tied on the western ridge,
and then work eastwards to the Sultan’s Battery Road, and finally
to the first bait on the Talaimalai-Talavadi track, which was the
closest of the four to Hughie’s farm.

It was ten-thirty next morning when I heard them coming up

the driveway, talking excitedly, and I knew that a kill had
occurred. But the news they brought was surprising—and
disconcerting! The last bait we had tied the previous evening—the
one under Hughie’s canvas-chair machan—had been killed and
part eaten, and the first animal at the junction of the nullah with
the Talaimalai-Talavadi road had also been killed and about half
devoured.

Two kills on the same night, at points at least five miles apart.
This clearly pointed to two tigers. Now which of them was the
man-eater and in which of the machans should I sit?
 Another consultation was held, but this time we were
unanimous. The tiger that had killed the first bait—the nearest to
the farm—was far more likely to be the man-eater, for its tracks
had indicated that it haunted the nullah-bed crossing the
Talaimalai-Talavadi road on which a human kill had already
taken place and which was frequented by human beings. The
other kill on the ridge was at a far less frequented spot, where
people hardly ever went, but which was used by tigers coming
from the Nilgiri district, or returning to it. As such, the tiger that
had killed there was in all likelihood not the man-eater. It was
therefore decided that I should sit at the nullah-crossing that
night.

With this settled, the next thing to do was to put in a few hours
of sleep.

Hughie called me at one o’clock for a hearty lunch and gave me

a parcel of sandwiches for the night, a most acceptable gift. By
two-thirty I was on the machan, looking down upon the half-
eaten young bull as my four assistants removed the branches with
which they had covered the carcase that morning to protect it
from vultures.

There was silence after their departure and, as was to be

expected, no travellers passed along the road, the presence of the
man-eater discouraging people, especially towards evening, from
using a track on which he had already killed a man. I was
surprised, therefore, to hear voices approaching from the
Talaimalai village direction some time after five o’clock, and
astonished when I recognized the party as my own four
attendants, accompanied by Sweza carrying a gun. They came to
tell me that the man-eater had killed a woman while she was
carrying water from a well near the hamlet of Dimbum, which
was seventeen miles away on the Satyamangalam-Chamrajnagar
road. Hughie had sent them with the news, as he felt that I might
not consider it worthwhile to sit up all night to shoot a tiger
which obviously could not be the man-eater. No tiger that had
devoured half a bull the previous night would walk a distance of
seventeen miles to kill a woman the next morning.

I heartily agreed with the message Hughie had sent and came
down from the machan. As far as I was concerned the tiger that
haunted the nullah was welcome to the remaining half of his
meal. When I got back, Hughie suggested that I go at once to
Dimbum and try to find a place to sit up, either near the well or
wherever the woman had been killed. No doubt her family would
have removed her remains for cremation, but it was just possible
that the man-eater might return to the spot during the night in
search of the body of his victim. I agreed and started straight
away, taking my four helpers along in case of need.

It was almost dark when we left Talaimalai village and I

switched on the headlights of the Studebaker. Just a mile farther
on, the road descended steeply to cross the first of several
intersecting streams, all dry at this time of the year, and strung
out across the road on the opposite bank of this stream, reflecting
the beams from my lights, were the eyes of a herd of bison! The
herd galloped away, disturbed by the noise when I changed gear to
cross the stream—that is, all of them except the herd-bull, which
stood squarely in the centre of the road, his head partly lowered
and pawning the ground in a attitude obviously nasty and
threatening.

Bisons are generally quite harmless animals and run away at the
slightest sight or sound of human beings. Here was one of them
behaving rather differently. Perhaps he felt I constituted a danger
to the herd. More likely he was puzzled by the headlights of the
car and never realized that human beings were behind them. In
any case, I did not wish to risk the consequences of a charge. It
meant shooting the bull—which I had no desire to do—and
quickly, for the signs of an impending charge within the next few
seconds were unmistakable. If he succeeded, I knew my
Studebaker would be a write-off together with some, if not all of
us, who were inside. With my own eyes I have seen a loaded trunk
overturned by a charging bison on the Tippakadu road in the
Nilgiri jungles; the driver had been killed by the truck itself while
the bison had disposed of his assistant and the cleaner by goring
and trampling them to pulp.

These unpleasant thoughts passed quickly through my mind.

There was just one chance left before using my rifle, and I would
have to take it at once. That chance lay in the old klaxon horn
fixed to the right of me on the wind-shield of the Studebaker.
Many an elephant had I scared with this same ancient klaxon! Its
blatant, brassy blare had made them flee in abject terror. So I tried
it again. I pumped the spring lever of that old horn hard and
repeatedly. A ghastly sound rent the jungle silence. The bull raised
its lowered head, its eyes dilated by fear of what seemed like all
hell let loose, and the next moment it plunged into the bamboo
undergrowth and vanished from sight.

After that I saw quite a lot of game, which was rather unusual
for so early an hour, and incidentally a ‘good omen,’ so far as
hunting superstition goes. Spotted deer and two sambar crossed
individually, a sloth bear was digging by the roadside as my lights
disturbed him, and a panther leaped from left to right a furlong
after I had passed the Honathetti forest lodge and was negotiating
a valley between two hillocks, just seven miles from Dimbum.

We arrived at our destination shortly before 8 p.m., which, all

said and done, was excellent going, for the track was not only
steep and winding but had been in places completely obliterated
by the long grass. Hidden boulders lay in that grass, enough to tear
open the bottom of any crankcase or differential that bumped
against it. In such spots I had had to slow down to a snail’s pace,
slowly following two of the men as they walked side by side a few
yards ahead to warn me of hidden rocks before one of the front
wheels of the car banged against them. Then we would all help to
roll them aside, or if they were too big to move I would
circumvent them by going off the track.

Dimbum is a hamlet on the main road from Mysore City, past

the town of Chamrajnagar, down to another large town in the
plains named Satyamangalam, which was the headquarters of the
police and forest departments for the area. Fifty miles on lies the
city of Coimbatore.

All that Dimbum could boast were a few huts and a teashop
owned by a Moplah, a descendant of some Arab trader, who
centuries earlier had come to the west coast of India for trade but
remained to settle down and marry several Hindu Malayalee
women. These men have kept their business acumen through the
years and there is hardly any trade in which numbers of them do
not excel. The teashop at Dimbum was kept open by the Moplah
and his three wives throughout the twenty-four hours of the day.
Tired lorry drivers ascending the steep ghat-road from
Satyamangalam, sixteen miles away, could count on a large mug
of steaming tea or coffee at any time of the day or night, together
with a hot meal of curry and rice. There was another essential
commodity thrown in with the refreshment, and it was free: cool
water for their boiling radiators when their trucks arrived in a
cloud of steam after that long ascent.

There is a Rest House for travellers, too, and it is beautifully

situated upon the edge of the escarpment that overlooks the valley
many thousands of feet below. The nearer part of this valley at the
base of the escarpment is heavily forested, but the road can be
seen winding through the jungle and finally breaking out into the
cultivated lands that stretch away to the horizon. In the middle
distance is Satyamangalam, while far away on the skyline to the
southwest is Coimbatore.

Those jungles at the foot of the hill recall the escapades of the
tiger I named ‘the mauler of Rajnagara,’* for it was there that I
spent some exciting days looking for him without success.

To look upon the plains from this Rest House at nightfall is like
looking down into fairyland. The myriad points of electric light,
frequently interspersed with coloured lights of every hue, stand
out in sharp contrast to the black void. Away to the southwest is
an angry glow upon the horizon: the reflection of the lights of
Coimbatore, too far away to be seen directly, upon the cloud-
layered sky.

I drove to the Moplah’s teashop, for that I knew would be the

fountainhead of all the information I wanted. Abdulkunni, the
ambitious proprietor, knew me well. In fact, I had dropped in for a
cup of tea at his place on my way to Hughie’s farm and had told
him the reason for my visit. He greeted me loudly now and in his
high-pitched, excited voice, began pouring out his news.

‘Why do you go to Talaimalai looking for your tiger, sahib,

when it’s right here? This morning it killed a woman at the well,
just behind this tea shop. A damned nuisance, indeed! We need a
great deal of water here, for making tea and for the radiators of
the hundred or more lorries that need it every day. This requires
many visits to the well and many buckets of water. My three
wives have all refused to go there since they heard the news.
Disobedient, good-for-nothing bitches, all three of them! I have
threatened to kick them out. Even beaten them. But with one
accord they told me to go myself. Cannot somebody rid me of
these wenches? Now I put it to you, sahib. Can I possibly leave the
teashop? So I have been compelled to engage a servant on daily
wages from today. This costs money and in any case she is a lazy
slut! Look sahib, as a good Mussulman it is not the custom for me
to allow strangers to speak to my womenfolk. But you are a friend,
sir. Please talk to my wives and advise them to fetch the water.’

A difficult assignment indeed! Besides, I had better things to do

than persuade old Abdulkunni’s wives to commit suicide. For that
was the fate they would invite by visiting the well with the man-
eater about. I could not blame the women for going on strike. Old
Abdulkunni thought more of his money than of his wives, but I did
not tell him so. It would hurt his feelings.

I said instead, ‘I have come to shoot the tiger, Abdulkunni, so if

you’ll help me, your problem will be solved. Let’s not waste time,
but tell me exactly how the woman was killed.’

‘What is there to say, sahib. She went for water. She was
returning with it. Then the shaitan bagh leapt from the bushes
and carried her off into the jungle. She screamed loudly but the
tiger only growled. Another woman was going down for water,
too, and was but a few yards away when it happened. She heard
and saw everything. She ran back to this very place and told us. I
had five or six customers here at the time. We bolted and barred
the doors and locked ourselves in for nearly two hours. That was
another loss of business. It was only when other drivers arrived
and banged on the front door that we opened up. Then a large
party of us went down to the well. Of the woman there is no sign.
Her broken pot remains where it fell from her hands. There is
nothing more to tell you.’

‘Have there been earlier reports of a tiger in this locality,

Abdulkunni? Has anyone else seen it? Did anybody notice
anything distinctive about the animal?’ I fired the questions
rapidly.

But the old man only laughed. ‘What can be distinctive about a
tiger?’ he inquired. ‘They all look alike, with a head, four legs and
a tail. Besides, why do you ask such silly questions of me? Have I
not told you already that nobody except the other woman who
was going herself to the well for water saw the tiger? She said it
was a huge beast and looked like shaitan (the devil) himself.’
 One last question I asked, with visions of possibly being able to
sit up over the victim’s remains of the next day. ‘Has, the woman’s
body been found?’

Abdulkunni’s derisive grin widened. ‘Who is there to search for

it, sahib? Do you think we are mad? We are alive now. The woman
is dead. If we go in search of her body and the tiger finds us, we too
will be dead. And that will not help her!’

How often had I not heard those same words before, spoken in so
many different languages, when inquiring if a man-eater’s victim
or the remains, had been found!

It was evident that the Moplah could give me no further help. I

would have to do things for myself and think out some plan. So I
ordered two mugs of tea for myself, and a mug each for the men I
had brought in the car from Talaimalai, and selecting the
cornermost table in the grimy tea shop took out my pipe to smoke
while considering the best course of action.

The first thing to do was to get rid of Abdulkunni, who had

started talking again. Very frankly I asked him to leave me alone
as I wanted to think out a plan.

The old man’s behaviour was particularly irritating that day.

With a wicked smirk, he remarked, ‘If you want the tiger, why not
call it?’ Then he went to serve the tea.

Four tracks join at Dimbum, almost directly in front of the tea

shop. Or rather, two of them are tracks, while the other two
consist of the main road that passes through the hamlet, leading
northwards towards Mysore and southwards to Satyamangalam. I
have intentionally counted this one main road as two because, so
far as searching for the tiger went, he might cross it to the north of
Dimbum, or go down the ghat road as it fell away to the south
towards Satyamangalam,. The third track was the one I had just
travelled, leading from Talavadi and Talaimalai, and the fourth
track led into the jungle and was hardly noticeable. It began just
behind the Rest House and then wound eastwards through the
forest for ten miles or more, keeping more or less to the edge of the
continuation of the Dimbum escapement that overlooked the
plains as far as the watershed of the Cauvery river, fifty miles to
the east.

Being the least used of the four, this last track was the one along
which most animals were to be seen, especially bison and sambar.
Quite a number of bear came up the escarpment and tigers very
often crossed it by steep hidden routes on their long trek of more
than fifty miles eastwards, through very dense, jungle and
mountain terrain, to the Cauvery river. After about ten miles this
track dwindled to a mere footpath that threaded through very
heavy bamboo jungles, inhabited more by elephants, bison and
sambar than by tigers. For the area is infested by tick, and tigers
definitely do not like ticks!

It was pitch-dark outside; an ideal night for using a spotlight in

searching for animals.

I could motor up the road towards Mysore for about five miles
and then return, shining my spotlight and hoping the man-eater
might cross by sheer chance. I could then repeat the performance
along the ghat road in the opposite direction. I could even motor
along the road I had come from Talaimalai. But motoring along
the fourth track to the east would not be advisable. Here I would
have to walk. For this track was not only in a very bad state,
littered with big stones and full of potholes, but it twisted and
turned, and was full of sharp gradients. It entailed far too much
gear work and consequent noise, which would drive away the
man-eater and any other animal that happened to be near, before I
had a chance of seeing them.

Where to begin was anybody’s choice and I decided to walk

along the eastern track first, while I was still fresh and because it
would take the longest time.

Finishing my tea, I paid Abdulkunni and told my four men to

catch up with as much sleep as they could while I took a walk up
the eastern trail. Not being old acquaintances of mine, they
thought I was mad. Abdulkunni, who had overheard the
conversation and who had known me for quite a long time,
remarked: ‘You think he’s mad, eh? That’s no discovery! I’ve
known him to be mad for a long time.’

For some reason the old rascal was annoying me more and more
that evening. I checked the torch in the .405 and the spare five-cell
torch that I intended using for the actual reconnaissance, as it
would be far too tiresome to keep pointing the barrel of the rifle
about so as to use its torch. Then I walked to the Rest House, stood
on the verandah plinth for a few minutes to admire once more the
twinkling lights of Satyamangalam, and finally started along the
eastern track that began behind the bungalow. With the first turn,
that came within a few yards, I was shut off from the friendly light
of the petromax lantern hanging in front of the teashop and from
the sounds that came from within.

The man-eater had disappeared with his victim and there was
no knowing where he had taken her. Tigers have been known to
carry their kills for a distance of half-a-mile and even more,
although generally they don’t go so far. He had killed the woman
that morning and no doubt had eaten part of her. The rest he
would have to come back for after dark to make a second meal. It
was now a little after 9.30 p.m., and as the habits of tigers
generally go, the man-eater should have returned by now for his
second meal and be enjoying it at this moment, or very likely he
would have finished it by now. After all, there is not much meat
in an already half-eaten human carcase!

If he had eaten his fill, he would next seek water, and I knew
there were three possible places for him to do that. The closest was
at a water hole that was skirted by the very track I was following
and lay hardly a furlong ahead. The second was by a regular
stream that crossed the road to Mysore about two miles away. The
third was another stream that I had already passed in the car that
evening and was about three miles from Dimbum on the
Talaimalai road. Apart from the water hole I was approaching,
the man-eater could drink at any point throughout the course of
the two streams, and the chance of meeting him over water was
extremely slim.

I was approaching the water hole with these thoughts still in my

mind, and the first signs of its nearness were a row of blue-green
lights in pairs, that kept jerking up and down as they stared into
the bright beam of my torch. Spotted deer! Here was a herd, either
on its way to the water hole or returning from it.

I stopped abruptly and put out the light to allow the deer a
chance of going away quietly. If any of them caught the human
scent behind my light, if would surely voice an alarm cry to warn
its companions. That cry would also alert the tiger if it was in the
vicinity, and I did not want that to happen.

The night was pitch-dark and not a sound came to me from the
spotted deer. The silence was intense. Not even a cricket chirped. I
did not like it at all. It was eerie.

I switched on the torch. The bobbing pinpoints of light had

gone. The deer had vanished in complete silence. That was good,
for they had raised no alarm. I waited a few minutes longer to
allow them to get far enough away, so as not to scent me or see my
torch-beam. Then I started moving forward silently along the
track. The next turn would bring me to the water hole that lay to
the left.

That was when I heard the splashing and gurgling and loud
swishing noises. An elephant was at the water hole and enjoying a
bath. I stopped again. His presence was a nuisance, for elephants,
like most human beings, like their bath. Once they start, they not
only gurgle and drink and bathe and gambol, but they lie in the
water and play in it, even if all alone, sometimes for an hour at a
stretch. I could not waste so much time waiting for the creature to
go away of its own accord. On the other hand, if I advanced and it
saw or scented me, the chances were that it might trumpet in
alarm and that, again, would warn the man-eater, should he be
within earshot, that something strange was moving through the
forest, something unusual enough to disturb an elephant. For me
to make a noise to frighten away the elephant would be folly for
the same reason.

Then I had an idea. I pointed the beam of the torch high up to

the treetops in the direction of the water hole in the hope that it
might be seen by the elephant and cause him to move off.
Evidently I was too far away at first, because he did not see the
light. Then I advanced till I was almost at the bend of the track
before trying again. This time I succeeded. All sounds of that most
enjoyable bath ceased abruptly.

There came a great squelching as the elephant lifted his big

body out of the mud, followed by a rhythmic plop-plop-plop-plop
of heavy footsteps as he plodded slowly through the water to the
bank. Then followed repeated hissing sounds as of escaping steam.
Although disturbed by my light, the elephant did not intend to
deny himself the last luxury of a sand-bath, and that was what he
was doing at that moment; he was throwing sand over himself.

I allowed him time, while continuing to flash the torch from

treetop to treetop to keep him sufficiently disturbed. The hissing
stopped eventually. It was followed in a little while by faint
crackling sounds as the beast moved its heavy way through the
undergrowth bordering the water hole. Once again came silence.
The elephant had moved off and just then the sharp crack of a
breaking branch told me that he had stopped for feed, but far
enough away not to be alarmed at my passing.

I negotiated the turn in the track and came upon the water hole
lying limpid and dark before me, a few wisps of vapour already
rising from its warmer surface into the rapidly-cooling night air.
Hundreds of pin-points of brilliant red light, like tiny rubies
scattered over the water, shone in my torchlight, and from the
nearer bank bordering the pool came the chorus of frogs. Alarmed
by my approach, they had leaped off the bank in great numbers.
With vigorous thrusts of their hind legs they propelled themselves
into the centre of the pool, where they whirled around to face me,
their tiny eyes glistening and reflecting like a thousand rubies.

I had been to such pains to avoid the elephant raising an alarm

at my approach only to meet with a singular defeat at the hands of
those most insignificant of creatures—the frogs. The tiger heard
them, for he happened to be there, and must have seen me and my
light simultaneously.

Fortunately for me, he was on the further bank of the pool,

where he must have come to drink, and not on the track, or
matters may have turned out differently. Under similar
circumstances, any normal tiger would have taken himself off
quietly and I would never have known of his presence. But this
one growled, and continued to growl, the ominous sound
rumbling from the darkness at the other end, across the pool and
to me as I came to an abrupt and uncertain halt.

The tiny ruby-red eyes of the frogs floating on the surface

disappeared altogether, as if some switch had cut off the power,
when they dived beneath the surface to escape that awful sound.
On the opposite bank of the pool whence the growling arose there
was a great disturbance as the myriad frogs that had been resting
on the cool sand by the water’s edge threw themselves into the
pool for safety and with their tiny legs struck out frantically for
the centre.

The growling stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The frogs fell

into a hushed silence too. I then directed the beam of my torch
around the bushes and undergrowth that grew down to the water’s
edge at the opposite end. Would I see the tiger’s eyes glow in the
beam? I saw nothing and heard nothing. My light fell only upon
the jungle and a deathly silence covered everything.

The tiger had vanished. Had he made off? A normal tiger would
do just that, but no normal tiger would have growled at seeing my
torchlight. This beast was far from normal. He was angry, and he
was unafraid of the approach of man. Was this the man-eater?

I glanced around nervously. My front was safe. To attack from

that direction the tiger would have to charge through water and I
knew he was very unlikely to do that. Rather, he would come
around the pool and attack me from either flank, or from behind.
If he chose a flank attack, he would have to charge along the bank
or the track, either from the direction I had just come or from the
opposite end where the pathway left the pool. More probably he
would attack from the rear, where the jungle bordered the edge of
the track and not two yards from where I was standing. Then I
would have no chance whatever.

There was but one thing to do and I did it very quickly. I

scrambled down the sloping bank into the water and, feeling the
way before me with each footstep, made for the middle of the pool
as fast as I could. I knew it was not very deep and there I would be
safe from attack from any direction. No tiger—not even a man-
eater, at least not in my experience—would attack across water,
and even if it did, the tables would be turned entirely in my
favour. I would have the tiger in the open and completely at my
mercy, long before he could reach me.
 The water had reached a little above my knees when the tiger
growled again. This time it was a loud growl, almost a roar. And it
came from the jungle bordering the track, from the very direction
in which I had expected the attack. Had I not sought the safety of
the pool just in time, the tiger would have launched itself upon
me. He was growling with fury now at finding me beyond reach.

But was I really beyond reach? The next few moments would
answer that question. Of one fact I had no doubt whatever: I was
dealing with the man-eater and no ordinary tiger. The hate in its
behaviour clearly showed that. Hughie’s bullet had turned this
animal into a fiend.

I waited in vain. The tiger did not emerge. The growling stopped
as unexpectedly as it had started, and once again I was plunged
into silence with a sea of darkness around me. I played the beams
of my torch in every direction as I turned slowly around, hoping to
catch a glimpse of the beast’s eyes as they reflected the light, or of
the striped body slinking from bush to bush. But I saw and heard
nothing.

The myriads of frogs that had experienced such a disturbing

night, first with the arrival of the elephant, then myself, and
finally the tiger, all went below the surface of the water when I
waded into it. But they could not remain submerged for long and
had to come up for breath. One by one they came to the surface
now, soundlessly, to gulp in air, and soon the nearer edge of the
wide circle of light thrown by my torch once more revealed
hundreds of pairs of tiny red eyes gazing on me in fear.

A long time seemed to have passed since I left the tea shop, but a
quick glance at my watch showed it was only 10.30 p.m. How long
would I have to wait for the tiger to move, if he moved at all?

I began to get tired of standing in the water. It grew colder and

colder and wreaths of vapour arose from the surface of the pool,
obscuring the jungle around its edges and making it difficult for
the light of my torch to penetrate. At the same time, I realized
that if I got back to the pathway I would be at the mercy of the
man-eater should he decide to ambush me at any spot along the
track. I felt certain he had not gone away but was biding his time
till I came out of the water.

Midnight, and it was biting cold! By now I realized I must not

shine my torch continuously, for the five cells would run down
and under no circumstances could I risk using up the cells of the
other torch, clamped to my rifle, for the accuracy of my shooting
depended on them. So I extinguished the light and was plunged
abruptly into darkness. That was when I noticed that the night
was cloudy, with no stars to be seen.

However, there was no danger so long as I remained in the

water. My hearing would warn me of the approach of any animal.

Very soon, that was what happened. An elephant came, perhaps

the same one I had disturbed earlier. Probably another. I was
standing still and he did not hear or see me. The wind was blowing
from him to me, so he could not scent me. I felt I was safe, for in
any case his sight was too poor to penetrate the mist that had
settled over the whole pool like a thick bank of fog, and he would
not be able to see me.

I heard the loud ‘fooff-foooff-foooff’ as he exhaled air though his

trunk, and then the sucking noises as he drew in water and
splashed it into his mouth and over his body. He drank and he
drank, a seemingly endless number of gallons of water.

At last he decided to have a regular bath and I heard the

tremendous plop-plop-plop of his great feet approaching me as he
waded through the water towards the centre of the pool. This
would never do, I thought. So I shone the torch straight into his
face.
 That night was for me one in which I seemed fated to meet
animals of strange behaviour. According to all the rules of the
game, the elephant should have turned tail and bolted from my
bright light, but he did nothing of the kind. He trumpeted shrilly,
coiled up his trunk, and charged me.

Taken aback, instead of putting the five-cell quickly into its

pouch at the left side of my belt, so as to leave both my hands free
to handle my rifle, I missed the pouch and dropped the torch into
the water. Out it went.

There was no time to retrieve it. The charging elephant was

dangerously close. I brought the .405 to my shoulder while pressing
the button of the smaller torch that was clamped to its barrel with
my left thumb. The beam cut through the darkness as I aimed a
foot above the head of the elephant and fired in an attempt to halt
that charge.

No rogue elephant had been proclaimed by the Forestry

Department and so, as far as possible, I should try to avoid killing
this animal. I had erred by letting him come too close to me and I
should not have shone the torch directly in his face.

As these thoughts rushed through my mind, I awaited the result

of that deterring shot. If he still came on, I would be forced to stop
him with my next bullet or he would kill me. There was no doubt
of that.

Luckily it worked. The great beast braked to a halt by planting

all four feet firmly in the mud. The impetus of the rush brought
him on, skidding ludicrously in the clay till he ended up sitting on
his hindquarters like an elephant at the circus. Encouraged by his
failing nerve, I fired a second time, again over his head. The
elephant turned and bolted.

When the noise and tumult had died away I felt disgusted, but
at the same time relieved. My two shots must have driven away
the man-eater. My chance of success was gone. But now I was safe
also and could at last get out of the water.

Shivering with the cold, I started my walk back to Dimbum. I

knew I had only a short distance to cover, but there was always
the danger that the man-eater, driven from the immediate vicinity
of the pool by the sound of my shots, might still be lurking
somewhere along the pathway and might ambush me.

At last the lights of Satyamangalam, twinkling in the black void

of the plains below me, put an end to my tension. I got into the
Rest House, took off my wet pants and, as I had brought no change
of clothes, went to sleep without them.

A banging on the door awakened me. I had closed all the

windows and it was dark inside, but a glance at my watch
surprised me. It was 9.30 a.m.

I put on my pants again. They were still wet. The banging on

the door was renewed, this time more urgently, and I could hear
the murmur of voices on the verandah.

I opened the front door. Confronting me was Abdulkunni

himself, his three wives and four or five other people, all in a great
state of excitement. Obviously the tea shop had been closed down.
Something very serious must have happened.

‘Come quickly, sahib,’ called the excited Moplah. ‘The tiger has
just carried away the girl we employed to fetch the water.’

Grabbing my rifle and some cartridges, I hastened with the

group to the teashop, while he quickly told the story.

Barely thirty minutes earlier the girl had taken a basket of

cooking utensils to wash at the well behind the tea shop. She had
decided it would be easier that way than carrying a pitcher or
more of water to the building for the purpose. One of the wives
had been watching her from the back door to ensure she did not
linger unduly over the task. The girl, a maiden of about eighteen
years, was bending down, absorbed in her work, when a
movement behind her had caught the eye of the watching woman.
She had glanced in that direction and was horrified to see a tiger,
belly to the ground, sneaking stealthily upon the unsuspecting
servant girl from behind. The woman had screeched a warning.
The girl heard and jumped to her feet. But the tiger drove home his
charge. He had leapt upon his victim and, not waiting to kill her,
had taken the unfortunate girl in his mouth and leaped back into
the cover of the undergrowth. Terrible screams could be heard
long after the tiger and victim had disappeared from sight.

Alarmed by his wife’s yells and hearing distant wailing,

Abdulkunni and the other members of the household had rushed
to the rear door to find out the cause of the disturbance. Then they
had come in a body to the Rest House. The man-eater had taken
another victim at nine in the morning, and exactly where he had
killed only a few hours earlier! This was something unheard of in
the annals of man-eaters.

Telling everyone to remain indoors, I hastened to the well. The

scattered utensils, some washed and the others not, showed that
the girl had been taken by surprise while engrossed in her task,
and a single sliding pug-mark indicated where the tiger had
stopped his rush to seize his victim and had slipped on the wet
earth where the girl had been doing her washing. There were no
other marks on the surrounding earth, trampled flat as it was by
the feet of the many people who came there all day long to draw
water, and baked by the sun’s rays. The ground was far too hard to
carry pug-marks, while the girl had been grabbed so quickly that
there was no blood trail of any kind.

The woman who had witnessed the killing, Abdulkunni’s

second wife, called to me from the doorway, pointing out the
direction in which the man-eater had gone with his victim, and I
followed it. The clearing in which the well stood ended abruptly
in a wall of lantana bushes that fringed the jungle. No tiger,
carrying his prey, would dream of forcing himself through this
tangled obstruction. It would be impossible for any beast. There
must be some other way and I started to look for it. I found it
eventually, a game-path, close to the ground, tunnelling at a
height of not more than four feet through the lower branches of
the lantana. It had been made by wild pigs during the rainy
season, when they visited the clearing to root and dig in the
swamp which would at that season surround the well. In places
the tiger had had to crawl along this tunnel, dragging its victim,
and I followed suit, crouching low and at times on hands and
knees.

Within a few yards I came upon the first evidence of the tragedy.
Some torn shreds of a sari and a quantity of blood on the lantana
leaves that littered the game-trail. Probably the victim had been
struggling to free herself and this was where the tiger had killed
her.

After that there was a regular blood trail, and more shreds of the
sari caught on the lantana. There came a bend in the tunnel and
here the remains of the girl’s clothing had caught on a thorny
bush. The man-eater must have become angry and wrenched his
victim free, for the scraps of a sari and a skirt had been torn from
her body and were hanging on the thorns. With the removal of all
her clothing the blood had fallen directly on the ground and
leaves, making a ghastly red trail through the tunnel.

I could not know how far the tiger had carried his victim.
Probably the screeching and screaming from the tea shop had
made him decide to go to a quieter place before commencing his
meal. At least, I hoped so. For if he was anywhere near and
attacked me from my rear, I was completely at his mercy in this
death-trap of a tunnel.
 This thought caused me to stop frequently to listen. He might
give himself away by growling. Tigers often do that when
followed. Partly in anger, partly as a warning, but more often to
strengthen their own courage. For all their lives have been spent
in pursuing a fleeing prey and it is an unusual and terrifying
experience for any tiger to realize he is the object of pursuit
himself. Not a sound did I hear. Complete silence filled that
twisting tunnel.

At last the lantana began to give way to jungle proper. The

tunnel came to an end and I was able to stand upright. There was
a grassy glade through which the blood trail led before it merged
into a park-like jungle of babul and box-flower shrubs with grass
between. I judged that I had not far to go now before meeting the
tiger, who must have started his meal. That is, provided the man-
eater had not heard me and realized he was being followed. If that
had happened, he might take himself off altogether or lie in wait
for me at some spot close to his kill. He might even creep forward
to intercept me, or ambush me from either side or from the rear.

Then I heard a crow cawing some distance away. I listened

carefully, and there was no mistaking that persistent cawing. The
crow was watching the tiger with his victim and was excitedly
calling reinforcements to be ready to enjoy the feast that was soon
to follow.

Sounds and the distances from which they emanate are difficult
to locate and estimate correctly in the forest. Air currents, the
density of tree growth and the terrain all make difficulties. In flat
country conditions are not quite so bad, but in hilly areas like
this, sounds and distances are often unjudgable.

I reckoned the crow was about sixty to seventy yards away, and
slowly, very stealthily, studying the ground before me so as not to
tread upon a dried twig or stone and so betray myself, I advanced
step by step. I do not know how far I had gone when I heard the
first sounds of the feast. The sharp crack of a bone being broken,
followed by crunching and tearing.

The crow was still cawing excitedly. I reckoned that I was

within thirty yards now, possibly a good deal less. I stopped and
began to think.

The crow offered a greater risk at that moment than the tiger.
For he was sitting on a tree and had the advantage of height. I
knew that if he saw me he would cease cawing at once. He might
even fly away. The man-eater, engrossed in his meal, knew that
the crow was watching him but had ignored the bird and his
cawing as a matter of no consequence. A sudden end to that
cawing and the sudden departure of the crow would tell the tiger
at once that something had alarmed the bird, that some danger to
himself was approaching. For crows fear no other bird and ignore
the presence of wild animals. They fear only the human race.

But I had not yet alarmed the crow. At a snail’s pace, with
infinite caution, I advanced, crouching low, shuffling forward and
halting again, watching the ground in front of me before making
any movement, glancing to right and left and even looking behind
when the tearing and crunching sounds ceased for a moment. For
so long as I could hear those sounds I knew the tiger was in front.
When they ceased I could no longer know where he was. There lay
the greatest danger, for he might creep upon me from behind.
Man-eaters generally snatch their victims that way.

Suddenly an uncanny silence fell over everything. At first I

could not account for it. Then I knew the cause. The crow had
stopped cawing! Undoubtedly something was afoot. Then I saw
the crow, but too late. He had seen me first. With what seemed a
tremendous fluttering, he flew to another tree.

And I was right: the man-eater had become suspicious. He had

started to move. Was he moving away from me or towards me?
Was he trying to escape or attack? As these questions raced
through my mind, with the corner of my eye I saw the crow rise
again. This time he flew out of sight.

I froze in my tracks. But it was too late. The cunning crow flew
back to investigate and perched at almost the same spot as the one
where I saw him first. He turned his head sideways for a better
view of me, cawed and bobbed. Convinced that I was dangerous,
he fluttered his wings and then flew to yet another tree to turn
around and watch me.

I stopped watching the crow and stared at the bushes all around.
And I turned about to watch the bushes behind me. There was a
pricking sensation at the back of my neck. Every cell of my body
warned me that I was in great danger. I knew that the man-eater
was about to pounce.

But I simply could not see him, stare as I might at the

undergrowth all around. The jungle was ominously silent. Not a
twig cracked, not a leaf stirred. The birds and insects were silent,
so too were the bushes and the long grass that grew between the
trees. I looked in vain for the stirring of a branch or a blade of
grass, the bending of a sapling stem that might betray movement
below and the passage of a creeping body.

But there was not a movement anywhere, not a sound. I knew

that the tiger was employing all his skill to make his last rush a
complete surprise.

And then there came to my mind the scene I had witnessed

many years before by moonlight, beside a jungle pool in the heart
of a deep forest far away. A sambar hind was approaching the
water hole cautiously. All was silent. Suddenly, for no reason
whatever, she wheeled noisily and rushed away. The ruse worked
then, for the tiger patiently lying in wait to ambush her a few
yards further on, now lost his head. He thought his prey was about
to escape and he bounded after her. But the hind had too much of
a start and got away to safely.

Now I did the same thing. But I did not turn and run back, for
something warned me that the man-eater was already there. I
stamped noisily and ran forward diagonally, but only for four
paces. Then I stopped.

As on that moonlit night so many years before, the simple ruse

worked again. The man-eater roared and bounded after me from
behind. He took two leaps and then halted in crouching
amazement as this strange man before him, instead of continuing
to run, turned around and fired rapidly.

The tiger knew no more after that, but I know that if I had not
heeded that warning of his very close presence behind me, or if I
had run backwards instead of forwards, I would not be here to tell
this tale.

_____________
* See Man-eaters and Jungle Killers, Chapter 8.
 5

The Killer of the Wynaad

O THE southwest of the city of Mysore lies the heavily forested

T area of the Kakankote jungles, for centuries the home of many
herds of wild elephants that are partial to the kind of jungle that
grows in this district. The rainfall is heavy and the vegetation is
luxurious. Giant bamboos, rank grass and mighty trees grow
together in dense profusion, and a passage through the forest,
except for the elephants and the large and harmless bison, is
almost impossible. Sambar and barking deer are found in the
thinner areas, but as one moves farther southwest and the rainfall
and the denseness of the jungle increase in direct ratio to each
other, the deer become fewer and fewer, leaving the elephants and
bison in almost entire possession of what appears from the narrow
road to be primeval, virgin jungle.

Still further on is the Kabini river, one of the natural boundaries

between Mysore state to the northeast and Kerala state, in the
extreme southwest. In my opinion, the state of Kerala, in the
extreme southwest of the Indian peninsula, offers a scenery second
only in beauty to that of the Himalayas, though very different. It
is a land of dense forests, fertile plantations of tea, coffee,
cinnamon, rubber and tapioca, and emerald-green fields in the
areas bordering the sea; of gently flowing rivers and waterways
without number, along which palm-thatched river boats glide
among coconut palms laden with huge bunches of green nuts, and
a sea coast without parallel, culminating at the southern tip of
the peninsula in the famous beach of Cape Comorin.

The town of Manantoddy, on the Kerala side of the border,

stands on the Western Ghats, the range of mountains that run
down the west coast of India, almost from Bombay to the far
south, at an average elevation of about 4,000 feet above sea level.
This district is known as the North Wynaad, to differentiate it
from the country a few miles further south, which abuts the
Nilgiri Mountain and is known as the South, or Nilgiri, Wynaad.
Both areas are extremely fertile, enjoy a heavy rainfall, and are
the site of many plantations, producing every conceivable crop.

Pleasant as they are in all other respects, these regions abound

in leeches throughout the year, and in the rainy season their
numbers are enormous. Moreover, that curse of the drier jungles,
the tick, thrives in yet greater comfort than it does in the forests of
the interior—both the large crab-tick that gives you tick-fever
when it bites you in sufficient numbers, and the microscopic
jungle, or grass-tick, smaller than a pin’s head, that provokes a
small sore wherever it has sucked your blood. Since it bites you all
over the body, in hundreds of places, you become a very sore
creature indeed, covered with sores that last for many months.
You scratch and scratch yourself, night and day, into a mental
and physical wreck.

Leeches and ticks suck the blood not only of a human being, but
of animals as well. Even the bison suffer, while tigers, panthers
and deer become covered with them, especially ticks, so that they
hang from the softer portions of these animals’ bodies, gorged with
blood, like bunches of small grapes.

For this reason, the jungles of the Wynaad hold few carnivorous
animals or deer. Now and then a stray animal may roam in during
the dry summer months to brave the discomforts, but with the
advent of the rains they move to the higher ranges of the Western
Ghats, or the drier areas of East Kakankote to escape from the
leeches and ticks till the monsoon abates with the approach of
winter.

Thus it came about that, when a traveller journeying from

Kakankote to Manantoddy was taken by a tiger just within a few
hundred yards of the outskirts of the latter, it was regarded as a
quite unusual event. Tigers had been seen in these parts but were
few in number, and no human had been harmed for as long as
anybody could remember. The event was soon forgotten and many
months passed.

Then, across the border in the state of Mysore, preparations

were started for the next kheddah operation, in which many wild
elephants were to be caught. Coolies were engaged in hundreds to
build the mighty wooden stockade into which they would later
drive the elephants before the gate was dropped and the
bewildered beasts captured. Much preliminary work was required;
timber had to be felled, the forest cleared, bamboos gathered and
bound together and then moved to the spot selected for the
stockade. This required not only hard work but experienced
workers. Men from the jungle tribes, the Karumbas and the
Sholagas, provided most of the recruits, for they were experienced
not only in tree-felling and bamboo-binding, but in the ways of
the elephants, in driving them into the stockade, and in roping
and shackling them and taming them afterwards.

That was when the tiger struck, a second and a third time,
before people realized that a man-eater was amongst them.

Two Karumbas vanished within three days of each other and the
half-eaten remains of the first showed he had been devoured by a
tiger. The body of the second Karumba, like that of the traveller to
Manantoddy, was never seen again.

There is another way of getting to Manantoddy from Mysore

city, and that is via Coorg, which was for years an independent
state but has recently joined Mysore. It is a more circuitous route,
but the scenery is even more picturesque. Like the Kakankote
road, this route traverses dense jungle inhabited by elephants and
bison, where tigers are practically unknown for the reasons
already explained.
 The Coorgies are a hardy, lively people. In olden days the British
conferred a special honour upon them unknown elsewhere in
India. Every Coorgie living within the limits of his state was
exempted from possessing an arms licence, no matter how many
weapons he possessed. This privilege is, I believe, still maintained
by the Indian government. It was a laudable gesture but it had one
bad result. The Coorgies never abused their privilege by using
their weapons against each other or against other people, but they
exercised it against the fauna of their beautiful little state to such
an extent that the deer have been practically exterminated.

I know a large number of Coorgie families, most of whom are

coffee planters, owning wide estates where the coffee berry
flourishes to perfection, with oranges as a profitable secondary
crop, and I happened to be a guest of one of these families when
news of the man-eater trickled through.

The estate where I was staying was situated about midway

between the towns of Sidapur and Virajpet, and at a considerable
distance from both Manantoddy and Kakankote, where all three
killings had occurred. Further, I had not brought my rifle with me
from Bangalore, as I knew there was no shooting, at least of the
kind in which I was interested, to be had in Coorg. So, when my
friend gave me the news one morning over his breakfast table, I
listened to it dispassionately, wondering like him as to how a
man-eating tiger had found its way into an area so unpropitious,
where ordinary tigers and panthers are almost unknown. But my
friend waxed enthusiastic and suggested we go after it.

I told him I did not think much of the idea. In my opinion, the
animal was not a confirmed man-eater, but was probably a sick or
wounded tiger, or perhaps one that had escaped from one of the
many miniature circuses that are always touring the country, and
had strayed there because of the heavy jungles. I felt that it would
either die of its sickness or wounds, or would soon leave these
unfavourable haunts and move into normal tiger country, where
it could find an abundance of its natural food, when it would stop
man-hunting of its own accord. Besides, as I reminded him, I had
not brought my rifle.

Timayya, for that was my host’s name, offered to bet that I was
wrong. The tiger would remain where he was, he affirmed. As for
a rifle! He had five, from which I could make my choice.

I reminded my friend that to do so would be illegal. His weapons

were unlicensed. It was a part of the stipulation that he, as a
Coorgie, was forbidden to lend his unlicensed weapons to a non-
Coorgie. And in any case, it was against the rules for anybody,
even a licence-holder like myself, to borrow another man’s
weapon.

Timayya laughed at me, and said, ‘What rot!’ Then,

banteringly, he bet me ten rupees that the tiger would kill again
before the week was out. Rather huffed at his words, I took him
on.

Timayya won that bet; for on the third day we heard that the
tiger had killed again. This time the victim was a woman. She had
been washing clothes on the further bank of the Kabini river, just
within the limits of Kerala state. And Timayya’s free arms permit
was not valid in Kerala state.

My friend had set his heart on going after this tiger. I suppose to
him, being something unusual, it became a must, and he stated
flatly that I was included in the party.

Frankly, I was not keen; but to continue to refuse would have

strained our relations. I had known Timayya for a long time, in
fact we had been at school together, and stubbornness had always
been his failing and his virtue! The estate, when he had bought it
cheaply, was considered by the neighbours to be a complete ‘write
off.’ The soil was said to be no good, the variety of coffee that
grew there was no good, the shade trees were no good, and so
forth! But Timayya was determined to buy. He bought; he worked
hard; and he made good.

So I gave in on one condition. I would go back to Bangalore for

my .405 and bring along my .450/400 as a spare rifle. He would
accompany me. Then we would return to Mysore city from where
we would motor directly to Kakankote and the Kerala border. I
stressed that I would much rather incur the expense of the
additional 240 miles of motoring than be mixed up in arms licence
disputes with the police of two states.

Timayya concurred, left his weapons behind and came with me

to Bangalore the same night. We spent the next day in buying
provisions for a fifteen-day camp in the jungles of the border
where we knew no foodstuff, acceptable to our civilized palates,
would be available. Timayya bought a jar of some patent cream
and a huge tin of D.D.T. as protection against the leeches and
ticks. We carried mosquito nets too, along with my small tent, a
portable charpoy machan, batteries and torches, and my two
rifles. Timayya said he did not want to shoot but would rather
watch the fun. Knowing him as I did, I realized this was not
strictly true.

We arrived at Kakankote on the afternoon of the second day and

then drove to the kheddah site to try to pick up what information
we could about the tiger. As I anticipated, there was little to
learn. So many coolies were about, working on the project, that
no one appeared to know exactly when and where the tiger had
taken his two victims. But rumour and universal fear were rife.
The men had just vanished and their absence had not been noticed
for two days or so. Even then it was only by mere chance that,
being attracted by the stench of putrefying flesh, some travellers
had gone to investigate and found some scanty remains.

Many people had theories to account for the presence of a man-

eater in that zone, but not one of them had seen the animal. What
they had to say boiled down to the belief that an evil spirit was
operating in the forest in the guise of a tiger. This instilled an even
greater fear into the coolies, so much so that we knew if another
of them was killed, the kheddah operation would come to a stop.
Such a happening, or even a postponement in the date, would be
in the nature of a calamity to the local government, which had
invited certain V.I.P.s from abroad as guests at the trapping.

Next morning, we motored the short distance to the Kerala

border and came to the hamlet on the further bank of the Kabini
river from which the latest victim—the woman who had been
washing clothes—had been taken. Once more, nobody had seen
the tiger. Only its pug-marks on the river bank, the trail of
something that had been dragged away, and a few drops of blood
on the leaves and earth had revealed a man-eater’s visit.

We went on to Manantoddy and made inquiries at that small

town regarding the first victim, the traveller who had been
coming from Kakankote. Here again nobody knew anything. A
forest guard, returning to his quarters near the Forest Range
Office, had come across an odd sandal by the roadside. As it was
good sandal, and people do not usually throw their footwear
away, he stopped to look at it. That was when he noticed the
other sandal lying on the sloping bank of a stream that ran
parallel to the road. He walked down to see that too, and found a
turban entangled in the bracken that grew by the waterside. Then
he looked at the ground and saw the pug-marks of a tiger in the
mud. They were deeply embedded in the ooze, indicating that the
animal had been carrying additional weight, while a few carmine
splashes on the fern leaves revealed the truth.

Blood! The tiger had been carrying away the wearer of the
sandals and the turban.

We interviewed this guard and heard the story from his own lips.
And that brought us to the end of the trail. There was nothing
more we could learn, and we did not know where to make a start.
Timayya confessed that he was sorry he had urged me to start
upon this wild-goose chase.

Manantoddy is a beautiful place and we spent the night at the

inspection bungalow which was fortunately vacant. Unlike most
of the bungalows in other states, it is fully furnished with
comfortable beds and foam mattresses, has neon lights and electric
fans, and stands on a hillside opposite the ruins of an old British
dwelling house that had its own private cemetery.

This is the land of fireflies. They come out after dark in their
thousands, and the twinkling of their little lights are a fitting
background to the chorus of the hundreds of small frogs, known as
the ‘Wynaad’ or ‘tok-tok’ frog, and the hauntingly-sweet, never-
to-forgotten aroma of sprays of the ‘Rath-ki-Rani,’ the ‘Queen of
the Night’ blooms that open only after dark. We lay in armchairs,
smoking tranquilly as we listened to the endless ‘tok-tok-tok-tok-
tok’ of the frogs. Now and again a firefly would find its way into
the room through the open window, its little light eclipsed by the
brilliance of the neon tube that lit the room.

The next morning we made a leisurely start, our intention being

to motor by the direct route to Virajpet in Coorg state, and thence
to Timayya’s plantation, where I would drop him, stay a day
myself, and then go on to Mysore city and back to Bangalore.

We had travelled over ten miles from Manantoddy and were

negotiating a stretch of dense forest; mostly of bamboo, on the
Kerala bank of the Kabini river, when we saw a party of men
approaching us, carrying a litter. And this is where my story really
begins, for on the litter was a man, his tattered clothing soaked
with his blood.

The bearers told us they were bamboo cutters and had been
working on contract by the riverside, just over a mile away, when
shortly after dawn that morning and without warning, a tiger had
suddenly charged upon two of them, in full view of the others, and
struck down one, whom it had grabbed by the shoulder and begun
to drag away.

But the two men were brothers, and the one the tiger had
ignored was very brave. He had run after the beast with the large
curved knife he had been using to cut bamboos.

Seeing he was pursued, the man-eater had started to gallop

away, still carrying his victim. The pursuer, realizing he had no
hope of catching up with the tiger to save his brother, had then
hurled his knife at the departing animal in sheer desperation. Luck
favoured him, for the heavy weapon struck the carnivore in its
flank. Either in pain, or from fright, the man-eater dropped his
victim and bounded into the bamboos.

The hero of this episode, who was one of the men carrying the
litter, had then assembled the scattered bamboo cutters and
mobilized them into a team to help carry his sorely stricken
brother to the nearest hospital, which was at Manantoddy.

There was no time to be lost and we acted quickly. Bundling the

mauled man, with two others to help him, into the Studebaker, I
told Timayya to turn around and drive them as fast as he could to
the hospital, where he could leave the wounded man. He would
then drive back to the bamboo cutters’ camp, directed by the two
men who were with him, while I went ahead on foot with the rest
to see if we could find the tiger.

While Timayya was still turning the car I started at a jog-trot for
the camp, the brave brother, whose name I learned was Yega,
running beside me while the rest of the party followed behind.
There was not a minute to be lost. In all probability the man-eater
was miles away by this time, but there was just the slimmest of
chances that he might still be lingering in the vicinity.
 We reached the encampment in good time, but did not stop till
we came to the place where the tiger had dropped his victim.
There was a rank undergrowth of weeds covering the ground that
showed no pug-marks, but on the bright green leaves were splashes
of red—fresh blood that had not yet had time to dry. Whether the
blood came from Yega’s brother, who had been dropped here, or
from a wound made by the knife in the man-eater’s flank, we
could not at that moment tell.

At this spot I halted the men who had followed and whispered
to them to return to their camp. Yega and I would see this thing
through together. The presence of many people would frighten the
man-eater away, if it happened to be still nearby.

The bent heads of the undergrowth showed the direction in

which the man-eater had run after dropping his victim, and I
followed Yega, alert for a surprise attack at any moment and from
any direction, particularly our rear. He tiptoed in front with bent
head, examining the foliage and such glimpses of the dark ‘black
cotton-soil’ type of earth as he could see between the green stems
of the crowded plants.

Yega was looking for his knife. We wanted to make sure if his
heavy weapon had actually hurt the tiger or not. If it had really
done so, we might expect the animal to act quite differently from
what he would have done if the blow from the knife had been a
glancing one. Most likely, if injured, the tiger would roar and
charge us from a fair distance; but if uninjured the man-eater
would either attack only when we came fairly close to him, or
slink away.

My part of the business now was to watch the jungle more

carefully than ever before, ahead on both sides, and also behind,
to protect us against a surprise attack. I could not help Yega in his
search.
 Then we found the knife. Its edge was clean, with no trace of
blood. The tiger had not been hurt and the blood we had passed
had come from the wounded man.

We crept forward for some distance and stopped. Then Yega

shook his head slowly from side to side. The man-eater had
stopped running.

We followed for another furlong, when the trail of our quarry

petered out. Here the animal had crossed an area of lemon-grass,
which is a scented variety with leaves that are largely used for
distilling an essential oil. This grass has long, hard tough stems
which had bent with the man-eater’s passing and then regained
their position, so that no trace now remained of the direction in
which he had gone. The earth between the large clumps of this
lemon grass was a matted carpet of decaying stems and seedlings,
showing not the faintest trace of a pug-mark.

Quickening our pace, we cut directly across the lemon grass

area, which extended for perhaps a quarter of a mile, to where the
jungle began again. But the tiger’s trail could not be found again
and we were forced to conclude that we had lost him.

Apart from his courage, perseverance was another quality in

which this little bamboo cutter was strong. He refused to admit
defeat and urged in a whisper that we should go on and on till we
eventually found the tiger. Stimulated by his keenness, I entered
into the spirit of the chase and we pressed forward for many miles
and most of the remaining hours of that day. We passed two herds
of bison and a family of wild elephants and it was past 3 p.m.,
before we finally turned back for the bamboo cutters’ camp. This
we reached after dark, at 7.30 p.m. I was covered with leech bites
and with ticks, and I was unutterably tired, although glad that we
had at last come to grips with the man-eater and had such a stout
henchman as Yega to assist.
 Timayya had returned in the car many hours earlier and was
eagerly awaiting our news. Unfortunately, I had none to give him.

We decided to return to the inspection bungalow at

Manantoddy, which was only eleven miles away, for the night
and to the bamboo cutters’ camp the next morning. The prospect
of spending the night with them, lying on the ground, with the
mosquitoes and what not, was too terrible to contemplate.

That was where I made a big mistake. For when we did arrive
the next morning we found the little camp in terrible confusion
and all the bamboo cutters huddled together in a single hut. They
swarmed out, led by Yega, to report that the man-eater had
returned in the dead of the night. He had crept up and snatched
one of them from beneath the walls of a hut!

Now you may wonder how a tiger could do that, but the
explanation is simple. The huts which the bamboo cutters had
constructed were but temporary shelters in the jungle which they
would leave as soon as their work was done. They were built of
split bamboos and leaves, and the sides of the structures were
never allowed to touch the ground. For if they did, the termites—
or white ants, as they are better known—would creep up into the
walls in a matter of hours and the whole hut would be destroyed
in no time. So a gap was left right round the hut, the ends of such
bamboos as had necessarily to be embedded in the ground being
first defended by a coating of tar.

The man-eater must indeed have been starving. Perhaps being

deprived of his victim the previous day had whetted his appetite.
He had returned in the early hours of the morning and,
emboldened by the silence that reigned over the slumbering camp,
had wandered up to the four huts. There, through the gap below
the wall of one of them, he had seen the form of a sleeping man.
The rest was easy to the hungry, daring beast. He had crept up to
the hut and stretched his paw under the gap, fastening his claws
into the sleeping man. The man had screamed for help, but no one
had had the presence of mind to do anything and the man-eater
had dragged his victim out of the hut, tearing down the lower
portion of one of the walls in the process.

Unfortunately for the victim, Yega the one person who might
have given help, was not in that hut but in the one furthest away,
enabling the tiger to make a clean getaway. The bamboo cutters
related in horror that they had had to listen to the poor man’s
screams for a very long time after the tiger dragged him out of the
hut. Strangely, it had not killed him while he yelled and
screamed, as man-eaters generally do when their victims make a
noise. This animal had carried him away screaming and his
comrades had heard his cries grow fainter and fainter as his captor
bore him away.

Yega offered to accompany me at once, but the other coolies

were utterly demoralized. They remained huddled in a group,
calling to God to help them while they rained invectives upon the
tiger. There were nine of them, excluding Yega. So I asked
Timayya to squeeze them into the Studebaker, even if it came to
letting a couple stand on the footboard, and to take them back to
Manantoddy and safety without delay. He was then to return to
the camp site and wait for me, but while doing so was not to leave
the car on any account. In any case, he had my .405/400. with
him, so there was no danger of his being unable to protect himself.

Yega and I then took up the trail of the man-eater.

The ground was soft outside the huts and had been cleared of
the usual weeds in an effort to keep away the ticks and the
leeches. This helped us to find the tiger’s footprints, both as he had
approached the hut and when he had left, carrying his victim with
him. Whatever part of the poor man’s anatomy had been grasped
by the tiger was clearly not a vital region, for the victim had
struggled and kicked the ground, as tell-tale marks revealed. At
one place he had grasped the stem of a sapling and must have held
on tenaciously. The tiger had literally torn him free, as could be
seen by the particles of skin from the palms of the man’s hands
that still adhered to the stem and the markedly increased quantity
of blood on the ground and leaves at that spot. No doubt this had
resulted from an enlargement of the wound as the tiger dragged his
victim free.

Now we were able to follow the trail with ease. The poor man
had bled terribly and splashes of blood on the weeds, grass and
leaves marked the way the tiger had passed. A queer sensation of
nausea came over me as I pictured that horrible scene at dead of
night in the blackness of the jungle, and the victim’s realization
that he was to be devoured, that nothing and no one could save
him, and that he would never see his wife and children again.

At last we reached the spot where the tiger must have felt he
had had enough of his victim’s cries and struggles. Here he had
laid the man on the ground and, releasing his grip, had bitten him
again and again till his wails had been stilled for ever.

All this was written in the marks on the ground and the pool of
blood that had streamed from those last fierce and fatal bites.
After that the man-eater had continued his journey.

We followed for another furlong, and here at last the tiger had
decided to begin his meal. He had left the narrow trail and turned
into a small hollow in the ground, sheltered by grass, bushes and
bracken, where he had set about devouring the unfortunate
bamboo cutter. As we had surmised, the beast must have been
hungry, for little remained of the man beyond the usual parts: the
head, hands and feet, and a small portion of his chest, with rib
bones bereft of flesh. The entrails had been torn out and dragged
aside. The meat had been removed from the victim’s pelvis,
exposing the bone, and the thighs had also been devoured, here
again leaving the bare bones in evidence of the great feast.
 Far less than a quarter of the poor man remained, but this was
enough to make the tiger return that night for a second meal,
provided we played our cards cunningly enough and did not
arouse his suspicions.

Yega and I looked around and at this point we encountered our

first setback. There was no tree within at least eighty yards, a
range far too great, as I well knew from past experience, to risk a
shot by torchlight at night.

To the uninitiated this may seem an exaggeration. Eighty yards

in daylight might appear a mere stone’s throw. But those who
have sat on machans in a jungle at night will know what I mean.
Bushes, leaves, blades of grass and rocks all cause obstructions at
this distance, and to attempt to cut them away, to ensure a better
view when the tiger returned, might arouse his suspicions and
prevent him from returning at all. Remember, I could not risk
wounding him. I had to shoot to kill.

Tigers and panthers, and man-eaters especially, are very

cautious when they come back to their kills. They reconnoitre the
approaches to the spot for a long time before they show
themselves, and if they feel or sense anything suspicious, if they
find any cut branches scattered about, any removal of bushes or
undergrowth or rocks, or any addition of leaves or branches that
may conceal a hidden enemy, they will give the spot a wide berth
and never return. Although he lacks a sense of smell, the tiger
makes up for this handicap with an uncanny caution and an
ability almost to read the hunter’s mind and anticipate his every
action.

As if to compensate for the distance of the nearest tree from the

remains of the woodsman, a dense patch of tiger-grass bordered
the bank of the small depression into which the tiger had taken
him before beginning his meal, and this patch was barely fifteen
feet away.
 If I could hide in that grass without the man-eater becoming
aware of my presence he would offer a point-blank target. The
moon would rise early, and conditions would be in my favour,
always provided the tiger did not become aware of my presence.
Would this be possible? For if he did find out, the situation could
turn into a most unpleasant one for me.

As I well knew, all tigers and especially man-eaters, which

appear to be endowed with a fiendish cunningness, exceeding
even the natural caution of their kind, have a habit of taking
advantage of every vestige of natural cover when returning to the
remains of their victims for a second meal. The clump of tiger
grass in which I contemplated concealing myself lay in the direct
path of the man-eater’s return and so close to his victim that it
was more than likely, if not certain, that he would make use of it
to conceal his own approach. And however silent I might be, I
knew well enough how silent would be his own coming. Should
the man-eater discover me before I discovered him, the bamboo
cutter’s bones would have those of another to keep them company
before many hours had passed. It was a gamble, with a heavy
stake, that I would have to take.

In order not to disturb the grass by unnecessary trampling, I

walked around it while considering the problem in all its aspects.
If I hid in that grass, I would have to keep a careful watch in two
opposite directions: over the victim’s remains and also in the
direction by which the man-eater might be expected to make his
approach, which would almost certainly be through this patch of
grass. This I could not do; I would have at least to turn my head
from side to side, even though I kept my body still. That would
mean movement, and movement of any sort would be fatal.

One of two things would happen if the tiger became aware of

me: he might take fright and disappear, or he would deliberately
stalk and leap upon me before I even suspected his presence.
Frankly, I funked that terrible alternative.
 At this point, Yega came up with a brilliant idea. He and I
would sit back to back in the grass, one of us watching the
bamboo cutter’s remains while the other listened for the rustle
that would herald the man-eater’s entrance into that same clump
of grass, by which time he would not be more than five or six feet
away.

What transpired next would have a lot to do with whether I

happened to be the one who was watching the victim’s remains or
the tiger’s approach through the grass. If I were watching the
remains and Yega the grass, he would have to warn me with a
nudge, and I would have to turn around in a second to be in time
to shoot. And I would have to shoot accurately. But if I chose to
watch the approach through the grass and left Yega to watch over
the kill, and the man-eater crept up to the latter from some other
direction, I would have to react similarly, except that the
situation would not be nearly so dangerous. At least, the tiger
would be more than a mere five or six feet away and I should have
a better chance to shoot.

I hated to risk Yega’s life. And I hated to risk my own. But this
was our only chance and I nodded assent.

Strangely enough, in the Wynaad Forest area vultures are not

nearly so numerous as in drier jungles of south India.
Nevertheless, we took no chances of them discovering the remains
and finishing what little flesh remained on the bones. So Yega cut
a few small branches from the tree that grew eighty yards away,
and these we placed over the bones and entrails of the man to hide
them from any chance vulture hovering in the sky above. Then we
returned to the deserted encampment.

It took another fifteen minutes for Timayya to come back in the

car from Manantoddy. I told him of our discovery and our plan of
action. Then occurred one of those awkward situations that
sometimes appear between friends. Timayya stated bluntly that
he would sit with me in Yega’s stead, armed with my spare rifle,
but I was not happy about his decision. I did not wish to risk my
friend’s life for one thing.

Secondly, quite frankly and I suppose selfishly, considering my

own life was also at stake, I doubted his ability to keep watch for
the tiger as efficiently as Yega would, with his lifetime of jungle
experience. As tactfully as possible I put these points to my friend.
Timmy became angry—and rude, too.

‘Damn it, I’m a planter,’ he said, ‘not a bloody town-dweller

like you. What the hell do you think? If you don’t feel like sitting
with me, at least lend me the 405/400 and … off back to
Manantoddy yourself. I’ll do the rest.’

There was a very nasty look in his eye.

I shrugged. ‘Okay Timmy, you win,’ I said. ‘We’ll sit together.’

The nasty look faded and a gleam of pleasure and excitement

took its place.

When Yega heard the change of plan he was crestfallen. Now it

was his turn to look at me reproachfully. I avoided his glance and
studied one of the Studebaker’s tyres closely.

We returned to Manantoddy for lunch, bringing Yega with us,

after which we put in a couple of hours sleep to fortify us for the
long, sleepless night vigil ahead. At three o’clock we were ready.
Timmy suggested we take tea and sandwiches along with us, to
which I assented after reminding him that these refreshments
could only be enjoyed the following morning. No sound or
movements of the slightest kind could we risk while we awaited
the man-eater’s return.

We left Yega at Manantoddy, as it would be dangerous for him

to accompany us to the spot where we were going to sit and then
return alone. Besides, we did not require his services in any way.
By half-past three we had reached the woodcutter’s deserted
encampment. Here we parked the Studebaker close to the huts and
before four we were at the patch of tiger-grass.

I removed the small branches with which Yega and I had earlier
covered the scattered remains of the bamboo cutter to protect
them from vultures, carrying them to a spot quite a distance away.
It was a hot and sunny afternoon and what remained of the
woodcutter, little enough though it was, had begun to smell,
especially the entrails, which the man-eater had dragged to one
side. But we dared not remove them for fear of arousing the tiger’s
suspicions when he returned.

I had already made it a condition with Timmy that I would face

the side from which the tiger might be expected to approach
through the grass, while he would face in the opposite direction
towards the woodcutter’s remains. Fortunately, he had not been
difficult about this and had acquiesced readily enough. We had
brought two of the foam-rubber cushions from the Rest House to
sit upon. They would not only provide comfort, but would deaden
any sound we might make in movement. Placing these on the
ground, we squatted on them back to back and facing in the
directions already described. I crossed my legs and settled down to
sit in silence, having trained myself to this position after many
years of similar experience in the jungle. Timmy whispered that
he could not make himself comfortable that way and stretched
both his legs out before him. Straightaway a disquieting thought
entered my mind: for how long would Timmy be able to sit thus
without moving? To me it appeared physically impossible, and I
knew he would become fidgety before sundown.

Jungle life in the forests of the Wynaad and the Western Ghats is
rather different from that of the drier areas. Animals and reptiles
are fewer in number, but bird and insect life is prolific. We quickly
became aware of this, for within a few minutes of our arrival and
things quietening down, we heard the twittering calls of birds
from all directions, accompanied by the chirping of crickets. The
cicada of these regions is different from those of the plains: the
latter, to which I was accustomed, emits a shrill and continuous
high note, but the hill variety, which abounded here, emits a
rasping note of fluctuating volume. It almost dies away and then
rises to a cadence that jars the nerves, before fading away, only to
rise again.

As evening fell, distant junglecocks and spurfowl began to vie

with one another in their usual preroosting chorus, to the
accompaniment of an occasional, plaintive, brassy cry from a
peacock, feeding amidst the fallen seeds of the giant bamboo that
grew so prolifically, or grubbing for caterpillars by scratching up
the thick carpet of decaying leaves and mould. Around us, from
the grass itself came the very faint and indefinable sounds of
insects of all kinds on the move: grasshoppers, beetles of countless
varieties, and a host of other creatures. A green and slender
mantis, that must have been at least eight inches long, appeared
just before me, camouflaged so marvellously that I would not have
noticed him had he not climbed upon my knee. His body was frail
and indefinably delicate, for all the world like a sliver of bamboo
and not more than a sixteenth of an inch in thickness, while his
wings, of a transparent tissue and veined like leaves, folded across
his back to resemble a green sepal of no consequence whatever. So
wonderful and impartial is nature’s camouflage, that both those
that prey upon others by habit, and those that seek to escape from
being preyed upon, are equally disguised from one another. This
inoffensive-looking mantis, that resembled so closely a slender
twig with two green leaves attached, was quite as carnivorous and
fierce in its own insect world as the man-eating tiger, whose
return we were awaiting, was to the frightened jungle-dwellers.

Darkness came swiftly with the almost instant hushing of the

bird-calls. The rustle of activity from the hidden insects in the
grass around us increased apace. We felt their movements on all
sides, and even upon our bodies. They climbed all over us and got
inside our clothing, setting up such an itching that all our self-
control was needed to prevent us from moving and scratching
ourselves to secure an instant’s relief.

I missed my old friends of the jungles of the plains, the nightjars,

and thought of them for a few moments. They would be active at
this period of twilight, flitting around in their silent, ghost-like
fashion, in search of their evening meal, stragglers among the
insects of the day that were going to bed late, and early-comers
among the insects of the night in search of food.

This diverted my thoughts to the primal instincts of life, the

search for food and the urge to procreate that are the two issues
that govern all the dwellers of the jungle; to man and his
civilization, and the search for wealth, which brings food and
power, pleasures and a means of satisfying ourselves in practically
any way we desire; and to much similar musing, one idea leading
to another. But eventually I pulled myself up with quite a start,
discovering that it was now pitch-dark and I had forgotten all
about the man-eater and how close to me he might be.

The stench that came to us from the human fragments that had
been exposed to the hot sun all day was now quite awful. Myriads
of bluebottle flies had settled on them for the night.

The humble bluebottle fly is regarded everywhere as an

obnoxious insect, associated only with filth and dirt and carrion.
Nevertheless, he can be a great and secret friend to the hunter
who watches by night; for the flies in their thousands, when they
cover a carcase at night, are alert though resting. Any creature
approaching near enough, even if it does not touch the carcase,
makes its presence felt to the watchful, restless flies, who rustle in
unison. And that rustling can be clearly heard by the watcher in
the darkness, provided he is not too far away, is alert enough, has
reasonably good hearing, and above all recognizes its significance.
The bluebottles were silent now and I was satisfied that neither
the tiger, nor anything else for that matter, was anywhere near the
carcase.

My friend’s back rested against mine tautly, uncomfortably,

radiating heat though my sweater. I could sense his nervousness as
he strained his eyes into the darkness. This is the most dangerous
period for the hunter who risks his life sitting on the ground for a
man-eater : the brief fifteen to thirty minutes from twilight till the
light of the stars makes itself felt, be it ever so little.

Our greatest danger lay in the direction in which I was facing,

the opposite end of the grassy clump in the midst of which we
were hiding. If the man-eater approached from there, his keen
eyesight, even in that darkness, would enable him to discover our
presence while he was yet some distance away. He would not
bother to come any closer then. What he would do would depend
upon his individual character; he might launch himself from
fifteen feet away and be upon us in the fraction of a second, or, if
he were a coward, as many man-eaters are, he would just slink
noiselessly away.

Then I remembered with considerable trepidation that this tiger

could not possibly be called a coward. Barely a few hours ago he
had sneaked up to a hut filled with people and dragged a human
being away. With tensed nerves and strained ears, I listened for the
faintest creak or rustle of grass that might betray the arrival of the
man-eater from in front, while hearkening for the buzz of
disturbed bluebottles that might herald his advent from behind.
There was nothing but complete silence. The immediate danger
passed as three things happened almost together. My eyes
accustomed themselves to the gloom and I could begin to identify
objects around me. The stars came out in their multitude and
their gleam seemed to bring back the moments of half-light that
had so recently gone. And above all, the fireflies of the Wynaad
began their nightly display of living fireworks that would
continue till the early hours of the morning, when the mist and
the dew would chill the tiny lamp-bearers and force them to seek
the shelter of the foliage.

There must have been thousands upon thousands of these little

creatures within a few yards of us, winging their way hither and
thither in restless flight. The glow of their combined light
produced a radiation that dispelled the darkness like a flashlight,
then broke again into myriads of individual lights that sparkled
through the darkness.

No sounds broke the stillness. The forest seemed strangely

devoid of animal life. No friendly calls of sambar or spotted deer
could we hear. No cries of the usual birds of the night. There came
to us only the undefinable faint movements of the insects in the
grass around us. And to the torment caused by the insect
marauders on our bodies, the mosquitoes now began to add their
torture. They had not worried us unduly until now, perhaps
because they had not discovered our presence; but having done so
they apparently decided to make the most of their discovery. I did
not dare to betray our presence to the tiger which, at that very
instant perhaps, might be approaching us. Faintly I could hear
Timmy behind me, trying to blow the mosquitoes away.

It was at this instant that there came clearly to my hearing the

faint rustling buzz of angry, disturbed bluebottles flies. Something
was near the remains of the woodsman. Timmy had heard it too,
for I felt him tauten against my back, while he ceased blowing at
the mosquitoes. His elbows dug into me in the prearranged signal
and remained there as he gripped the 450/400 in his lap.

The flies buzzed again as they rose nervously a few inches above
the bones and entrails on which they had been resting. They
hummed a while, they resettled themselves and the buzzing
stopped. The intruder, whatever it was, had not yet reached the
kill or the flies would never have resettled. It was approaching.
 Something made the faintest sound from beyond the remains
and there came the distant thud of a stone being turned over.
Undoubtedly the man-eater had arrived. He was reconnoitring
and would presently approach the remains of his feast.

Or was he creeping upon us?

Casting caution to the winds I whisked around, bringing the

Winchester to my shoulder and pressing the torch-button, fitted to
the barrel, with my left thumb, almost in one movement. The
bright beam cut a swathe of light through the blackness and was
reflected by two baleful eyes. But they were rather more reddish-
white in colour than a brilliant whitish-red. And they were set
rather too closely together.

Sitting on his haunches like a dog, the torchlight caught the

panther in the act of licking his lips. We could see the red of his
tongue sweep across the slightly opened mouth.

Could the man-eater be a panther after all? I dismissed the

thought as soon as it crossed my mind, for I had seen the man-
eater’s pug-marks on the trail we had followed. They had certainly
been those of a tiger. Besides, he had been seen by Yega and some
of the other woodcutters. This panther was merely there by
chance. In passing by, he had stumbled on the kill. He was sitting
there in doubt, wondering how it had all come about and if he
could take a chance.

At that moment the panther became aware of the torch-beam

that was shining straight into his eyes.

He stood up, snarled, turned and walked away. Disgust was

written in his every movement. Clearly he did not wish to involve
himself in such a compromising situation. I extinguished the torch
as quickly as possible. Was the man-eater nearby? If so, he would
certainly have seen my light. That might cause him to run away.
Or, having come to know of our presence and whereabouts, he
might at that very moment be creeping upon us. But the attitude
of the panther soon dispelled this disquietening thought. He
seemed absolutely unconcerned. He would hardly be so indifferent
if his hereditary and implacable foe, a tiger, were in the vicinity.

The bluebottles settled down and so did we, to a long and

uneventful vigil, while the fireflies kept us company to lend
enchantment to an otherwise macabre scene. It became cold, and
then colder. The insects in the grass around us stopped their
restless movements. Perhaps they were feeling the cold too. The
mosquitoes grew less active as well and the fireflies began to
disappear.

The tiger should have returned long ago. He should have put in
an appearance even before the panther. It seemed as if the man-
eater did not intend to come back.

Time dragged on. I began to feel sleepy and perhaps I grew a bit
careless too. For, although I heard the sound once or twice, it did
not register straight away. Then, all of a sudden, I was wide awake
and alert.

Something had approached the grass in which we were hiding.

Not directly from in front but a little to my left. There had been a
faint rustle and then a definite footfall as something heavy had
placed its weight upon the grass. There had followed a faint but
distinct creaking and cracking of stems.

And that thing, whatever it was, had now stopped.

Had the man-eater discovered our presence, as he must most

surely have done? Was he crouching for a final spring? The answer
came the very next second when the tiger snarled. He was not
more than ten feet away.

I pressed the button of the torch.

 The beam lit up a wild scene of violently swaying grass stems. I
had a glimpse of something brown that catapulted itself
backwards and was gone. Then came a shattering roar from the
jungle.

I switched off the torch as the man-eater began to demonstrate

by emitting roar after roar. He was very angry; but he was also
frightened. I had switched on the torch a fraction too soon. He
would otherwise have come on. Perhaps I had done the right thing
after all. I might have been too late to stop his charge, once it had
been launched.

Timayya had whisked around and, like me, was facing in the
direction from which the tiger was now roaring. The beast began
to circle us, snarling and roaring horribly as he did so. It was a war
of nerves. Either he was trying to work up enough courage to drive
home a charge, or he was trying to scare us away. I felt he was
following the second plan.

We waited awhile, hoping he would decide to attack; but this he

failed to do. The roars now sank to a series of growls, but they
came from different directions as the tiger circled. It seemed he
was trying to find out how many human beings were hidden in
that grass. Was there only one, whom he could easily overwhelm,
or were there many?

This went on for another fifteen minutes. But nothing

happened. The tiger would not attack, nor did he go away. It was
a game of nerves and I am afraid the tiger won.

I decided to draw him out by precipitating an attack. I

whispered to Timayya to remain where he was, while I got up and
started to walk back towards the encampment, which was only a
short distance away. The tiger would probably come after me. On
the other hand, he might decide that it would be a better
proposition to let the hated man-with-the-light depart while he
went back for what was left of the kill. This would give Timmy
the chance of a shot.

My friend protested vigorously, whispering ‘Don’t be a fool!’

But, with restraining hand on his shoulder, I got slowly to my

feet, stood there a few seconds to restore my circulation, and then
started walking deliberately towards the woodcutter’s deserted
huts, taking care to make the expected amount of sound a man
might make in covering such ground.

The effect on the man-eater was instantaneous. He began to

roar again; and then he came after me. You must bear in mind
that, except for the starlight, it was quite dark. Purposely, I had
kept the torch extinguished so as not to frighten the tiger, but the
situation had turned into a most unpleasant one.

I had covered about twenty-five yards when the man-eater

screwed up enough courage to charge. I remember thinking to
myself that it was fortunate he had chosen to be so noisy about it,
rather than make a silent and stealthy rush, when I would not
have known from which direction he was coming.

There came the all-too-familiar ‘Wroof! Wroof! Wroof! as he

launched his attack. I whirled around with the rifle to my
shoulder, once again pressing the button of the torch with my left
thumb. The bright beam of light cut through the darkness to shine
upon the angry eyes of the enraged man-eater, coming towards me
in an up-and-down motion as he charged.

It was difficult to hold the eyes in my sights as they moved, and

while this thought flashed through my mind, something quite
unexpected happened. I was blinded by another blaze of light that
obscured the tiger, and indeed everything else from sight, as it
shone fully into my eyes! Timayya had switched on his torch and
was shinning it directly in my face.
 Instinctively, I raised my forearm to cover my eyes and jumped
backwards to try to get out of the glare.

The next instant everything was plunged into inky darkness. My

finger went off the button and my own torch went out while the
beam of light from my friend’s torch turned away from me.

It cut through the darkness and on to the tiger, which was

crouched on the ground hardly four feet away from me in a
ludicrous pose. He looked rather foolish with his head bent low,
almost to ground level, front paws outstretched, with his rear up
in the air behind him, his curving tail upheld and stiff, brought to
a halt by Timmy’s light.

It was not an instant too soon, for he had been about to spring
upon me when Timmy’s unexpected light from behind stopped
him.

There came an ear-splitting crash and I saw the crouching tiger

literally pushed as if by some invisible force, when the bullet from
my. 450/400 rifle, fired by Timmy, took him somewhere in the side.

At that instant I stood directly in his path, his nearest enemy,

and he came for me with all the hate and speed of which he as
capable. My own torch-beam must have completely blinded him
when I fired directly into his open mouth, followed by a second
shot as he crashed at my feet while I jumped aside.

That was when Timmy fired again. His bullet passed over the
tiger and hit the ground almost at my feet, raising a spurt of dust.
Everything was over when I found myself running backwards at
incredible speed to try to get away from the tiger as he rolled on
the ground.

It was Timmy who got the man-eater, for apart from his first
shot that had struck the tiger’s flank and halted the beast at the
instant of springing upon me, he had fired a second which had
entered the animal squarely behind the left shoulder. This second
shot I had never heard in the confusion. My own bullet had blown
out the back of the tiger’s head, while my second, also striking his
head, had struck the ground near me and had been a complete
miss.

Timmy was overwhelmed with delight and executed a war

dance around the fallen enemy. Although the skin, and
particularly the head, would not make much of a trophy, ruined
as they were by the bullets from my two powerful rifles, he kept
chanting and repeating over and over again that he had never
heard of a man-eater being killed under such unusual conditions.

Needless to say although I was not nearly so exuberant, I fully

concurred with Timmy’s sentiments. I might not object to having
the same experience all over again providing I could be in
Timmy’s place. But not where I had been!
 6

The Man-Hater of Talainovu

N THE Kollegal taluk of what was formerly Coimbatore district,

I part of the Madras Presidency in the days when the British
governed India, there is a hamlet called Talainovu. Now the
British have gone and with them the Madras Presidency, and
Madras state has taken its place; its area is just about half that
was covered by the former presidency, for much of the territory
has gone to the neighbouring states of Andhra, Mysore and Kerala.

Among these transferred territories is Kollegal taluk, and with it

the hamlet of Talainovu. They have now become a part of Mysore
state. Cultivation and buildings have spread, and much of the
beautiful forest areas that stretched from Talainovu across rugged
hills down to the valley of the Cauvery river have been felled
ruthlessly, while what is left has been practically denuded of
game.

But it will always be easy for me to remember the little village

of Talainovu, as I knew it long ago, for two reasons. Firstly, in the
Tamil language the word ‘talainovu’ means ‘headache’; secondly,
the wily panther that made its abode by the banks of the Cauvery
river, in a steep valley some ten miles from the hamlet, gave me a
real headache while trying to deal with it.

Man-eating panthers are rare in southern India and have always

been so. This panther was never a man-eater in the true sense.
Rather, it was a man-hater, filled with deep hostility for the
human race, and it treasured this hatred and exacted a toll upon
its lifelong enemy until its last day.
 To begin at the beginning; a pantheress lived on a forest hilltop,
ten miles from the village of Talainovu to the south. Six furlongs
away and to the north, lay a deep valley where the hill fell away
steeply to the bed of the Cauvery river. To the east the forest
stretched for miles upon miles, into and across the boundaries of
the Salem district and along the twists and turns of the Cauvery
river. But to the west it continued only for about six miles, till it
gave way to the low scrub that bordered the main road leading
from the town of Kollegal, across a bridge, northwards to Maddur
and Bangalore.

This pantheress was a young animal, and when she gave birth to
her first cubs, three in number, she was a proud and happy mother,
devoted to her offspring and prepared to defend them with her life.
According to reports and hearsay, picked up by me at a much later
date, some circumstances, we do not know what, induced the
pantheress to bring her cubs out of the cave in which they were
born much earlier than normal, while they were still too young to
move about in safety. Perhaps their father had had designs on their
young lives and sought to devour them, as male tigers and
panthers frequently do. Perhaps a bear trespassed into their cave.
Perhaps food was scarce in that locality.

So the pantheress brought her cubs down the hill and hid them
in a bamboo thicket on the banks of the Cauvery river. No doubt
this was only a temporary measure till the mother could find a
better home for them, perhaps some other cave. But fate decided
to be unkind to her that early morning. She had left the cubs in
the thicket and had probably been out hunting all the night. The
sun had topped the parallel range of hills that marked the course
of the big river and was glinting on its tumbling, foaming waters
when the pantheress was yet a mile away from the bamboos in
which she had concealed her cubs.

And then she stopped in her tracks, for far away she heard a
noise, a persistent tap-tap-tap! Humans! And in the very area
where she had left her three little cubs unprotected.

The pantheress doubtless broke into a bounding gallop to cover

the intervening distance as fast as she could, her only thought for
the safety of her offspring. But when she was but a short distance
away she must have heard their snarls, and she knew what had
happened. The hated humans had discovered her cubs.

The pantheress arrived on the scene to find that half-a-dozen or

more almost naked black bodies, glistening with sweat,
surrounded her cubs. These were on the ground, back to back, and
small as they were they snarled defiance at the intruders. The men
jabbered to one another, pointing at the cubs with the sharp,
curved knives that they used for cutting the bamboos, an
expression of gloating excitement on each countenance, but no
sign of pleasure at the three pretty balls of fur that so gamely
defied them, nor pity for their helplessness.

Even as she watched, one of the bamboos cutters raised his

koithar and swiped at the nearest cub. The curved blade bit into
the soft body. The cub was flung into the air and fell some feet
away, almost cut in two but still living. It groaned faintly as its
young blood reddened the grass.

This was the signal for the other bamboo cutters to destroy the
remaining two cubs, which they set about doing without further
delay. A few slashes of their sharp knives and it was all over. Three
mangled scraps of flesh now lay scattered on the ground where
previously there had been three living creatures.

Probably an inborn fear of the human to all wild animals, even

the worst man-eating tiger and the most ferocious rogue elephant,
had held the grief-stricken mother back, but the sight of her dead
cubs now drove her crazy. With short, sharp roars, she hurled
herself upon the men.
 The first man did not know what it was all about for the
pantheress tore out his eyes as her raking talons slammed into his
face. He fell to the ground, and she leaped over him to bite the
second man’s chest. He fell, too, his screams joining those of the
blinded man who thrashed about on the ground. The remainder,
all armed with koithars, did not wait. With yells of terror they fled
in all directions.

The pantheress made to follow them but then stopped, her

attention taken by the two men who writhed upon the ground.
With cold fury she set upon the two of them and tore them to
shreds.

Then, sniffing at the dead bodies of her three cubs, she picked up
the least mangled of them and bore it away in sorrow.

That was how it all began.

When the bamboo cutters returned to their village, they had a

harrowing tale to tell of a savage panther of huge dimensions that
had attacked them entirely without provocation. They did not
mention their part in the incident—at least, not them—and of
how they had wantonly destroyed the cubs and infuriated the
mother. This admission came later. Naturally, there was a hue
and cry. People avoided that part of the jungle where the killings
had taken place, or such as had to go there went armed with
hatchets and guns, and in groups of as many persons as possible.

The pantheress was not seen or heard of for some weeks after
that. People soon forgot the incident, and through apathy or
laziness left their weapons behind. The licensed cutters of bamboo
and sellers of timber, as well as the poachers, went into the jungle,
the former by day to follow their daily routine, and the latter, who
lived by stealing and selling the same commodities, renewed their
practice of cutting bamboos and wood and floating the stolen
material across the river during the bright moonlit nights.
 But the vengeful pantheress did not forget. This was her
opportunity to strike a second time.

A notorious poacher of sandalwood, whom the people of the

forest department and the police knew had been operating for
years, but whom they had never succeeded in bringing to book,
went into the jungle with his son one moonlit night. They had
planned to cut some sandalwood, float it down the river for a mile
or so to a spot where the water became calm and there was no
undercurrent, and then tow the cut timber across the river to the
northern bank which belonged to Mysore state, using the circular
coracle made of bamboo and buffalo hide which they kept
permanently hidden on the river for this purpose. Once they were
on the Mysore side of the river, they knew they would be safe from
pursuit by the authorities on the Madras bank and would be asked
no awkward questions.

The two thieves began hacking the sandalwood saplings, they

had marked for this purpose on an earlier visit, and the pantheress
heard the hated sound of chopping. As likely as not the noise of
wood being cut reminded her, by instinctive association rather
than thought, of the day when her cubs had been cut to pieces
before her eyes. Hatred must have filled her mind as she started
stalking towards the noise with but one thought in her brain—to
obliterate those who made it.

The father never knew what happened when the pantheress

sprang upon him from behind and fastened her fangs in his throat.
He could not even scream for help, but toppled to the ground with
the sudden weight upon his back. The son, a lad of eighteen years,
saw what was happening, but with thoughts only for his own
safety and not for his father’s life, dropped his axe and fled
precipitately.

It took the pantheress a few seconds to kill the man and that
saved the boy from sharing the same fate. Running as fast as he
could, he reached the coracle, jumped into it and paddled
frantically across the river. When he got back to his hut and burst
in upon his mother, it was to tell what had just happened to his
father.

The villagers had gone to sleep long ago, but the combined wails
of mother and son awoke them. They lit their lights and heard the
story, but agreed not to do anything till the next day. After all,
everybody knew both father and son were thieves.

The sun was high when a large party of villagers, armed with
guns, hatchets, knives and spears and led by the poacher’s son,
returned to the scene. There they found the old thief lying in a
pool of his own blood, his gullet torn out and his whole body badly
bitten and lacerated. But it was very noticeable that no flesh had
been eaten. The killer could certainly not be called a man-eater.
To the men who gazed with horror upon the mangled remains, the
attack on the poacher had apparently been for no reason and
under no provocation whatever, for at that time few people knew
the beginning of the story.

Once again there was an uproar and folk went about only in
groups and armed to the teeth. The panic lasted for a longer period
on this occasion, but once more time and the usual apathy among
the people gradually calmed them down. Eventually, the panther
was forgotten again and they carried on in their accustomed ways.

Again weeks passed, and again came the moonlit nights, the
period when most of the mischief is done in the jungles of India.
For it is during this time that the poachers of game sit over water
holes and salt licks to shoot the sambar, spotted deer and other
animals that come there to quench their thirst or eagerly to lick
the salty earth, while the timber thieves, who steal the
sandalwood, teakwood, muthee, giant bamboo etc., go into the
forest to hack down the trees, cut them to convenient lengths and
float the timber down the river or take it stealthily away in
bullock carts or, when they are daring enough, by lorry loads.

A third kind of thief also takes advantage of the bright

moonlight: the poachers of fish. They do not fish with rods or nets,
for the catch would be too small and the work too hard and slow.
Instead, in the river pools where they know the large fish
congregate at nights to sleep or to feed, according to species, these
men explode their home-made bombs, made in secrecy from crude
gunpowder and fuses. Floating gently downstream in one of the
circular coracles made of a bamboo frame covered with buffalo
hide, in common use on the rivers of India, these prowlers visit
every pool for a distance of about five miles down the river. The
fuse is lit and the bomb is then floated on the water.

While the explosion does no general damage, the concussion in

the water stuns the large fish and slaughters thousands of the
smaller ones and all the fry for yards around. These casualties rise
to the surface, where the larger fish are quickly scooped into the
coracle with the help of nets attached to poles. The thousands of
smaller dead fish, including the fry, are allowed to go to waste and
float downstream to rot and be eaten by other fish and by the
crocodiles.

And so the operation is repeated from pool to pool. By this time

the poachers have gathered almost more fish into the coracle than
it can hold, while the wanton destruction of countless thousands
of valuable fry and many species of small fish can be imagined.

Generally a number of men share in the operation, employing

two coracles, one from which to launch the bombs, and the other
for collecting the catch. The second is often almost at sinking
point before the poachers feel they have collected enough.
Moreover, there is an unwritten law amongst them that they
should not trespass upon the domain of the next batch of
poachers, which starts where they leave off, for that would
provoke a fight and one or other batch would be bound to sneak to
the forest department officials or to the police. Everyone is happy,
the fish are slaughtered, and the local authorities can do nothing
about it. Moreover, to make things absolutely safe, each man
receives a basketful after every expedition. Should they prove
unlucky and they are discovered by some representative of the
law, the poachers have but to present half-a-dozen of the largest
fish they have caught to the official and all is well again.

The coracle, loaded with fish, is eventually brought ashore at

the end of the five-mile stretch. Here the catch is cleaned and
gutted and loaded into gunny sacks that the men have brought
with them. Every man shoulders a bag, while two men pick up the
coracles and carry them upside down over their shoulders. The
light flat paddles are taken by one of the others. Now begins the
five-mile walk back to the point from which they started, for it is
not possible to propel the clumsy, circular craft upstream against
the strong river currents. This is the hardest part of the whole
business.

The same procedure is followed through the ensuing moonlit

nights until the dark nights come again, when the poachers rest
and laze it out for a fortnight till moonlight returns.

In very lonely regions where there are no forest guards or other

inconvenient persons to interfere, the bombing of the pools is
carried on by daylight, although at the period I am writing about
there was some restraint, for the forest departments were
controlled by British officers. Alas, that restraint has now gone.
With Independence, the poachers no longer work by night.

But to return to our story: the moonlit nights came round again
and a party of fish poachers systematically bombed pool after pool
and netted the stunned fish, filling them into the second coracle,
which was propelled by a single man so as to leave more space.
They worked steadily until after midnight, when they decided to
take time off to go ashore and eat the snacks they had brought
with them.

It so happened that the second coracle, the one filled with the
catch and paddled by the single boatman, was nearer the shore
when his companions called to him:

‘Brother, put ashore. We have worked hard and we’ve caught

much. Let’s rest for a while and eat the shappad (food) we have
brought with us and drink some cold coffee.’

The solitary boatman welcomed the call, for he was lonely. He

dug the blade of his paddle into the water, holding the shaft with
both hands, first to the right of him and then to the left, with
swift, short strokes, to force the clumsy craft across the current
which was particularly strong at this place, for not long had
passed since the rains had filled the river to overflowing.

Eventually he reached the bank and sprang ashore, carrying in

one hand the end of the rope that was attached to the bamboo
bottom of the coracle, so as to tie it to the root or trunk of a tree.
This he never succeeded in doing. Those of his companions in the
other coracle who happened to be watching saw something that
looked long and grey spring from behind the mendhi (henna)
bushes at the water’s edge. They heard a rasping roar and saw the
black form of their friend go down with a strange grey shape on
top of it. They heard his piercing scream and then saw that his
coracle, dragging the rope that had fallen from his hands, was
rushing downstream on the powerful current.

The boatman who was paddling their craft made a desperate

effort to. overtake the runaway coracle. But he was at a
disadvantage with the load of men in his own boat. The runaway
coracle gained speed as the current, spinning it around and
around, drew it towards midstream where the water bubbled and
foamed in the bright moonlight over a low cataract formed by a
reef of rocks.

The pursuing boatman was almost rash enough to drive his craft
into those dangerous waters when his companions restrained him.
They watched in dismay as the unmanned coracle lurched heavily
against the rocks, tossed wildly from side to side and then
capsized, throwing the whole of their catch into the river. Then it
was that they turned towards the shore to abuse and beat their
comrade for being so stupid as to let the rope slip from his grasp.
Why, a large coracle such as the one they had just lost would cost
a hundred rupees to make and much more to buy, not to mention
the value of the fish that had been lost in the river. Idiot that he
was they would thrash him soundly!

But on the bank no one was to be seen. Then they remembered

the grey shape in the moonlight, and the roaring they had heard,
and how their friend seemed to stumble and fall. They had been so
concerned to intercept the runaway coracle that they had ignored
their companion’s plight.

Some of the men ordered the boatman who wanted to go ashore

to investigate, not to do so on any account. Perhaps some evil
spirit was lurking there. It had got their friend and might get all of
them if they ventured too near. For quite a long time nobody
thought of the panther. Then somebody remembered, and
reminded the rest. They agreed then that the grey form they had
seen had been the lurking beast. It had killed their companion and
assuredly was devouring him at that moment.

Using the single paddle, the men took turns to propel their
weighted craft upstream, as they dared not go ashore. They did
this for about half a mile and then found they could go no further.
So they made for the river bank, where each man exhorted the
other to jump ashore first. Finally they did so in a body, relying on
the safety of numbers. So as not to be encumbered by the weighty
coracle all the way back to their starting point, they drew it some
yards up the bank and made for their village as fast as they could
in a group, talking at the top of their voices to keep the panther
away.

Next day, when the sun was high, the whole village turned out,
the men having armed themselves as best as they could, to
discover what had happened to the missing man. They found his
remains behind the henna bushes. He had been literally torn to
bits, but so far as could be seen, none of his flesh had been eaten.

And so it went on, the pantheress attacking and killing where

she could, but never eating her victims. Her handiwork was
evident by the manner in which each corpse was bitten and
clawed savagely, far beyond what was necessary just to kill the
victim. She seemed to be taking savage delight in mangling each
body almost beyond recognition.

Now, the stretch of river where these events took place was a
favourite spot for catching the great mahseer, the king of Indian
fishes, in spite of all the poaching. But fishing has never held any
attraction for me. I have no patience for it. Yet a great many of my
friends are devotees and occasionally I took one or other of them
to this river for a couple of days.

These visits had to be few and far between, however, because

the rough track from Talainovu, through the jungle to the river, is
very steep, with abrupt turns that my Studebaker cannot
negotiate. Most of my friends owned English cars, and these were
equally unsuitable for the purpose. So our visits were limited to
those occasions when we could get someone who owned a jeep to
come along with us, or to the lucky occasions when we could
borrow or hire such a vehicle.

Well, such an opportunity came our way one day, and this time
it seemed to have come to stay. Donald, my son, had bought a
jeep! A much-battered vehicle that hailed from Andhra state,
painted vivid blue, and with faults in every conceivable part. But
Don set to work, and at considerable expense and very great
trouble he substituted good parts for bad, so that eventually we
possessed a vehicle that would go anywhere.

Then came the day when we set out for the Talainovu fishing
grounds, with Donald proudly driving the jeep he had so
painstakingly repaired. Next to him sat Tiny’ Seddon, a great
‘mahseer’ fisherman, great not only in his fishing potentialities
but also in bulk and height. In the back were three of us; an old
friend and schoolmate of Donald’s, named Merwan Chamar-
Baughvala; Thangavelu, who had once been my shikari and had
found service in our establishment as table-boy, motor-cleaner,
the feeder of our domestic creatures and many wild-animal pets,
and general jack-of-all-trades, his particular function on this trip
being camp cook. Finally, wedged securely and tightly, at an
uncomfortable angle that gave little chance to move, was myself.

It is exactly ninety-nine miles from our house in Bangalore to

the camping site on the bank of the Cauvery river, some ten miles
beyond the village of Talainovu, where we proposed to do our
fishing. We left Bangalore rather late, and when the journey ended
the sun was setting in flames of red, with a background of orange,
vermilion and indigo. We halted a few yards from the river’s edge,
under the grove of giant muthee, tamarind and jumlum trees,
beneath which we always made our camp.

There were three things to be done at once, and the trained

members of the party—Don, Thangavelu and myself—started on
them straightaway. Don looked quickly around for fresh elephant
tracks, to reassure ourselves that none were in the vicinity to
resent our intrusion and come thundering down upon us. Using
both feet, I started clearing the ground, in a six or seven yard
circle, of all dried leaves, stones and sticks which might shelter
scorpions, particularly the small red variety. A sting from such a
scorpion is guaranteed to take your mind off all other problems,
including the demands of the Income Tax wallahs, for the next
eight hours or more. Thangavelu hurried to gather dry logs, a task
in which Don soon began to help him, for the camp fire that was
to be kept blazing all night in case an elephant came our way
while we were asleep.

Tiny Seddon jumped on to a rock half-submerged in the water

and gazed pensively at the swirling eddies. No doubt he was
seeking inspiration as to where to start fishing the next morning.
Merwan Chamar-Baughvala threw himself on the ground I had
just cleared and remarked how comfortable it was compared with
the jeep.

None of us thought of the panther—because up to this moment

none of us knew about it!

The moon would not rise till late. We ate Merwan’s

contribution of chicken biriyani and pork vindaloo, two very
delicious but over-rich dishes, and while Thangavelu was
preparing the tea, drank water from the rivet. That is, all of us
except Tiny, who was certain the river water contained cholera
germs, typhoid germs, and bacteria of every variety. He said he
would wait for the tea. Then Thangavelu stroked the camp fire
that was to burn all night and we lay back and smoked and told
stories, gazing at the starry sky beyond the canopy of leaves above
our heads. We counted ourselves fortunate to be able to enjoy such
bliss, which so many of our fellow creatures, crowded in stuffy
cities all over the world, have never experienced for even a day in
all their monotonous lives. And so we fell asleep.

I do not know why it was that I awoke with a start. My watch

showed a few minutes past three. The camp fire had died down to
a few glowing embers, for Thangavelu, who had undertaken to
keep it alive, had long since fallen asleep. Donald, to my left, was
snoring loudly. Merwan and Tiny, in that order to my right, had
covered their heads with their bedsheets to ward off mosquitoes
and the dew, and were sleeping soundlessly.

I wondered what had wakened me so suddenly. Perhaps some

jungle noise. Perhaps an elephant breaking branches in order to
feed on the higher, more tender leaves. I listened more intently
and for a time heard nothing except Don’s noisy, rattling snores.

Then I knew what had wakened me, for close at hand I heard a
guttural rasping sound: ‘Haa-ah! Haa-ah! Haa-ah!’ The call of a
hungry panther!

Now panthers in the forest are, as a rule, quite harmless

animals. Except when they turn man-eaters which is very rarely,
or when they are wounded, they are shy, cowardly beasts that
avoid the presence of man. No doubt the animal that was now
calling, although apparently quite close, had not yet caught sight
of the embers of our fire. As soon as it did so, in all probability it
would hurry away as fast as it could. Or so I thought as I
continued to listen sleepily to the sound.

The call came again, and louder. The hungry panther was
certainly quite close. Surely, it must have seen our fire by now? I
felt very sleepy indeed and comfortable. Drat the beast, I thought.
Why doesn’t it let me sleep?

That was when I heard the panther snarl! At last it has seen us, I
thought; now it will vanish. But the panther snarled again, long
and menacingly.

Strange, I thought, my eyes half-closed with sleep. It is either a

very inquisitive or a very angry and daring panther. I mused; but
why worry? I was safe in the centre of the party. Tiny was at one
end, Don at the other, and Thangavelu by himself not far from the
fire.
 The panther growled again, low and long, and I sat up abruptly,
groping for the torch I had kept near my pillow. Blinking to free
myself from sleep, I directed the torch-beam towards the snarling
that was growing louder.

It revealed a panther, crouching on the ground a few feet from

Thangavelu and evidently preparing to spring upon him. There
was no mistaking its posture: I could see its tail lashing to and fro,
a sure indication of its malevolent intentions. I felt for my rifle,
which I had kept loaded beside me on the ground.

And then Thangavelu ruined everything.

I suppose his jungle instinct was really responsible. It alerted

him, but rather late, to the great danger that threatened. He sat
up abruptly, and in doing so kicked over the degchie containing
the water he had boiled for Tiny to drink. Perhaps the clatter it
made, or Thangavelu’s movement, or more likely my torch-beam,
convinced the panther that its presence had been discovered, and
before I could do anything with the rifle, handicapped as I was
with the torch in my right hand, the brute leaped aside and
disappeared behind the nearest bush.

All this time Thangavelu had been blissfully unaware of any

danger. Still half asleep, he had not heard or seen the panther. I
awoke the others and told them what had happened.

They were surprised at first. Then Don said, ‘Dad, you’ve had a
nightmare. Merwan’s chicken biriyani and pork vindaloo are the
cause of it. I haven’t heard a sound all night and I doubt if there’s
a panther within miles.’

The others laughed and I was a bit huffed. How could Don say
he had not heard a sound when he had been snoring all night? I
clambered to my feet, still holding the torch and rifle?
 ‘Come and see this,’ I invited, shining my torch on the ground
and walking towards the spot where the panther had been lying.
But the earth there was hard and nothing could be seen.

‘See what’ asked Don, sarcastically, while Merwan wailed,

‘Why did you wake me up for nothing?’

They all went back to their places and fell asleep again,
including Thangavelu. Nobody had believed me. But I knew that
the danger that had threatened us, and particularly the servant,
had been very real and not part of a dream or my imagination.

I rekindled the fire with the wood that Thangavelu had gathered
the evening before. Then with my rifle and torch at hand, I
remained awake for the rest of the night with my back propped
against my bedroll. I was convinced the panther I had seen had
been a man-eater and that Thangavelu had been saved in the nick
of time. The calls that had awakened me showed that it was
hungry. The chances were it might return.

An hour later a sambar started calling on the hillside half a mile

away. It called for some time before the spotted deer scented or
saw the source of the danger. Then they started calling too.
Clearly the panther was retreating across the hillside.

By this time a crescent moon had arisen, outlining the

immediate neighbourhood. The water in the river gurgled
monotonously as it flowed over the rocks and I felt very sleepy. At
last the dawn came, when Tiny was the first to awake. He saw
me.

‘Don’t say you’ve been sitting up all night?’ he asked.

‘Wake Thangavelu and tell him to make some tea’, was all the
reply I gave. Then I went to sleep before the water could boil.
 Tiny fished all day. He caught a ten-pound mahseer, a couple of
seven-pounders and some smaller fish. Don tried his hand, but like
me he is impatient and caught nothing. Merwan said he wanted to
have a bath, and so as not to disturb the fishing, started to wander
downstream with his towel across his shoulders. I thought of the
man-eater which no one believed I had seen; and called after him,
‘Wait a minute, I’ll join you.’ Picking up my rifle and swinging a
towel, I followed him.

That afternoon we all felt sleepy, particularly myself, and the

camp was once again hushed in slumber. But not for long. We
heard a series of hollow sounds drawing nearer gradually, ‘Boomp!
Boomp! Boomp!’

Poachers! They were bombing the river and operating in broad

daylight, too, evidently without fear of being caught. Soon,
around the bend in the river appeared the usual two coracles, the
first loaded with men and the other with fish. Catching sight of
our party, they paddled frantically against the current to try to
reach the other side.

This move incited us to act though. Don fired a shot into the air.
Then he called out, ‘Come here, or the next shot will be at you.’

The paddling stopped and the two coracles started drifting

downstream. It was evident the men inside were debating whether
to surrender or make a dash for it. Then Merwan shouted in
English, which of course they did not understand. ‘Come here,
you bastards, or as sure as eggs we’ll sink you.’

Slowly the men started paddling the coracles towards us, but
stopped when they were a few yards offshore. From our slightly
elevated position on the bank, we could look down on the
hundreds of fish lying in the second coracle.

Then began a harangue which was as needless as it was foolish.

Don threatened and admonished them alternately, for their
wrongful activity. The men replied that they saw nothing wrong
in it. The fish belonged to nobody in particular. Then why should
the government frame rules or demand fishing licences? And who
were we to interfere? And so on, and so on.

Thangavelu, being about the wisest in our party at the time,

said, ‘Give us a couple of your best and largest fish. Then, go and
blow yourselves up for all we care!’

In the midst of all this I asked, ‘Look, is there a man-eating

panther in these parts?’

There was a hushed silence. Then one of the men replied in a

low tone, as if he did not wish to be overheard, ‘Indeed, dorai,
there is. It has killed many, many people. Only a few days ago it
killed one of our own comrades, whose name was Balu. That’s
why we are now catching fish by daylight. Normally, we would
only do this on moonlit nights, but not a soul will stir out after
sunset now.’

So I was right after all!

Don was excited. ‘Come here. Come ashore,’ he invited. ‘Damn

the fish. We’ll not harm you. I want to know more about this
panther. We’re shikaris. We’re interested and will try to shoot it.’

A chord having been established, the fishermen brought their

coracles to the bank and tied them with ropes to the roots of trees.
Then they stepped ashore and sat around us in a group. Don and I
plied them with questions, and from their answers pieced together
the story which I have already related. The men admitted the
panther was not a man-eater in the strict sense. So far, it had not
actually eaten any of its victims, but had contented itself with
mauling and mutilating them hideously. Obviously the animal
was female, possessed of unusual sagacity and with a quite
abnormal memory, for most wild animals generally forget the past
very quickly. This pantheress evidently remembered the slaying of
her cubs and her feeling of hatred for the human race seemed as
fresh now as on that day. After hearing the story, our sympathies
were with the aggrieved animal.

Eventually the boatmen asked to take leave of us. The sun

would grow hot and the fish could not be bombed so easily, for
they would swim into deeper waters. Disgustedly, we told them to
get the hell out of it, but not before Thangavelu had remembered
to pick out two of the largest and best fish for us.

‘So you see, chaps, I was not dreaming after all,’ was my first
comment as the two coracles began to draw away. Tiny was the
only one to think any more about fishing that day. The rest of us,
Thangavelu included, went into close conference as to how to
shoot this panther. Don and Merwan were particularly keen. For
myself, I was of the opinion that the panther had a case.

From the start, the others felt we had a difficult problem in not
having a regular man-eater to deal with. Here I disagreed. In my
opinion, given the time, this pantheress would be far easier to
come to grips with, because, filled with hatred for humans, she
would go out of her way to try and attack us. As I saw the
situation, we should operate individually in trying to find her.
That would give us four chances to one. Correspondingly, the
pantheress would most certainly come for any one of us whom she
might see alone, although, according to the fishermen, she had
not hesitated to attack a whole group of persons. This plan
appeared to me to offer a much greater chance of success than the
one proposed by Thangavelu, which was to go to Talainovu in the
jeep and purchase two young bulls or buffaloes as bait. For these
would then have to be driven on foot to the camp site and suitable
spots selected before they were tied out. All this I knew would
take considerable time and, as matters stood, there was far less
chance of the panther attacking either of the baits than one of us.
 Fortunately, Don had brought his .423 Mauser rifle along with
his .12 bore shotgun, while I had my .405 and my .12 bore too. This
made two rifles and two shotguns, enough to arm all four of us.

We decided to have an early lunch, after which Tiny, with my

shotgun loaded with lethal shell, would walk downstream along
the river bank for two hours or so, and then turn and come back.
Merwan would do the same upstream, using Donald’s gun. Don
and I, armed with our rifles, would search the jungle separately
and in different directions. Thangavelu would climb up a tree
somewhere close by and await our return, while keeping an eye on
the jeep and our camp kit which was lying scattered around. It
was agreed that everyone should get back to camp by 5 p.m. at the
latest.

We did this and, with parting admonitions to each other to keep

a sharp lookout against surprise attack, scattered according to
plan each hoping to be the lucky individual to come across the
panther. I do not think any one of us quite realized till he was all
alone that what he had set out to do, and was doing in fact, was to
offer himself for the next four hours or more as a bait to a most
dangerous wild animal that had all the advantages of ground and
cover in its favour.

I had decided to go in the direction in which I had heard the

sambar calling the previous night. Perhaps this led towards some
cave and would afford a better chance of success than just
roaming aimlessly in the jungle. A few minutes from the river I
picked up a game-trail that led up the northeastern slope of the
same hill down which the jeep had travelled from Talainovu. It
was a well-defined track, used by sambar and other animals in
coming to water at the river during the summer months, and
recent marks of deer and bear revealed the presence of a fair
amount of game, despite the comparative silence of the previous
night.
 The path wound diagonally uphill, skirting boulders and heavy
cover at a safe distance, as game-trails made by the members of
the deer family usually do, for fear of some carnivore lying in
hiding behind a rock or bush. This was in my favour, although I
knew that a panther was able to conceal itself behind cover of any
sort. My thoughts were uneasy and after a while I became anxious
about Don and our other two friends. I hoped they were being as
careful as I was.

It was too late and too hot for the birds to be calling, and so I
proceeded in uncomfortable silence, keeping a sharp lookout to
right and left while studying every bit of cover in front of me
before I drew abreast of it. The real danger lay from behind, as I
knew, since panthers and nearly all tigers for that matter, even
when they have made a practice of attacking human beings, never
completely lose their fear of man and in most cases spring upon
their victims from behind.

And so I halted frequently to look behind me, trying to catch the

least movement of leaf or blade of grass that might betray the
pantheress as she prepared to pounce. As was to be expected, there
were a number of false alarms. My searching eyes detected a twig
shaking suspiciously, or a blade of grass springing suddenly upright
from where it had been held down by the weight of some hidden
presence. Sometimes I heard a rustle, or the distinct crack of a
dried twig, often behind me and many times in other directions.
Then I froze, half raised the .405, and stared intently towards the
sound, expecting at any moment to see the spotted form come
hurtling down upon me. Nothing happened. The rustling or the
snapping of the twig was not repeated, and the forest remained
uncannily silent. Or the twig that shook did so again, or the blade
of grass continued to wave in the breeze. Then tension died within
me, the hair at the back of my neck relaxed, and I realized there
was nothing to fear. Thus I proceeded for some distance till some
other movement frightened me once more.
 This sort of thing went on for some time, till I realized my
nerves were playing havoc with me and that I was behaving like a
greenhorn. As likely as not, the pantheress was miles away. As I
walked along, thinking my own thoughts, fits of alertness
alternated with periods of carelessness and indifference. Time
passed uneventfully, and I began to feel things were not as bad as
they had been painted by the poachers. No doubt, like all
villagers, they had exaggerated the matter grossly.

I reached the shoulder of the hill and began to descend the other
side into a lush valley of heavy bamboos. A faint rustle and swish
of leaves, then the sharp crack of a frond betokened only one
thing. An elephant!

I stopped and gazed at the spot whence the sound had come.
Much depended upon whether it was a solitary animal or one of a
herd. If solitary, I might expect trouble should I go too close. If I
had stumbled upon a herd, it was almost certain that, upon
discovering my presence, they would take themselves off. The
game-trail I was following led directly towards the origin of the
sound. If I now abandoned the trail to avoid the elephant, I knew I
would not be able to go far, for very soon I would be foundering in
thickets of bamboo and thorn, no place in which to meet an angry
panther or an equally angry elephant. So I made up my mind to
stick to the trail.

The breeze blew strongly from behind and there were no further
sounds from among the bamboos in front. I waited awhile, but the
silence continued. This indicated that the elephant had become
aware of my presence, having scented me. Either he had moved
away, or he was waiting for me to come closer.

No, had he moved away I would in all probability have heard

him, for although these giant creatures can walk almost
soundlessly, in that heavy undergrowth there would have been at
least some faint sounds of his passage. I therefore concluded that
he was waiting for me to approach. I delayed for another ten
minutes, hoping the elephant would change his mind and avoid
an encounter. He did not move. Perhaps he was thinking the same
thing.

I should have waited longer, but I became impatient and

decided to oust the beast. It was a wrong move, and one that
nearly ended disastrously.

Thinking that a nonchalant approach on my part would

frighten him off, I began to whistle loudly and advanced boldly
along the game-trail. The result was immediate. The elephant
charged. He screamed in the way of all elephants when attacking,
partly to inflate their own courage and partly to strike terror into
their victims, and came crashing through the bamboos straight
towards me. The green undergrowth parted violently to reveal a
monstrous head with gleaming tusks, a trunk coiled inwards
between them, and ears laid tightly back against the skull.

I thought quickly. No rogue elephant had been proclaimed in

this area. Therefore, to shoot this monster would mean endless
trouble for me with the people of the Forest department. To run
away would invite being chased and caught within a short
distance. To try to stop him by wounding him, in the knee if
possible, would be cruel and cause him endless suffering.

There was but one possibility. A very slight one, but I took it.
Shouting loudly, I aimed the rifle over his head and fired a round
into the air. If this did not stop him, I knew the next round would
have to be at the elephant, if I intended to remain alive.

It worked! The giant animal braked hard by planting all four

feet into the ground. There was a cloud of dust and fallen leaves as
he slithered to a halt. Knowing his courage had failed him, I seized
the advantage by running three or four steps forward and firing a
second round into the air.
 The huge beast turned about. The note of anger had died out of
his scream when he trumpeted shrilly again, this time with a note
of fear as he swayed in indecision and then bolted; the short tail
which had been stuck out behind in the manner of all charging
elephants was now between his hind legs like that of a whipped
cur. The noise of his departure died away and I sat down
disconsolately upon a nearby stone.

I was glad I had not been compelled to fire at the elephant, but I
was disgusted at myself for not having exercised more patience by
sitting it out rather than by advancing and so precipitating a
charge. For my rifle shots, among those hills, had made a terrific
racket. The hope I had entertained of the pantheress showing
herself, or attacking me, was now gone. Only half-an-hour had
passed since leaving camp. Would it be worth my while to carry
on along the track I had been following for the remaining ninety
minutes before turning back to the river as arranged?

A few moments’ thought made me realize the futility of crying

over spilt milk. So I stood up and continued along the trail. There
was little danger from the pantheress for the next ten minutes or
so. The noise of the rifle shots would have frightened her. The
elephant, and any others like him, would now be far away. I made
rapid progress through the bamboos, which eventually thinned
out as the ground rose gradually higher from the basin of the
Cauvery river. The vegetation changed slightly and I came upon a
parkland of babul, boram and dwarf tamarind trees interspersed
with areas of long grass, and here the friendly game-trail I had
been following all the way from the big river gave out. Rather, it
became lost among innumerable other paths that crisscrossed this
parkland, which was obviously a favourite grazing ground for
deer.

Little pellets of dung lay everywhere, the larger ones made by

sambar and the smaller by spotted deer. To my right was quite a
mound of tiny pellets underneath a fig tree, now laden with a rich
red harvest fruit. Thousands of these figs had fallen to the ground,
knocked down by monkeys and all manner of birds by day, and the
huge fruit-bats, called ‘flying fox’ in India, by night. The maker of
the large heap of tiny dung-pellets was a jungle-sheep, which we
call ‘kakar’ or ‘muntjac.’

These pretty animals, which reach the height of a small sheep

and are coloured a uniform reddishbrown, are very gracefully
shaped, the males having short, bifurcated horns. They love figs
and other wild fruit. The stags, particularly, have the habit of
coming all the way back to a chosen spot to pass their dung on
alternate days. All hunters, human and animal, know this habit,
and so all they have to do when they come across such a spot is to
conceal themselves adequately and wait long enough for the
return.

Carnivores are well versed in the habits and movements of the

deer family and all the lesser animals that form their prey. They
have to be, if they would eat. So this lovely parkland, filled as it
was with deer, would be a very likely place in which to come
across the pantheress and I redoubled my efforts to look for her.

I had gone some distance when, from a direction a little to the

right and before me, I heard a series of bird-like calls. The cries
grew louder as they approached rapidly. Wild dogs! A pack of them
was hunting down a quarry and the chase was coming in my
direction. I stepped quickly behind the sheltering trunk of a
nearby tamarind tree.

The wild dog of the Indian forest is the cleverest of all hunters
and the implacable foe of every living creature. Once a pack of
these creatures scents or sees a deer and gives chase, its fate is
sealed. They hunt it down mercilessly and intelligently. The main
body of dogs run behind their quarry, giving voice to a hunting cry
that resembles the high-pitched call of a bird more than anything
else, while a few dogs gallop ahead at terrific speed and on both
flanks of the quarry. These flankers then ambush the victim and
worry it, if they are unable to bring it down themselves, till the
main body catches up and completes the job. I have seen a sambar
doe, worried by these flankers, cross a dry riverbed with her
entrails trailing in the sand for yards behind her, both eyes bitten
out, and dogs hanging by their teeth to her throat and flanks.

I heard the clashing sound of horns against wood and a splendid

sambar stag appeared. Foam flecked his mouth and sprayed
backwards to his neck and shoulders, and his eyes were wide with
terror as he galloped in headlong flight. The next instant there
was a terrific roar and a mighty striped form launched itself
through the air and directly on to the sambar’ back.

My earlier thoughts had proved correct. A tiger had been

patrolling the parkland in search of a meal. He had heard the wild
dogs approach and knew they were pursuing a quarry that was
coming his way. Ordinarily, tigers avoid wild dogs and fear them
for their reckless bravery, their intelligence and their numbers.
Probably this tiger would have avoided them too but for the
chance that the hunted animal and his pursuers happened to be
coming in his direction. So before he quite realized what he should
do about it, he took the decisive step.

For this same reason, the tiger had not discovered my own
approach from behind him. His keener hearing had appraised him
of the wild dog’s hunting cries before I had heard them and he had
been listening intently in that direction and had not caught the
faint sounds I may have made.

The sambar’s back bent to the sudden weight of the tiger and he
let out a hoarse bellow of terror. Their tightly entangled bodies
sank from view into the long grass. I heard the sharp crack of bone
as the vertebral column was broken skilfully by the tiger, and the
drumming of the stag’s hooves upon the earth as the twitching
muscles and nerves of his four legs continued to respond to the last
message to flee. Upon this scene, the next instant, burst the pack
of baying snarling wild dogs!

Recovering from their momentary surprise at seeing themselves

forestalled, they quickly rallied. In a flash they surrounded the
tiger and the body of the quarry they regarded as their own. I
counted nine of them.

The bird-like hunting call that had been coming from the pack
only a moment earlier changed abruptly to a series of long and
plaintive notes. I had heard these cries on an earlier occasion,
many years before, in the far-distant jungles of the Chamala
Valley. There a pack of wild dogs had been chasing a tiger and this
queer new cry was the same those dogs had made on that
occasion. They were summoning reinforcements. Every wild dog
within miles would hasten to their aid. It appeared to be an
unwritten law of the species that no member dared disobey.

The tiger rose to his feet threateningly and I could see him
clearly. His body turned slowly to enable him to see how many
enemies beset him. His face, was contorted hideously as he snarled
and roared with all the strength of his lungs, and his tail twitched
from side to side spasmodically, a visible indication of nervous
tension, rage, doubt and an unaccountable fear of these unruffled,
implacable and cruelly clever foes.

The circle of dogs stood fast, legs firmly yet slightly outspread,
each member of the pack now making that loud, shrill summons
for help. The roars of the tiger and the yelping call of the nine wild
dogs were pandemonium. The jungle echoed and re-echoed with
the din.

The tiger realized that every second lost now counted in favour
of his foes. In two bounds he charged the dog directly in his path.
The dog skipped nimbly aside, while those behind leaped forward
to attack from the rear. The tiger sensed this and whirled around,
flaying wildly to right and left with his two forepaws. The dogs
within reach of those mighty paws fell back helter-skelter, but one
was too slow. The raking talons struck the dog’s hindquarters, his
body was thrown into the air with one leg almost torn off, and the
dogs behind the tiger leaped forward to bite off chunks of flesh
from his sides. Once more the tiger whirled around, once again his
enemies scattered before him, while those at the back and on both
sides raced forward to bite him where they could.

The tiger feinted and made a double-turn and the dogs from
behind him that had rushed forward could not turn back. They
met the full force of his powerful forelegs with their widely
extended talons. Two quick blows and two more dogs were torn
asunder. One of them tried to drag itself away, but its nearness to
the tiger tempted him to make a false move that immediately
offset the advantage he had just gained by his clever double-turn.
He pounced upon the disembowelled wild dog and buried his fangs
in its body.

The dogs from behind and both sides now fell upon him and
covered his body, tearing out scraps of the living flesh. The tiger
roared and roared again, but now there was a note of fear in each
roar.

The huddle of tearing rending beasts disintegrated and the tiger

had freed himself for the moment. There were now but six dogs
around him and some of them were injured. But the tiger was
bleeding profusely from the many wounds he had received. He
gasped for breath. The dogs would not relax. From all sides they
renewed the attack, yelping and snapping. The tiger roared again,
but not nearly so loudly. The will to continue the fight was
ebbing. He was definitely afraid.

Just then quite another sound could be heard above the

pandemonium: the distant cries of answering wild dogs, not from
one direction, but from several, all at once. Reinforcements.
 The harassed tiger heard them too, and the fight went out of
him. He turned tail and raced away with the six dogs, despite
their wounds and exhaustion, after him.

Within a minute the reinforcements began to arrive. First three

dogs, then another, and yet another. They halted a moment at the
scene of battle and sniffed the blood-tainted grass and the three
mangled dogs. This roused them to a fury and they growled and
snarled. Then they raced in the wake of the fleeing tiger and his
six pursuers.

Soon a larger pack of about a dozen dogs arrived on the scene. In

a few seconds they had taken stock of the situation and followed
the five that had preceded them. The fate of that tiger was sealed,
for by now there were two dozen wild dogs on his trail. They
would not relax their pursuit till they had caught him and torn
him to shreds.

The sounds of the chase died away in the distance as I stepped

from behind the tamarind tree to look at the three dead dogs and
the scene of battle. The sambar stag that the tiger had slain lay
untouched a few feet away. After disposing off the tiger, no doubt
the surviving dogs would return and eat their fill.

Tiny had returned by the time I arrived and Merwan showed up

soon after. Neither of them had seen or heard anything. It was
quite late when Donald returned. He had met the tracks of a
panther and not long after had passed a cave. Associating the two,
Donald had thrown stones into the cave, expecting and hoping
the panther would emerge. Instead, a sloth bear had dashed forth
with two cubs riding on her back. She was greatly annoyed at
being disturbed and Donald would have been compelled to shoot
her in self-defence, had she seen him. Fortunately, this did not
happen. The bear rushed blindly forward into the jungle, and that
was the end of that. No panther could have shared a cave with a
family of bears, and so Donald passed on.
 Strangely enough, none of the party had heard the shots I had
fired to frighten off the elephant and everyone was greatly
interested in my account of the fight between the tiger and the
wild dogs.

This time we all helped in gathering wood for the camp fire and
arranged to take watch-turns of two hours, each. Then came an
early dinner, followed by a smoke and a chat. Eventually the
conversation began to die as, one by one, we became sleepy. It was
only nine o’clock but time to turn in. We had chosen Thangavelu
to be on watch for the first two hours. We did this deliberately, for
later on he was bound to fall asleep anyhow. Merwan came next,
followed by myself, Donald and Tiny. Merwan had tried hard to
exchange turns with Tiny, but the big man was too clever for him.

As I fell asleep, a tiger began to roar somewhere over the hill,

where I had been that day. I thought to myself that it must be the
mate of the animal that the wild dogs had pursued and surely
slain.

When Thangavelu called Merwan at eleven o’clock, he would

not wake and the ensuing argument disturbed me. I told
Thangavelu to throw cold water over him, but the former felt that
such conduct by a servant might be misunderstood. So I had to get
up and throw the water myself. Merwan sat up with a jerk and
was very annoyed, but he took his revenge at 1 a.m., when the
time came to wake me, for he did so with cold water. Merwan is
like that!

He told me that he had heard a panther sawing a few minutes

after midnight, apparently on the hill behind us and pretty far
away. Then he told me something that was very important indeed.
Only a few minutes before he woke me, a bird, which he thought
must have been a jungle fowl, had clucked a noisy alarm and
flapped away heavily. This had been quite close. Merwan
remarked that he had almost forgotten to mention the incident;
he thought it was a matter of no consequence anyhow!

I said nothing in reply as he covered himself up before falling

asleep, but I knew the matter was of great consequence indeed.
Why should a jungle fowl be so alarmed that it had cried out and
left the secure place where it had sat to roost the evening before,
to risk changing its perch and a flight in darkness? They don’t do
that unless some potential danger has passed very close. Perhaps it
was a python searching for food. Perhaps a wildcat or a tree-civet.
Perhaps even a panther.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that here was the
animal we were seeking, that it had returned to our camp with the
deliberate intention of stalking and killing one or more of us. I
arranged another log on the fire to make more light to see by.
Then I changed my position so that I sat with my back to the
nearest muthee tree, that grew a few feet from the water. This
enabled me to face the jungle, with my companions a little before
me and to the right, while I was safe from an attack from the rear.
Then I settled down to listen and watch intently.

Nothing happened till after two o’clock. The gurgling sound of

the river as it cascaded over the rocks prevented me from hearing
the more subtle noises of the forest. A fish plopped loudly in the
water, followed by a yet greater splash, perhaps a bigger fish, or
even a crocodile in pursuit of the first fish. On the opposite bank of
the river a night heron raised a wailing, plaintive cry, and a dark
shadow caught my eye against the lighter hue of the star-studded
sky: a giant horned-owl, a species confined to the forests and
feeding on the smaller mammals, including rabbits.

Just then I heard a faint hissing, rasping sound. I could scarcely

distinguish it because of the murmur of the rushing water. It
stopped and then was repeated, quite close at hand, from near a
clump of bushes a little beyond my sleeping companions, where
the jungle grew thickest and was pitch-black. I had heard that
sound before and recognized it at once.

I knew then that the pantheress was hiding in the thicket that
was closest to the spot where Don and the others were sleeping,
and that she was working up her courage for an attack. In a few
seconds she would reach the point of springing upon them.

I could not see her. Only the blackness of the thicket. If I shone
my torch on that blackness now, it might reveal the pantheress or
it might not—according to whether or not she was sheltering
behind some bush or shrub. Should the latter be the case, I knew
full well she would disappear as soon as she saw the light. So I
decided to wait a little longer.

But the pantheress decided to wait no more. She acted.

Voicing the short, sharp roars made by her kind when they
charge, she sprang clear of the thicket to land a few feet from the
sleeping men. With the next bound she would be amongst them.

I was waiting for this and it was fortunate that I had the rifle to
my shoulder with my thumb on the light switch.

The torch-beam cut through the darkness like a knife and

reflected the blazing eyes of the pantheress. She hesitated a
second, taken completely by surprise and dazzled by the light. I
was about to press the trigger when there was a shattering
explosion, followed quickly by a second shot.

‘Beat you to it, dad!’ yelled Don, as he sprang to his feet, having
wakened and fired his two shots while still lying on the ground.

Then the other sleepers awoke, and their surprise was indeed
comical. Thangavelu just yelled. Tiny sat bolt upright and
remarked, half asleep, ‘Mother dear!’ But Merwan surpassed them;
he rolled about as if he’d been shot himself.
 Then they saw the dead pantheress, or almost dead, I should say.
For she was gasping and twitching still, while life faded slowly
from eyes that were held in my torch-beam. They died to a cold,
watery blue and became still. Then I knew that the pantheress
was dead.

We gathered around and examined her. A fine specimen of a

female. Truly my heart had not been in that night’s work and I
regretted every part I played in hunting her from the time we
heard her story. I consoled myself with the thought that what had
to be done had been done, and I left it at that, but my
congratulations to Don on his prowess were more heartfelt than
he ever suspected.
 7

Sher Khan and the Bettamugalam Man-Eater*

ANY years ago a retired British administrator, popularly

M known as the Collector in those days, had acquired for
himself 300 acres of jungle land on the northern slopes of the
Gutherayan range of hills in the district of Salem, where he built
an incredible bungalow. He built it all of stone and to the pattern
of a castle.

This man loved the jungle and he preserved it at a tremendous

expense to himself by engaging an army of coolies to hack away
the thorny undergrowth and the lantana plants which, in those
years, were just beginning to envelop the forests of southern India.

Since then the lantana has grown apace and now covers
thousands of acres of Reserved Forest land. Various government
departments, including the forest department, have tried and are
trying in vain to eradicate this scourge. Spraying with a poisonous
solution can obviously be done only on a very limited scale. A
white bug has been found which multiplies in millions; it covers
the lantana bushes, blackens the stem, branches, all leaves, and
kills all the lantana in perhaps an acre or two of land. Then
something happens to the bugs themselves: they die within a few
days, from some poison absorbed from the lantana itself, which
thus gains the ultimate victory.

Jungle fires rage periodically, particularly during the hot

weather. The lantana is burnt to the ground, only to spring up
again and flourish with the coming of the rains, fertilized by its
own ashes.
 Incidentally, the juice from a few freshly crushed leaves of this
plant, rubbed Upon a scratch or an abrasion on the skin, will
assist the wound to heal completely. It is as effective as tincture of
iodine, with the added advantage that it does not irritate.

But to return to the British Collector and his 300 acres: he called
his place Bettamugalam Estate, after the name given to the local
sub-taluk area, and his stone house he called ‘Jungly Castle.’
Cleaned of the strangling lantana, the natural forest grew apace.
The grass that flourished in the glades between the trees attracted
bison and deer, which in their turn brought their natural foes,
tigers, panthers, and the still more voracious wild dogs.

Conditions then began to change. The British Collector died and

Bettamugalam Estate, with Jungly Castle, was bought by an
Anglo-Indian who did not have the means to keep the place up to
the standard of the former owner. Once more the lantana started
to encroach upon the grassy glades, and as a consequence the
bison and deer decreased in numbers. But the carnivores remained
and they grew hungry.

Then the Anglo-Indian died in his turn, and no legal owner

came forward. Jungly Castle fell into disrepair. Villagers came on
moonlit nights in bullock carts and stole the cut granite blocks,
pulling down the walls to get them. For these stones, especially
when they could be obtained free, offered first-class material with
which to construct the walls of their own huts.

The bison had by this time vanished, and the herds or deer had
almost disappeared. The tigers, panthers and wild dogs that
congregated to eat the deer followed them. Only the jungle fowl,
spurfowl and peafowl remained to increase in numbers, for the
heavy undergrowth of lantana gave ideal cover. Otherwise, the
whole area assumed a forlorn appearance. Now and again an odd
tiger or panther would pass that way, hoping but generally in
vain, for a stray spotted deer or jungle-sheep to break his fast. He
was generally very hungry but there was nothing to be got.

Now, in the village of Aiyur, a little over four miles away, lived
a man of about twenty-five years, whose name was Gurappa.
Gurappa had married very late in life for one of his caste and
status, the usual age being around seventeen to eighteen years for
a boy and thirteen to fourteen years for a girl. But Gurappa’s
father could not get his son married earlier, for they were a poor
family, and the parents of every prospective bride turned down the
marriage of their daughter to a mere yokel, the son moreover of
such a poor father. But a girl was found at last. I was told that she
was very deaf and had walked with a limp from birth. Very likely
these impediments had caused her parents to agree to the marriage
with Gurappa, who was so poor.

Now another problem presented itself. The bridegroom had no

house. His father had sold the hut the family had lived in. Not
even in India can a bridegroom bring his bride home on their
wedding day to no house!

So Gurappa decided to build one in a hurry. True, he had no

money, but fortunately a good number of stones still remained of
Jungly Castle, although the best and largest of them had already
been pilfered.

Scorning to wait for a moonlight night, the would-be

bridegroom begged the village headman to lend him his cart. With
a long-term policy in view of extracting free labour from Gurappa
in return when the harvest came around, the village patel
consented.

It is safer if there are no witnesses when one sets out to commit

a felony. Gurappa knew this, so he set out alone after his midday
meal, intending to collect the stones and be back by sundown.
Working single-handed is invariably a back-breaking job, as he
soon found out. To lever the stones out of the crumbling walls
with the short crowbar he had brought for the purpose, and to
carry each stone and load it on to the bullock cart, took much
energy and time, calling for a fair number of resting periods. The
sun had dipped behind the hills to the west and the nightjars were
already calling from the sandy track along which the cart had
come, when Gurappa decided to call it a day and bring away the
first load. Tomorrow he would borrow somebody else’s cart and
fetch a second load.

So he beat the bony bulls with a piece of broken bamboo. They

started to walk dejectedly homewards, for this strange man, who
was not their owner, had not bothered to feed or water them all
day. Gurappa followed behind leisurely, his mind at peace for the
moment. Up to now there had been nothing to disturb the
bridegroom. No sound had he heard to cause him any uneasiness.

The waiting tiger that had seen him must have been very
hungry indeed, if not on the verge of starvation, to act as he did.
Perhaps he was sick or wounded and had been disabled from
hunting his natural prey. Certainly he was not a regular man-
eater, for nobody had been killed in this area by a tiger for quite a
time.

The bulls hauled the cart past a babul tree, the lower half of
which was smothered in lantana. The tiger must have been hiding
within that lantana, for that was where he sprang from. When I
came to the spot with a Forest Range Officer, several guards, the
sub-inspector of police and a constable, just twenty-four hours
later, some of the stems still bent down by the weight of the
animal as he had lain in wait for Gurappa.

Probably Gurappa had never known what happened till he

found himself being carried away by a tiger. Then he must have
struggled and screamed loudly, for the bulls took fright and bolted,
hauling the heavily laden cart behind them. They did not get very
far, for there was a curve in the track ahead, where it skirted some
lower ground. In turning, the cart went off the track and down the
khud, taking the bullocks with it.

Miracles often happen, even with bullock carts. While the

vehicle was considerably damaged, there was no injury to either
bull. Freed from the restraining yoke, they found their way back
to Aiyur, terrified but unhurt, long after the sun had set.

Adjacent to the village of Aiyur is a Forestry department school

where officials already working in the department, along with
students who have passed the required examination, undergo
practical instruction in field forestry. A Range Officer is stationed
at the school, along with two or three senior foresters and a
number of guards and watchers, who look after the nurseries and
departmental buildings.

The headman, alarmed by the fact that his build had returned
without the cart, assumed that an elephant had attacked and
smashed it, and had accounted for Gurappa in the process. With
half the village trailing behind him, he sought the cooperation of
the Range Officer for permission to send out a search party into
the jungle. Permission was readily given, but there was a marked
lack of enthusiasm among the villagers to volunteer. Finally four
of five persons were persuaded to offer their services, but by this
time darkness had already fallen. Even in broad daylight a wild
elephant that has killed a man is something no villager will face.
In pitch-darkness an encounter of this nature is not to be thought
of. So the search was postponed till the next morning. The
headman must have spent a sleepless night thinking of his cart,
while cursing Gurappa for being the cause of his misfortune.

Early next day the search party set out. It did not take them
long to find the cart at the bottom of the khud, but of Gurappa
there was no sign. The tracks of the cart wheels and the bullocks,
made in the soft sand, showed that the animals had taken the
corner at a gallop; hence the accident. What had caused them to
do that?

Still suspecting that an elephant was to blame, the villagers

backtracked and soon found the real cause. The whole story was
written in the dry, soft sand of the track. There was blood, the
pug-marks of a tiger, and a distinct drag-mark, left by some part of
the victim that had trailed along the ground. Fear fell upon them
then. It was dangerous enough to encounter a possible rogue
elephant. But they were many in number and an elephant might
be expected to hesitate before attacking such a large party. Not a
man-eating tiger. He might reappear at any moment, from
anywhere, with disastrous results.

Without further delay the group returned to Aiyur. Gurappa was

dead beyond doubt. What could be gained by searching for him?

By chance, I happened to be camping at Sivanipalli that day.

This little village lies about five miles to the west of Aiyur. It is a
favourite spot of mine, and being just over fifty miles from
Bangalore, I often go there at weekends. Incidentally, it marks the
scene of the shooting of the only black panther that has ever been
known in this region, the details of which adventure have been
related in another story.*

The forest guard of Sivanipalli, who had gone to Aiyur to meet

his superior, the Range Officer, returned at about noon to tell me
what had happened to the unfortunate bridegroom, Gurappa.
Carrying a torch and my sweater, with a pocketful of dry biscuits
and a flask of tea for dinner in case I was delayed, I set out for
Aiyur within fifteen minutes of hearing the news.

A report had already been made to the Forest department

headquarters at Denkanikota, a small town eight miles to the
north, by the Range Officer, so that shortly after my arrival the
sub-inspector of police turned up on his motorcycle, with a
constable on the pillion seat. Thus it came about that the two
police officials, the Range Officer, a retinue of guards and myself
came to the lantana thicket at the foot of the babul tree from
which the tiger had sprung, almost twenty-four hours earlier,
upon the unfortunate Gurappa as he had walked behind the
bullock cart that was laden with stolen stones. The prologue of
this story, as I have told it, had already been pieced together by
me from scraps of conversation with the two officers and their
assistants. The sub-inspector of police, who was a Brahman and a
fatalist, remarked more than once on the connection in the web
spun by fate between the old British Collector, long dead and
gone, who had owned Bettamugalam Estate and Jungly Castle,
and the modern bridegroom, Gurappa, who had no house at all
and had been striving to build one. Not quite seeing the point, I
quipped that there might also be something in the thought that
fate may have taken a dim view of the general situation and
decided to punish someone who was in the act of robbing the
dead. I meant this as a joke, but was surprised at the manner in
which my suggestion caught on. The superstitious Brahman and
the somewhat nervous Range Officer accepted my point
completely.

Nobody was keen on looking for what was left of Gurappa.

As I have said, I found the spot in the lantana where the tiger
had been hiding before it sprang upon its victim. The drag-mark
was still faintly visible, although much of it had been obliterated
during the night by the action of the wind upon the sand, grass
and leaves, and the movements of ants and other insects.

However, we were able to follow for a hundred yards or so

when, quite unexpectedly, our search ended. An ‘aeroplane’ tree
was growing here—known thus by the local Tamil inhabitants
because it sheds its seeds by a wonderfully clever and novel
device. Each seed is situated at the junction of two three-inch-
long leaf-like blades exactly resembling in miniature the twin
propellers of an aeroplane. These blades fall from the parent tree
and are spun and carried by the breeze, along with the seed, to
incredible distances before they tumble to the ground. In the
shade of this tree the grass was still green, and protruding from
this grass, as if beckoning to us, was a human arm and hand, the
five fingers spread and pointing upwards.

We had found Gurappa at last—what was left of him!

Peculiarly enough, the upper parts of his body, from breast to

head, had been untouched. While one arm stretched upwards, the
fingers of the other hand were stuffed into the mouth as if to stifle
a scream. The eye sockets were empty, because the black ants had
already eaten away the eyeballs. Then red ants had come, and
these now swarmed over the face and skin. In many places the
black outer skin had been devoured, exposing patches of white
and red flesh, now rotting underneath. The reason why hyaenas
and jackals had up to now not touched these toothsome portions
was simple to guess. Red ants are notorious for their aggressive
nature and painful stings.

But there was hardly anything left of Gurappa’s body below his
chest. The tiger had eaten his fill, while the scavengers of the
night had removed the rest.

The foliage of the ‘aeroplane’ tree had hidden from the vultures
what the tiger and the others had left, for had these birds arrived
before us, nothing at all would have remained.

The stench of death and putrefaction hung heavily in the still

evening air. Flies squatted in myriads on the stems of the
surrounding grass, prevented from settling on the rotting flesh by
the army of red ants that had already driven away their cousins. A
terrific battle appeared to have been waged between the two
species, as large numbers of dead, of both varieties, strewed the
ground for a yard around Gurappa’s head and arms. Now and
again a sorely-wounded member of one of the opposing armies
tried to drag itself away.

The tiger would certainly not return to eat the little that
remained. Why he had left it in the first place was unaccountable;
but he would anyway give the red ants a wide berth.

The sub-inspector ordered his underling to arrange for the

removal of the remains. Then he wrote an unnecessarily verbose
statement which I was asked to sign as a witness. It was getting
dark when we returned to the Forest Rest House at Aiyur. The
Range Officer offered me accommodation at his bungalow for the
night, but the thought of the dry biscuits in my pocket made me
decide to return to my camp at Sivanipalli and the corned meat
that awaited me there. I had my torch, and after all the tiger
might not be a confirmed man-eater.

So I started out to the dismay of the two officers, who shouted a

warning behind me that I might never reach Sivanipalli. The path
wound downhill mostly, between lantana, scrub and scattered
babul saplings till, as a lower level was reached, the trees became
loftier and clumps of heavy bamboo grew in among them. The
darkness became intense, through which the beam from my torch
cut only a narrow pencil of light.

Suddenly a feeling of great uneasiness came over me—rather, a

feeling of mortal fear. Why, I could not imagine. I had heard no
sound, nor had I caught any audible cries of alarm from the deer
and other creatures in the jungle to warn me of danger. Complete
silence reigned on every side. There was only the soft crunch of
my own rubber-soled boots on the ground, and the occasional
crack of a twig or crackle of a leaf as I trod upon it.

I halted abruptly and spun around, fully expecting to see the

tiger stalking me from behind. But there was nothing to be seen,
not even the glimmer of a firefly. There was nothing to be heard;
not even the chirping of a friendly cricket.

Then I knew why I was so afraid: it was the idea of absolute

loneliness. There was no living creature nearby to witness what
happened to me. Nothing, and nobody to help. And, although I
could not see him in the gloom, or hear him, even in that absolute
silence, I was as certain of the presence of the tiger there as I was
of my own.

I have found that at times of great peril in the jungle, the

human reflexes act in one of two ways. The trumpeting scream of
a charging rogue elephant, or the guttural roar of an attacking
tiger or panther, sometimes galvanizes the victim into precipitate
flight, or else he is so paralysed by fear that he is rooted to the spot
and quite incapable of movement. It is rare, indeed, that the
victim can think at all, much less think clearly, of what he
should, or rather could, do in the circumstance. There is no time
for thinking.

But in this case there was no screaming elephant before me, nor
a roaring tiger for that matter. Only silence, and the certain
knowledge that the man-eater was there. And the reflex that
came to me was to run, and to run fast, as fast as I could, away
from that dreadful spot. I had the greatest difficulty in restraining
myself, for I knew that if I started to run it would be just what the
tiger would like me to do. For then he would attack. All tigers,
including man-eaters, know that every other creature is afraid of
them. They are accustomed to striking terror into the hearts and
minds of their prey, and with that knowledge comes the greater
confidence that enables them to hunt so successfully.

I knew at that moment that the only thing that could save me
from the tiger would be to act otherwise. He was lurking
somewhere, watching and waiting for me. Perhaps he was behind,
perhaps ahead, or may be to one side or the other, waiting and
watching for an opportunity to spring upon me. He would have
done so long before had it not been for my torch and the bright
beam of light that was cutting through the darkness. This had
worried him. If I wanted him to attack, all I had to do was
extinguish the torch and start running. Then he would come.

I thought quickly. And I kept on walking at a measured pace,

flashing the torch behind me, to both sides and then in front. The
path was narrow, not more than six feet wide at the most.

The track turned a corner and ahead of me the light revealed a

rock, standing to the left and about a hundred yards away. It was a
sloping rock and appeared to be about six to eight feet high. I felt
that I could run up and on to it without difficulty, provided I had
a sufficiently long start. For I had had an idea. Here was a suitable
place at which to try to tempt the man-eater to show himself.

As I turned the idea over in my mind, I continued to walk

forward. Those hundred yards were far too long to risk a show-
down. The speed of a charging tiger is something fantastic and has
to be seen to be believed. But when the rock was fifty yards away,
I decided to take the chance.

Making certain my rifle was cocked, and fixing the location of

the rock clearly in my mind, I suddenly extinguished the torch
and ran as fast and as hard as I could.

The darkness, when the torch went out, was intense. I could not
see a thing. That was why I had taken care to face the rock and fix
its location before putting out the torch and starting to run.

It took quite a few seconds for the tiger to gather his wits and
realize that his victim had actually done what he had been
waiting for. As I ran, I was just beginning to think that perhaps
there was no tiger at all and that my nerves had made a fool of
me, when there was a shattering roar from behind and the man-
eater launched his attack. I heard that roar, but I could run no
faster anyway.

I was only a few feet ahead of the tiger when I reached the rock
and ran up the slope. Then I whirled around, raised the rifle to my
shoulder and pressed the torch-switch with my left thumb all
simultaneously. The man-eater had reached the base of the rock
and was crouched for the spring that would carry him to the top
when the rifle went off, almost at point-blank range. With the
crash of the explosion he somersaulted backwards while I worked
the underlever of the .405 to place the second round in the breach.
Then I pressed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

A moment later, with a loud snarl the tiger leaped to its left and
disappeared into the long grass that grew there. Working the
underlever again, I ejected the cartridge that had misfired and
fired the next round at the spot where the tiger had just vanished.

I had been too frightened when I fired the first shot, but I
distinctly remember hearing the echo of the second one
reverberating against the slopes of Gulhatti hill, which I could not
see in the darkness but which is within a mile of the rock I stood
upon.

The growling had ceased. Had my second bullet found its mark?
Had the tiger collapsed from the effect of my first shot? Perhaps
both had taken effect. Or had I missed entirely? Worse still,
perhaps I had only wounded the brute.

With the torch still shining upon the bushes where the tiger had
vanished, I sat down on the rock to collect my scattered wits and
control my breathing. Mostly, to try to think. Only then did I
realize how narrow an escape I had had. Had the tiger been closer
behind me, or to either side or ahead, he might have cut me off
before I could reach the rock. Moreover, had the cartridge that had
misfired been one ahead in the magazine of my rifle, it would
have failed at the crucial moment and the man-eater would
certainly have completed his spring.

When I grew a little calmer I began to wonder what had

happened to the man-eater. It seemed inconceivable that I could
have missed him at point-blank range. Then I remembered I had
been running fast and had rushed up the rock at the last moment.
Fear, excitement and exertion had made me breathe hard and this
had evidently caused me to press the trigger unconsciously,
causing me to miss entirely or perhaps just wound the beast.

It was impossible for me to follow up in that darkness. If I had

missed him, he would have been scared away entirely. If he was
wounded, it was very unlikely that the man-eater would resume
the pursuit if I continued on my way to Sivanipalli. So after a few
moments I decided to do that and return the next morning to take
up the trail.

I reached Sivanipalli without event and lay down in my little

tent, still thinking of what should be done the next day. Then the
dried biscuits in my pocket reminded me that I was hungry and I
got up to make tea and open the tin of meat that had been the
cause of the whole incident.

There are no poojarees or aboriginal trackers at Sivanipalli, but

there was Sher Khan, a character who had led a colourful
existence and must at the time have been about forty years old.
He was a Muslim, a poacher of game, a timber thief, and the
suspected author of several dacoities on a minor scale, when
bullock carts carrying sacks of grain to the villages of Denkanikota
and Anchetty had been held up and robbed at night. The method
of dacoity had been as simple as it had been effective.

The carts used to travel by night in order to save time.

Generally, half-a-dozen of them would move, one behind the
other for company and for protection from wild animals,
particularly elephants, and of course the evil spirits that are said
to be everywhere. Highway robbery, up to that time, was unheard
of.

The first case reported to the police was by five cartmen who
had been behind one another from Anchetty to Denkanikota.
They were on the ghat road when it had happened, nine miles
from their destination. The time was 1 a.m. and the bulls strained
at their loads on the steep gradient. Each driver sat in his cart,
more than half asleep. Suddenly a voice hailed them from the
darkness of the roadside. It was harsh and loud. They saw no man,
but the voice said that a gang of dacoits was hiding by the
wayside. They had loaded muskets and all would be well if they
followed orders. Then followed the orders. They were very simple.

‘Get down from your carts, all five of you, and walk back for a
full mile. When you reach the tenth milestone, you may sit dawn.
Light a fire and wait there till morning. When daylight comes, you
may return to your carts. Remember, some of us will follow and
keep a watch over you till dawn. If any one of you dares to
disobey, he will be shot without further warning. Remember also
that we promise we shall not harm your carts or animals. You are
poor men and we do not want to hurt you. It is the rich men’s
belongings, carried in your carts, that we want.’

The cartmen obeyed. They were thankful they had been spared.
Early next morning they found their carts, standing where they
had been left. Some of the foodstuff had been stolen, but not all if
it. Only the more valuable items. The gang could not have been a
very large one after all, or they would have taken everything.

This happened two or three times more, on other roads and

tracks leading to Denkanikota and Anchetty, before the carts
stopped moving at night and police patrols took their place.
Several suspects were rounded up, including Sher Khan. They
were beaten and locked up. But all of them always affirmed
complete innocence and all of them had alibis.

That was how I first met Sher Khan. He was returning to

Sivanipalli after one such beating and complained aloud of the
injustice that was rampant in this world. But there was a
mischievous twinkle of insincerity in his eye as he spoke.

As I said, he was a Muslim, and the literal translation of his

name is ‘Chief among Tigers’. He was a ruffian, but a very likeable
one, and that is how he became my friend. I would never fail,
when at Sivanipalli, to visit his little house and drink tea with
him, and he would never fail to return my call.

So I went to Sher Khan early in the morning after my adventure,

and asked him to assist me. For I was confident that I had not
missed the tiger when I had fired at point-blank range. I knew I
must have hit it. That meant following up a wounded tiger in the
jungle, and to do that there must be two persons. Following a
blood trail through bushes, over leaves and on hard and stony
ground requires concentration of eyesight and mind. One must
look here, there and everywhere, for a speck of blood or a mere
smear of the underside of a leaf, or against a stem or rock. While
you are engaged in so looking, the wounded tiger might be just
ahead, waiting for you, or he may be lying to the right or the left,
concealed behind a tuft of grass, a clump of bamboo, a tree-trunk
or a termite-hill, waiting till you come within springing distance.
There is a third possibility, and that is he may be stalking you
from behind even while you are looking for him. But you are
blissfully unaware of his presence, because your attention is
concentrated on the ground, following his trail. On the other
hand, if you try to keep an effective lookout for the wounded
beast, you will soon find you have lost the trail. You just cannot
do both jobs effectively, and so a second person is essential. One of
you concentrates on following the tiger’s blood spoor and tracks,
while the other keeps a sharp lookout ahead, to the right, left and
also behind. In the hands of this second person lies not only his
own life, but the life of his companion.

Sher Khan volunteered to help without hesitation, but insisted

that I drink the customary cup of tea with him before we set out.
A clap of his hands and one of his four wives responded. He told
her to make: ‘Attcha-cha-first class!’ for the sahib.

Being a Muslim, he was allowed to have four legal wives—and

he had them. Most of us find it a problem to manage one, but he
managed all four with ease! And this is how he did it.

Sher Khan showed no preference towards any one of his four

spouses—either to the youngest or the most recent or the prettiest.
They were all kept strictly gosha—that is to say, they were
compelled to cover their faces with a bourkha when they went out
in public. No man was allowed to look upon them. I, as a very
particular friend, had the privilege of seeing their faces, and even
of speaking to them—but very sparingly, mind you—when I
visited his house.

Sher Khan made it a practice to divide the household duties

among his four wives on a weekly-roster basis. For a week one of
them would be responsible for the cooking of all the food, with a
second to assist her; the third would be responsible for washing all
the utensils; the fourth for the household work such as sweeping,
mending, washing of clothes, etc. The following week, the roster
would change, and so on week by week thereby dividing all the
work very equitably among all four. Sher Khan himself would not
lift a finger to do any household work. He did the marketing—if
his rather nefarious activities could be so described—and brought
home the earning, or the money, whichever you my prefer to call
it. The wife who did the hardest work for that particular week,
namely the cook, he would sleep with two days in the week, the
remaining three women one day each. Fridays and Sundays were
‘off days’ from that sort of thing. ‘Days of rest’ as he called them.
 They were a poor family, but disciplined, happy and contented.
The women never quarrelled with him and hardly ever among
themselves. For if they did, a beating would be administered;
fairly, equitably and impartially, each recalcitrant wife receiving
an equal number of blows or cuffs according to the nature of the
offence. And in spite of the often undeniably pressing demands
made upon him, he had no children.

As soon as we had drunk our tea we were off. Sher Khan

announced that he had no gun and brought a rusty sword with
him instead. He remarked that it had belonged to his father, and
to his father’s father’s father’s father, who was a soldier serving
under the great Tipu Sultan, the tiger of Mysore. The mathematics
involved in the problem of checking whether this man’s great-
great-grandfather could have lived in Tipu’s lifetime are rather too
involved for me. In the meanwhile, we had walked out of earshot
of all his wives and I raised an impersonal question, addressed
perhaps to the air: ‘A voice comes out of the darkness and
threatens to shoot many cartmen. Yet there is no gun. How can
that be, Sher Khan?’

The silence for a moment is complete. Then he replied. ‘You

may call me a liar if you wish, sahib. But that is exactly what
happened. There was no gun at that time, nor any other. I never
possessed one and still don’t have a gun. And the gang consisted of
myself and three of the wives, sahib. The fourth is too old. But she
had the brains, and it was all her idea.’

And, I believed him.

We were nearly at our destination. There stood the sloping rock

from which I had fired at the man-eater the previous night. This
time it was to my right. We approached in silence and looked at
the ground. No blood was to be seen and the earth was too dry and
hard for tracks. Without speaking, I pointed to the bushes
bordering the path where the tiger disappeared from view.
 I took the lead for the moment, with my Muslim friend directly
behind. In spite of the prevailing dryness all around, it was
evident that a heavy body had recently passed through. A couple
of broken stems hung loosely, still joined to their parent-branch by
the outer skins. A yard or two further and we saw it almost
simultaneously: blood!

There was a splash of bright red on the carpet of dry, brown

leaves that covered the ground. I touched it with my forefinger
and rubbed it against my thumb. It was thick and coagulated, and
by that I knew that my bullet of the night before had inflicted
more than a mere surface wound. It had penetrated deeply.

We changed places now, and I put Sher Khan ahead of me. He

would concentrate all his attention on following the blood trail,
while I would cover him and myself in all four directions.

The Muslim was no born tracker, but what he lacked in ability

as an aborigine he made up for in intelligence. He fussed and
fumbled around, taking far more time than would a member of
any of the jungle tribes in following such a trail, but he found one
blood spot after another. The tiger had bled far more freely now.
The exertions caused by his wounds had no doubt opened the
wound. Splashes and pools of blood lay all along the trail, making
it easy to follow.

I caught sight of a slight movement ahead and lightly touched

Sher Khan with my hand. He halted at the prearranged signal and
froze. With rifle to shoulder, I watched the spot from whence the
movement came. I also watched on both sides and even glanced
behind us. For wounded tigers are notoriously clever in lying in
ambush or in creeping upon their enemies from behind.

The movement came again. A small branch swayed ominously a

few feet ahead of us. I prepared for the attack. Stretching out my
hand, I gripped Sher Khan by the shoulder and pulled him
unceremoniously behind me.

The branch swayed again. I stared at it for a minute. And then I

relaxed. A false alarm. I noticed the leaves on the swaying branch
were all upside down. That is because it had been broken by an
elephant and was hanging suspended to the place from which it
was broken by the stems of some creepers that were strong enough
to bear its weight.

There must be no talking whatever in a situation like the

present, so I reached backwards, gripped Sher Khan, and once
again placed him in the lead. Then I nodded my head as a signal
for him to press on. We proceeded slowly and passed the suspended
branch.

Under a bush we noticed that the dried grass had been dyed
deeply with blood. It seemed to be all over the place, on the leaves
and stems of the bush as well. The tiger must have lain down here.
Perhaps he rolled on the ground. Perhaps he covered his injured
face with his paws and got them all covered with gore too. That
would account for the blood, spread so widely under the bush
before us.

I touched Sher Khan again to halt him, and we listened for a full
five minutes. But we heard not a sound. As carefully and silently
as we were moving the two of us would necessarily have made
some noise in the undergrowth over that dry terrain. If the tiger
was nearby, he must surely have heard us. Then he would either
growl in warning, attack, or slink away silently. But nothing of
the kind happened.

The blood trail now unexpectedly veered to the left and we

knew that the tiger was making for a small stream that skirted the
foothills. The wound must have been taking effect, and thirst had
driven him there for water. At that time of the year the stream
was dry except for a few isolated pools here and there. The tiger
was making for one of these pools and the chances were that when
he reached it he would lie up in the vicinity till he recovered from
his wound or died of it, a lingering, starving, horrible death.

I hate wounding an animal and spare no pains, when I have

done so, to follow it up and put it out of its misery. From the
amount and nature of the blood lost by the tiger it looked as if my
bullet had inflicted a severe wound from which there was little
chance of recovery. Once more I thought of the dreadful lingering
death that was in store for this animal unless I succeeded in
finding it.

I stopped Sher Khan and we conferred in whispers for a few

minutes. I knew of a pool on the riverbed which I judged to be at
least two miles away, but Sher Khan said there was a closer one,
smaller but which held water throughout the year, higher up the
stream and less than a mile from where we now stood. So we
continued to follow the blood trail, and as the Muslim predicted,
after a short distance it veered to the left and made for the smaller
pool, now directly ahead.

The ground sloped as we approached the streambed and I was

made aware of its nearness by the repeated cries of jungle fowl
that sheltered in the thick belt of trees and undergrowth that lined
both banks, sustained in summertime by the water that was
hidden from sight but still flowed beneath the dry sand. In a few
minutes the short dry grass, withered by the sun, was replaced by
long green stems, the heat and sight of the sun was shut out by a
canopy of trees, and I knew we had reached the rivulet.

The blood trail went straight ahead; we were in sight of the dry
sands of the streambed, stretching to right and left. I can imagine
the agony of the wounded beast that came here last night or in the
early hours of this morning in search of water to allay its burning
thirst, only to be confronted by this waterless stretch.
 But Sher Khan whispered that the pool was just around the
corner to our left, now a stone’s throw away, and unerringly the
trail led in that direction. Once again I changed places with my
friend and took the lead. Tracking was unnecessary now, as
clearly the wounded tiger was making for the pool and I felt we
would find it there. We turned a corner but I could see no pool. I
stopped in silent perplexity, when Sher Khan came up from behind
to point to an outcrop of flat rock which could just be seen above
the sand of the stream and within a few feet of the further bank.

A plover rose into the air from the rock, crying ‘Did-you-do-it!
Did-you-do-it! Did-you-do-it!’, and I knew that water lay hidden
from my view in a hollow of that rock. The stream had narrowed
there and both banks had come very close to each other. The
undergrowth was dense, and the forest loomed menacingly around
and above us from the ground that dipped down to the bed of the
rivulet.

We halted again. There was silence and no indication of the

tiger’s presence. I looked down and could see no blood trail.
Evidently it did not approach across the sandy bed, but kept to the
cover of the undergrowth bordering the banks.

Forward we went once more. We were there at last, and what a

sad story revealed itself in the water of the tiny pool and the
sloping rock that led down to it! For the water was red with blood,
and the rock was sticky with it, where the tiger had evidently lain
in agony with his head in the water to assuage his thirst and to
lessen the pain of his wound. His pug-marks were visible on the
rock in several places, steeped in his own blood. Finally he had
gone to the shelter of the bank and I knew that was where I would
find him; laying in the cool of the undergrowth like all stricken
animals, he would await his end with patience.

Then I remembered that this animal had been responsible for

killing a human being, as far as could be made out for no apparent
reason. If not brought to book, he would no doubt in time have
became a confirmed man-eater. Motioning to Sher Khan to stay
where he was, I advanced to meet him and finish him off.

I heard a slight sound behind me and looked around. Sher Khan

was following. Perhaps he wanted to be present to witness the last
scene in this drama. Perhaps he was just nervous at being left
alone. We advanced into the dense undergrowth beneath the
canopy of trees and were lost to sight.

The silence that had reigned all this while was then broken by a
shattering roar that seemed to come from the very ground at my
feet, and things began to happen very fast. Momentarily the
undergrowth was agitated violently and then a mighty form
launched itself past, and almost over me, on to Sher Khan who
was not two feet behind.

The Muslim yelled and swiped wildly his rusty sword. The blunt
edge met the bulk of the springing tiger and the impetus of both
objects caused the blade to bite into the flank of the animal. Sher
Khan went down, still screaming, and the tiger fell on top him.

Fortunately, Sher Khan had the presence of mind to cover his

head and face with his two arms as the tiger sought to bite him.
Leaning forward, I placed the rifle behind its neck, ensuring the
bullet would not endanger my friend, and pressed the trigger.

I fired once again while Sher Khan scrambled to his feet and
leaped out of range of the dying creature’s claws. Then the drama
was over.

Strangely enough, my friend was practically unhurt except for a

few scratches, and the reason was that my bullet of the night
before had gone into his upper palate and come out above his
nose. The whole frontal or nasal bone hung loosely by the flesh, a
truly ghastly wound from which the poor beast could never have
recovered.
 It was fortunate that the blow my friend aimed at the tiger with
his ancestor’s rusty sword had met its mark for I was directly in
line with it. Had he missed, Tipu, the Tiger of Mysore and his
henchman of long ago, Sher Khan’s ancestor, would have claimed
one more victim! I would have been decapitated by the force of
that blow.

Sher Khan laughed afterwards when I told him this. He said I

had my own revenge when my bullet, fired into the tiger’s neck,
had passed but a few inches above his head. He asked me if he
might have the skin of the animal as a memento of our encounter
and I gladly gave it to him. For, despite his many faults and his
rascality, Sher Khan is a brave man and a most likeable fellow.
Above all, I admire the way in which he manages his four wives.
Long may they be spared to him, and he to them.

We sat by the camp fire before I left him and swapped yarns. He
told me some of his adventures while I smoked my pipe and
listened. Beyond the leaves all was lost in the darkness of the
jungle night. Now and again a burst of sparks soared skywards as
one of us threw a fresh log on to the fire to keep it brightly
burning.

From behind his hut came suddenly the jungle chorus of the
jackal pack: ‘Oooo-ooo-oooh; Ooo-where? Ooo-where? Here! Here!
Heere! Hee-yeah! Heeee-yeah! Yah! Yah! Yah!’

After that there was an abrupt hush. A heavy, all-pervading

silence. You can hear it, you feel it, you know it. It is the silence
that heralds the unexpected. As complete as if a switch had been
turned.

Then, far away across the hill the second came rolling down to
us, permeating the jungle and riding across the tops of the trees in
the valley below.
 ‘Oo-o-o-n-o-o-n! A-oongh - gah! A-oongh - gah! Oo—ugh! Oo -
Ugh!’

A tiger roaring.

_____________
* For map, see Chapter 1.
* See The Black Panther of Sivanipalli.
Tales from Indian Jungles

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. Ghooming at Dawn
2. The Bellundur Ogre
3. The Aristocrat of Amligola
4. The Assassin of Diguvametta
5. Tales of the Supernatural
6. The Strange Case of The Gerhetti Leopard
7. The Lakkavalli Man-Eater
8. What the Thunderstorm Brought
 Introduction

HE man sits with his back to a tree and the light from the
T campfire waxes and wanes, throwing him into sharp relief
along with the tree-trunk against which he rests, to fade the next
instant into obscurity and gloom. Leaning against the tree beside
him is a .405 Winchester rifle of ancient vintage.

Someone throws a fresh log on the flames and myriad sparks

soar upwards, lighting the heavy boughs of the great tree that
overshadows the camp. For an instant the man’s countenance,
too, is lit brightly and we see that he has a beard and moustache,
and that firmly held in the corner of the mouth is an old briar that
has long gone out. A battered ‘Gurkha’ hat, its brim curled up at
the left side, slopes rakishly to the right upon his head.

The man is speaking. He appears to be telling a tale and it is

clear that he is so intent upon it, so absorbed, that he has
forgotten his pipe and all else around him.

The flames die down, then flare up again, their momentary

gleam revealing the absent look in the man’s eyes, as he lives
again the incidents he describes. The past has become so real that
he is oblivious of his audience, squatting around him on the
ground beside the fire, listening to his words.

The sparks fly upwards to merge, fade and disappear in a thick

spiral of smoke that curls yet higher until it is lost in the gloom of
the heavy foliage of trees that encircle the camp and accentuate
the jungle night.

Except for the crackle of the flames and the drone of the man’s
voice, the forest is lost in silence, and a heavy, oppressive,
uncanny quiet that we feel cannot last much longer. And we are
right. The roar of a tiger breaks suddenly through the blackness, to
be answered by the scream of an excited elephant. Aungh-ha!
Ooongh! Aungh-ooongh!’ comes that awful sound as the tiger
stalks boldly down the jungle aisles, while the distant trumpeting
of the elephant ‘Tri-aa-a-ank! Tri-aa-a-ank!’ announces that the
challenge has been met.

But the man seems not to hear these sounds, so engrossed has he
become in the story he is telling. He appears to be of the jungle
himself, and we get the impression that he belongs there. This is
home for him and here is the place he would want to die; the
jungle is his birthplace, his haven and his resting place when the
end comes.

Let us give heed, then, to what he tells. Stories of the denizens

of the forest; tales of incidents, macabre and ghostly sketches of
himself. The man seems happy as we listen and he warms to his
theme.

For he loves to speak about the jungle and its people, and who
should know that better than I.

For I am that man!

—Kenneth Anderson
 1

Ghooming at Dawn

HE poojaree awakens us with his persistent soft calls of ‘Dorai,

T Dorai; yeancheko, knarl munni agadho!;’ meaning, ‘Master,
master; wake up, it’s four o’clock!’

He whispers the words into our ears, first mine and then yours;
for to touch either of us with his hands would be considered
disrespectful. Have not the poojarees, for as long as man can
remember, been regarded as outcasts, whose very proximity to any
ordinary person—let alone their touch—is abhorrent in the
extreme?

We sit up abruptly, for in the jungle a tardy awakening may

spell the difference between life and death, to view the glowing
embers of the fire whose light barely extends to the trunks of the
giant trees of the forest that hem us in on three sides. On the
fourth we see a whole stretch of water, lit by the stars, which is
the Cauvery river, and we hear the dull rumble as the flood swirls
past us, appearing out of the darkness of the jungle night and
vanishing just as swiftly.

We are camped in the open upon the river bank, a few yards
from the fringe of the forest and only a short distance from the
water’s edge. The poojaree has remained awake all night, to stoke
the fire that protected us while we slept from an unwelcome visit
by some wandering elephant that might have come for a drink, or
perhaps an unusually daring crocodile. The sands of the river bank
on which we have been sleeping have been a deterrent to our
smaller but equally unpleasant foes such as snakes and scorpions,
who do not like crawling on such a surface.
 We throw off our light coverings, for it is comparatively warm.
The heat from the embers has helped to protect us from the dew. I
place a small kettle of water on the fire to brew some tea, that
ever-refreshing drink that is always welcomed by persons who
sojourn in wild places, and while the water boils accompany you
the few paces to the water’s edge for a quick wash of teeth, face
and hands.

By the time we return, the kettle is boiling, and soon we sit with
a steaming mug in hand, while cold buttered chappatties and
some ripe bananas—called plantains in India—a complete
breakfast, unfit for kings perhaps, but of which there is no equal
for good health.

This brief meal is soon over, and now we attend to the rifles that
we are going to carry on this early-morning ‘ghoom’ of the
foothills that start less than a quarter-mile away and rise steadily
and culminate in a peak called Ponachimalai, over 5,000 feet high
and about six miles distant as the crow flies.

My silent, but trusted friend and companion over many years

and through many adventures, a somewhat battered .405
Winchester of which everybody makes fun, needs little or no
attention. Like me, it is an old-timer that seems to look after itself.
In any case, it appears very inferior to that 10-shot U.S. 3006
Springfield rifle of yours, which you rightly treat with such care.

It is still dark when we leave camp. Our poojaree companion is

eager to accompany us, but as we are embarking upon a prowl
during which I would like to try to show you a few interesting
things, I decide to leave him behind on the pretext of looking after
the few possessions we have brought. A hunter, pure and simple,
Byra, our poojaree friend, would greatly disapprove of my pointing
out to you some grand old sambar stag instead of shooting it;
while if I draw your attention to the mother-love of a spotted doe,
offering herself as a target in an attempt to shield her fawn, he
would be positively annoyed with me for not pulling the trigger
and bagging both mother and fawn.

The air becomes chill within a hundred yards, and seems to

grow even colder as we start to climb the sloping ground to the
summit of the first foothill.

It is still dark and we progress slowly. Stumbling over stones and

brushing through the undergrowth will certainly betray our
movements and turn the first phase of our little walk into a
failure. For it is the season when the jumlum- tree casts its purple
fruit so prolifically over the ground, and this astringent delicacy is
an article of diet absolutely irresistible to sloth bears, who will
cover miles in a night to visit such a tree. Only yesterday I noticed
a grove of these jumlums close to the riverside and barely two
furlongs from camps, with the tracks and droppings of many sloth
bears that have been visiting them each night to feed upon the
fallen purple fruit.

The hillock we are now ascending is adjacent to the grove and

will form the direct line of retreat for the sloth bears that will be
still gorging there. As is their custom, they will begin to make for
rising ground as soon as the false dawn breaks. That time is close
upon us now, and a momentary lightening of the sky heralds this
curious phenomenon.

But within a few minutes a pall of darkness once again

envelopes the land, till a wider spreading glow in the eastern sky,
perhaps twenty minutes later, announces the true dawn and the
beginning of another day.

This false dawn deceives not only the hunter new to the forests,
but the inmates of the jungle as well. Junglecocks begin to crow,
peafowl awaken to voice their brassy calls, carnivores on the
prowl turn back to the lairs, and the hyenas and jackals that have
been sneaking after them in the hope of a meal from what is left of
their kills, turn back to their burrows in the ground and under the
rock, where they shelter during the day.

The grumpy and greedy sloth bears that have been

concentrating their energies on gormandizing the fallen jumlums
will also be deceived by the false dawn. Reluctantly they will
abandon the few fruits they have been unable to force down their
throats and will make for the haven of the hillsides where they
will be left in peace, there to spend the hot hours of noontide
sound asleep in some cave or grassy hollow in the ground, or
perhaps beneath the shade of a gnarled old tree.

But we ourselves are not misled and hasten to take up our

positions before the short-lived glow lapses into pre-dawn
darkness. We should be in hiding if we are to hear the sloth bears’
approach and perhaps glimpse one of them in the light of the true
dawn when it breaks. It would never do to be surprised in the
murk of that short-lived twenty-minute interval.

The sloth bear shares with its relatives of all lands the evil
reputation of being irascible, excitable, resentful and aggressive
should one stumble upon him unexpectedly. Scores of jungle
dwellers in India carry horrible scars because they happened to
encounter a sloth bear coming round a corner or floundered upon
one sound asleep. Many have lost eyes and noses under their
raking talons.

This rock, which we have come upon, will suit our purpose
admirably. It is about four feet high by perhaps six long. Both of us
can crouch behind it and await the coming of a bear. It is, of
course, just a chance that may or may not come off, for after all
the bears have the whole jungle to roam in and there must be
many other paths and byways by which they could climb the
hillock without passing in this particular direction.
 We chance our luck and wait in silence for a few minutes,
hearing only our own breathing. Then the faint thud of a stone,
somewhere at the base of the hillock, raises our hopes. Only an
animal, generally clumsy in its habits or in search of the grubs
that hide under such stones, would have betrayed its presence by
making such a noise. Decidedly not a deer, for it would be afraid;
and certainly no tiger or panther would advertise its passing. The
other possibility might be an elephant. This we will know in a few
moments.

Now we can hear the sound of laboured breathing, as if some old

man is climbing the hillock with great difficulty. This removes
any doubt that a sloth bear is indeed approaching sniffing at holes
under the rocks and at the roots of bushes in search of grubs and
other succulent morsels.

The eastern sky is beginning to brighten with the approach of

the real dawn, but it is still dark behind the rock where we
crouch, when the bear reaches us. You are to my right, and the
bear is to the right of you, maybe ten feet away. I press your arm
tightly and you understand my unspoken signal to remain
motionless. It might not see us, for it is notoriously short-sighted.
It is also very deaf. It might attack should we betray our presence,
and we do not want to shoot it, for normally a bear does us no
harm.

The snorting and the grumbling, the huffing and snuffing pass.
All we can glimpse is a black blur against the bushes; then the
bear has disappeared as it ascends the hill and the sounds of its
progress grow fainter.

The dawn breaks apace and the sky to the east across the river
displays a pattern of ever-changing colour, starting from dark grey
and deep purple and trailing off into violet, green, blue, orange
and vermillion, till at length the sun’s rim rises above the jagged
heights of distant mountain peaks. Its diffused rays are not yet
bright enough to keep us from staring with unshielded eyes at that
glorious fiery ball.

In salute, birds large and small, far and near, burst into song.
The twittering of a hundred bulbuls, the call of the black-and-red
crow-pheasant, the cry of a brain-fever bird rising to crescendo,
fall upon our ears from the hillside, while from the heavy cover by
the river we hear the challenge of junglecocks, ‘Wheew! Kuck-
kya-kya-k’huckm,’ and the metallic notes of a far off peacock
‘Miaoo! Miaoo!’. We can imagine it with the glorious plumes of its
tail spread like a large fan, strutting and dancing before a bevy of
admiring hens.

Crack-a-a-ack! We hear the sound but once, rather faint but

quite unmistakable. Something heavy is coming up the hill,
perhaps another sloth bear, but I think not. Bears are continuously
noisy, while this animal, except for that initial accidental sound,
is otherwise, silent.

We crouch quietly behind the rock with just the tops of our
heads and eyes showing. To remain absolutely still is the first
secret of successful concealment in the jungle. Even if an animal
sees you, it will not be able to make you out provided you remain
absolutely motionless. The second factor, of course, is the
direction in which the wind is blowing. The sense of smell rather
than of sight is far more developed in most wild creatures,
particularly members of the deer family. Provided the wind is not
blowing directly from you to the quarry, and provided you remain
absolutely still, you have a good chance of ambushing practically
any animal successfully.

We put this to the test a moment later when the bushes before
us part with a faint rustle to reveal the head and shoulders of an
enormous sambar stag. His giant antlers are spread in perfect
symmetry, and he is near enough for us to see their gnarled
thickness, equal to your forearm, at the base.
 The stag is closer to us than the sloth bear was a moment
earlier, and directly in front, yet he does not see us. He hesitates
cautiously before advancing into the clear space on the other side
of the rock behind which we are hiding. Then he steps forth and
we see his massive body in all its grandeur.

He is an old animal, as revealed by his dark brown colour, the

shagginess of the mane around his neck, and the long coarse hair
on his flanks, which is not quite thick enough to cover completely
the skin on his sides. These factors and the massiveness of his
antlers indicate the stag’s advanced age.

Now I will show you how inquisitive a sambar can be. Plucking
a thick stem of grass at my side, I allow the plumed end to
protrude above the rock, while holding the stem between finger
and thumb. Then I begin to twirl it around and the effect on the
stag is instantaneous. Soundless and slight as is this movement, it
registers on those ever-watchful eyes. He stops abruptly, his two
large ears flicking forwards and backwards, and then forwards
again. Impatiently he raises his right leg bent at the knee-point,
and stamps it hard upon the ground. His hoof makes a metallic
click against a stone.

The stag repeats this action while staring harder than ever at
the stem of grass which I continue to revolve. All his suspicions
are aroused now as his instinct warns him that something strange
is going on. He has seen stems of grass many a time swaying in the
breeze. But never has he seen one twirling round and round!

We can read the stag’s thoughts behind those staring eyes.

Instinct alerts him and urges him to flee. But curiosity impels him
to find out more about the stem of grass that twirls around in such
a peculiar fashion. The sambar takes a step forward, hesitates for a
full minute, and then comes forward again. Every muscle in his
frame is taut, attuned to flee at a moment’s notice; but he just
cannot overcome his inquisitive urge.
 This natural inquisitiveness among the deer and antelope
families is the reason why thousands of them are slaughtered each
year by experienced poachers, who do just what I am doing at the
moment, or adopt some other trick to entice them to their doom.
The stag is so close now that he could be transfixed by a spear-
throw; and he is coming even closer! Clearly this foolish animal
must be taught a salutary lesson and I decide to give him the fright
of his life.

Springing up from behind the rock, I yell’ Wroff! Wrooff! Wrooff!’

at the top of my voice. To say that the stag is taken aback by this
sudden apparition of a human with a tiger’s voice describes the
situation mildly. He rears up on hind legs, slips on a stone, falls to
his knees, struggles erect and lets out a strident cry of danger.

‘Oo-onk!’ he screams.

Then he lays his antlers back along his sides so as not to get
them caught in the branches of trees, and crashes down the
hillside. So precipitate is his flight that we can follow his
movements by the rattle of displaced stones till he reaches the
shelter of the heavy forest beside the river. There the stag
evidently halts to see if he is being pursued, and resumes his
warning to all the jungle that danger and death lurk upon the
hillside.

‘Oo-onk! Dha-ank!’ he bellows, again and again.

The general excitement is taken up by the watchman of the

band of langur monkeys that have been feeding contentedly in the
jumlum -grove. We can just glimpse him from where we hide,
standing erect on two legs on a tree-top as he strives hard to catch
sight of the danger that the sambar has announced. Try as he may,
he cannot see us. Obviously he is puzzled and wants to identify
the nature of the foe. Then the big male langur decides he must do
his duty to his band and the other wild creatures at large by
joining in the alarm and passing on the warning.

‘Harr!’ he screams gutturally; and then a moment later, ‘Harr!

Harr-harr!’ in quick succession. The forest is disturbed in right
earnest now, and from the far side of the river a jungle-sheep,
about to quench his thirst, takes fright, scampers away and voices
his dog-like bark as he goes, ‘Kharr! Kharr! Kharr!’

A herd of spotted deer, grazing somewhere on the other side of

the hillock on whose slopes we are hiding, hears the commotion
and passes on the warning. ‘Aiow! Aiow! Aiow!’ call the hinds to
each other in quick succession. In the distance an elephant
trumpets shrilly.

The excitement dies down at length and we decide to resume

our early-morning prowl, for there is nothing to be gained by
continuing to hide. The sambar has made too great a commotion
for anything further to come our way.

Do you see that shrub with the tapering leaves resembling the
tea-plant that thrives only in higher altitudes? Many such bushes
grow all around. It is known as the ‘vellari’ plant. The leaves, in a
compress or poultice form are very useful in relieving rheumatic
pains and swellings of any sort. The five-pointed leaves of this
large tree, green above and silver-white below, produce excellent
effects when applied to raw wounds or a contusion; the silver-
white side is placed in contact with the troubled area. That little
plant that grows on the hard ground, barely a foot high, with the
silver-grey, almost spiked leaves, is said to be a remedy for
poisonous snakebites, and that other tiny plant with white, daisy-
like flower and the serrated leaves, is renowned for stopping
bleeding where the juice from the leaves is squeezed into a wound.
It also lowers high blood pressure in a patient as rapidly as can any
medicine prescribed by a doctor.
 Truly the jungle is filled with all manner of herbs and plants
whose leaves, stems, seeds, flowers and even roots are remedies for
most of the maladies from which the human race suffers. They
grow in the forests and also in civilized areas, even along the
railway track.

You must often have noticed the myriads of pink and white
flowers peeing out from among the green leaves of the common
Indian periwinkle shrub that thrives practically everywhere,
particularly on railway embankments. Forty leaves of this plant,
brewed like tea and drunk in a large cupful of water or milk every
day, stimulates the pancreas by helping the secretion of insulin,
thus controlling diabetes. But there are other roots and leaves that
are even more effective in treating this malady, one of them a
little creeper common in every jungle. It is known as the ‘sugar
killer’ because, after chewing only one leaf, sugar loses its
sweetness and tastes like sand in the mouth, this effect lasting for
about three hours.

But we are digressing and in the meanwhile have arrived at the

top of the hillock and begun our descent on the other side. We
must move cautiously now, for in places the going is steep, and
should one of us dislodge a stone or make some noise, the family of
spotted deer that has now stopped calling and that we hope to see
soon, will surely take alarm. Luckily the breeze is blowing up the
hill, so they will not scent us.

We reach the base of the hillock and tread our way around
bushes of thorn and lantana on tiptoe till we arrive at a grassy
glade. There, feeding placidly, is a herd of at least forty of the deer
we had hoped to find. Fortunately, none of the hinds on sentinel
duty have observed our approach and we stop just in time behind
a crop of young redwood trees.

The sight before us is magnificent. The stags are in the centre of

the group, antlers spread and tapering, as they toss their proud
heads and sniff the air before stooping to graze again. Around
them on all sides are the does and fawns, the former ever alert,
with ears cocked forwards and twitching to catch the faintest
sound. Now and then a head and neck dips quickly to earth to
grab a mouthful of grass or leaves, but is raised again quickly, ever
observant, always vigilant.

The fawns have no such responsibilities and death will strike

many of them down cruelly and suddenly, before the survivors
learn that the great secret of continued existence in the jungle is
to be ‘ever watchful at every moment; for death lurks
everywhere.’

They gambol and play among themselves, one chasing the other
round and round. A few of the very young members nuzzle up
against their mothers, slyly dipping their tiny heads under udders
hanging temptingly close, to sneak a drink of milk. The mothers in
turn stop their feeding now and again to lick their little offspring
affectionately, but never for a moment do they halt their close
scrutiny of the surrounding jungle for a possible foe. Their eyes
seem to stare in every direction, with ears strained forwards to
catch the slightest sound, and nostrils dilated to detect the
faintest scent of danger.

On a tree directly above the grazing deer is a small family of

langurs. Two of these jump to earth and playfully chase a spotted
fawn. Then one leaps back to a low branch where, hanging by its
legs, it grabs the fawn by the tail and half lifts if off the ground.
The fawn enjoys the game but its mother does not seem to
approve.

A scene apparently of utter peace, beauty and tranquillity. But

out of the corners of our eyes we notice the faintest of movements
beneath a large bush, well away to our left. We look harder at the
bush, but the movement has now ceased.
 A hind with her young fawn, grazing close to that bush, has
seen it too. She raises her head abruptly to stare hard, both ears
cocked forwards and muzzle aquiver. The she raises her right foot
to stamp the ground and voice the first syllable of her warning cry,
Aiow!’

But it is already too late. An elongated form, golden and spotted

in the rays of the early morning sun, springs from under that bush
and in two bounds reaches the little fawn. In the next second it is
dead, while the panther glowers and growls over the small
quivering body.

Then we witness a scene that is as touching as it is magnificent.

The fawn’s mother, forgetful of her own safety, rushes forward to
defend it. The panther leaves the little carcass and springs upon
the hind, seizing her throat and bearing her to the ground. Her
hoofs drum out their death-agony on the green grass, already
stained a deep red by the blood that flows from her torn throat.

I watch you as you raise your 10-shot Springfield to cover the

still growling panther, in order to exact what you feel is just
retribution for the murder that has just been done. But I stretch
out a hand to hold the muzzle and deflect your aim.

‘Don’t shoot, John! It’s the law of the jungle. The panther has
killed for food, not wantonly.’

The panther hears my voice, then sees us. In the next instant it
has vanished. But it will come back.
 2

The Bellundur Ogre

ELLUNDUR is a hamlet situated on the shoulder of a hill and

B about three miles from the village of Tagarthy, in the district
of Shimoga, in Mysore state.

For centuries this part of Mysore has been the home of tigers,
which had become so numerous as to have almost eliminated,
simply by devouring them, their lesser cousins, the more subtle
but far less powerful panthers that also, not long ago, roamed in
large numbers through the area. These lesser cats, as a matter of
fact, had created havoc in their time. Far bolder and more clever,
and more difficult to circumvent, they could hide themselves
better, being smaller than tigers; they haunted the precincts of
villages which they raided systematically each night after
sundown, carrying away fowls, dogs, goats, sheep and calves with
equal disdain and impartiality.

Humans they seldom harmed unless they were wounded, but on

those rare occasions when they were guilty of this crime, to exact
retribution against them was difficult because of the cover
afforded by the dense jungles of the area, well watered as they
were by heavy monsoon rains.

When my story opens, however, tigers were the ruling factor,

while in Bellundur lived a necromancer who was reputed for his
ability to provide charms and talismans of all sorts for all
purposes. These last were said to be particularly efficacious in
procuring a loved one, or contrarily, in ridding yourself of one
whom you did not love quite so well. They were also rumoured to
be very effective in securing a job that had been applied for or the
success of petition.
 Among his other abilities, this magician was far famed as
possessing the power, by charms and incantations, to ‘tie up’ the
jungle, so that any hunter operating in that area would meet with
total failure. The game would either not appear before his rifle; or
if they did, the rifle would not go off; or if it did go off, the bullet
would not strike the quarry even at a few yards’ range. I had met
this character some years ago, and have written about him in one
of my earlier stories. 1 Like most members of his calling, he
enjoyed a little flattery. Otherwise, I had found him quite friendly
and had found nothing wrong in his weakness. After all, we all
like to be flattered.

But the ‘Ogre of Bellundur,’ about which I am going to tell you,

began its career in more or less the usual way, as a very ordinary
and inoffensive tiger. Nothing was heard of it in its younger days.
Evidently it had confined its attentions to killing and eating
spotted deer, sambar and pig, which swarmed everywhere in those
times. Then the government began encouraging programmes of
cattle-rearing, and as rich pasturage abounded, herds of cattle
were introduced which multiplied into many thousands within a
short period, to the detriment of the wild deer and pig that
previously had grazed undisturbed.

‘The Ogre,’ as it came to be known later, now made its presence

felt by varying its taste for wild game with a liking for prime beef,
and this inclination grew rapidly to the exclusion of any other
kind of meat. It killed and it ate, and it ate and it killed, till it had
accounted for many herds of cattle and the villagers at last began
to feel that something should be done.

The Indian villager is a man of unbounded patience, an

attribute easier to understand if one observes his complete apathy,
his capacity for resignation and for accepting whatever misfortune
it may be the will of God to bestow upon him. So, when I tell you
that at last the villagers had had enough of this tiger and were
determined to put a stop to its depredations you will realize that
the Ogre had really gone too far. They decided to set a trap, catch
it and then kill it.

A deep rectangular hole was dug in the centre of a game trail;

the mouth was carefully concealed by thin interlaced bamboos
covered with leaves and twigs, and the bait, in the form of the
least valuable calf in the village, was tied to a stake at the farther
end of the rectangular pit. A direct approach to the bait from any
other direction except across the rectangular pit was made
impracticable for the tiger by a vast mass of thorns packed tightly
around it on both sides and beyond, leaving only the one approach
open.

Everything went according to plan and on the third night the

tiger fell into the pit.

The following morning all the inhabitants of Bellundur village

turned out, including the necromancer, to gloat over their
erstwhile enemy and throw firebrands at it, before putting it to
death by the simple but rather slow process of spearing it from
above. Evidently nobody had a gun, and the question of cruelty, of
course, did not occur to anybody. For was not this animal the tiger
which had killed and devoured so many of their cattle?
 Not only did the inhabitants of Bellundur have no guns, but
they did not appear to be very rich in spears either. I discovered
afterwards that just two people had spears, or articles that might
pass as such. One was a short affair, less than four feet long and
entirely blunt at the end. The description fitted more a crowbar
than a spear. The second was a true spear and belonged to the
local temple. It was reputed to have been used in a war two and a
half centuries ago, but was now as blunt as the aforementioned
crowbar, having been employed many times for digging yams out
of the earth. In any case, the shafts of both weapons were too
short to reach the tiger from the surface of the pit, but this
mattered little, as each of their owners was confident that, with a
single throw of his particular weapon, he could transfix and kill
the imprisoned beast.

Much argument is said to have arisen as to who should cast his

weapon first. Finally, but I do not know on what grounds, the
owner of the crowbar won the dispute. Taking careful aim, he
hurled his weapon; no sooner had it left his hand than its blunt
point was deflected and the side of the weapon rather than its
blunt point, struck the flank of the tiger with a dull thud.

As might have been expected, the tiger did not take lightly to
this form of treatment. It roared its defiance and glared up at its
tormentors. There was widespread tittering amongst the
assembled crowd as the second spear-man, after glancing
contemptuously at the crestfallen owner of the crowbar, prepared
to make his cast. The 250-year-old spear flew downwards to its
target, the blunt point embedding itself fairly in the tiger’s
hindquarters.

Now Bellundur was totally unarmed! And the Ogre lost its
temper. With a burst of unexpected energy, it sprang upwards to
the rim of the pit, groping with the talons of its forefeet. They
reached it, held and embedded themselves in the soft soil. The
hind feet, kicking the air madly, found purchase against the sides
of the pit and levered the beast upwards. And the next moment
the tiger was free, leaping out of the mouth of the pit like a demon
from hell, and far more dangerous.
 Just one of the crowd stood in its path to freedom; all the rest
had fled. The tiger leaped over the man before it, kicking
backwards with all four feet extended, and the claws of one of
those dreadful feet met the back of the man’s skull before he, in
turn, could gather his wits to run. It was only a glancing blow,
comparatively light considering the force that the tiger had put
into it, for if the paw had struck the head fully the skull would
have been smashed like an eggshell. As it was, the tips of the
claws caught in the skin at the back of the man’s neck, and the
weight of the tiger, as it leaped over the man’s head, did the rest.

Then the tiger had gone. The man fell where he had been
standing but he was quite alive. The whole of his scalp, removed
neatly from the bone, now hung over his face, the long hair
streaming down before him instead of behind. It took three days
for this man to die, for to the very last moment he lived in the
hope that his scalp could be put back. He was the Ogre’s first
victim although admittedly unintentionally so.

Naturally, with the healing of his wound, the tiger grew

cunning. Other baits were tied out for it with various forms of
traps, but they were studiously ignored. All its killings of cattle
thereafter were done in broad daylight, generally in the
afternoons while the herds were placidly resting after having
grazed all morning and their attendants were huddled asleep in
the shade of the bushes. Those who were awake or had been
awakened by the short cry of the stricken victim, at first
attempted to drive the Ogre off by shouting and throwing stones.
But the Ogre soon put a stop to such tactics by leaping upon one of
the graziers and mauling him severely. Strangely enough this man
made a complete recovery, though the lesson that had been given
was salutary enough. Thereafter, at sight or sound of the tiger all
herdsmen fled, leaving their charges to its mercy.

The situation at Bellundur went from bad to worse. Cattle

owners could no longer trust their animals to the forest for
grazing, but endeavoured to feed them at home, and this of course
cost a lot of money. Correspondingly, the tiger’s hunger grew as
the supply of Bellundur beef was cut down, so it extended the
range of its operations to include Tagarthy and some of the smaller
neighbouring hamlets. Its fame for daring as a cattle-lifter began
to spread far and wide.

That was how a gentleman, whom we shall call Mr Johnson,

came to hear about the tiger.

Johnson was an officer in railway service who had lately been

transferred to the area from some other part of India where tigers
did not exit. This made him very keen to attempt to bag the beast
that was the talk of the neighbourhood, and as he had a rifle he
made his way to Bellundur, which was only about seven miles
from the railway track, on the few days’ leave during which he
hoped to succeed. And this is where old Buddiah, the
necromancer, comes into my story.

Hearing that a white man had arrived and was making inquiries
about the tiger, Buddiah donned his ceremonial saffron robe,
plaited the long roll of filthy false hair that he kept for such
occasions in a coil around the crown of his head, smeared ashes
liberally across his forehead, which he further decorated with
vermilion marks of a religious significance, hung his chain of large
amber wooden beads around his neck, and holding his gnarled
walking-stick, blackened by being soaked in oil, in his hand,
presented himself before Johnson, offering his services, claiming
that they were absolutely indispensable if the white man wished
to succeed in shooting the tiger.

Now the situation was really very simple. To anyone of

moderate experience, it was obvious that old Buddiah was
endeavouring to earn a few rupees but more than that he was
taking the opportunity to impress his fellow villagers with his
greatness as a magician. He wanted them to feel that even a white
man had to come to him for help. If Johnson had used a little
psychology and common sense, he would have recognized these
things and given the old man a boost with a few rupees to humour
him. Instead, Johnson lost his temper, told the magician to get out
of his presence, and when Buddiah began to remonstrate
indignantly, made matters worse by threatening to break his neck!

So, the necromancer stalked away in fury: his prestige with the
villagers, which he had been endeavouring to enhance, had been
severely lessened by the white man’s words. He felt his
companions would laugh at him secretly, although he was still
confident that they feared him too much to do so openly.

The villagers, on the other hand, felt abashed. Although none of

them had any liking for Buddiah who had exploited them
systematically since childhood, he was, nevertheless, their own
magician. One of themselves. To be spoken to in such a fashion by
the white man, and to be threatened with a beating, reflected
scant respect for their magician and incidentally for themselves
and the village as a whole. Thus by his hasty words, Johnson had
made enemies all around instead of friends. The villagers left him
where he stood and refused to have anything more do with him.
Nor would anyone sell or hire him a bait to tie out for the tiger.

Being of a determined nature, Johnson made up his mind to

succeed in spite of the local noncooperation. He made his way
back to Tagarthy where, by exercising the tact he should have
displayed at Bellundur, he was able to buy two ancient bulls.
Engaging herdsmen, he had these two animals driven back to the
outskirts of Bellundur, where he tied each up in a nullah said to be
frequented by the tiger, or so he was told by the herdsmen he had
engaged; but as these men were from Tagarthy and not from
Bellundur, they did not know very much about the tiger’s
movements.
 The following morning Johnson and his herdsmen visited the
baits. One had disappeared. It certainly had not been taken by the
tiger, for there were no pug-marks to be seen in the sandy bed of
the nullah, which bore a number of human footprints instead.
Had these been made by his own men the previous day, or by
others? The other bait had not been touched.

Johnson rightly came to the conclusion that the villagers of

Bellundur had stolen his first bait. He stalked into the village with
a loaded rifle, demanded the return of the bull, and then
threatened to inform the police. To all of which the villagers
assumed an air of injured innocence. They maintained that the
human footprints he had seen in the sandy ravine were those of
his own men when they had tied the bait and asked him to prove
otherwise. To Johnson’s dire threats to shoot the thieves, the
yokels turned a deaf ear and smiled.

Fearing the second bait would also disappear, Johnson ordered

his two men to construct a machan over it, in which he sat that
same afternoon, perhaps more to protect his bait from being
robbed than in the serious hope of bagging the tiger. But the
unexpected happened. I am told the tiger turned up while it was
still daylight. Johnson fired, succeeding only in wounding the
animal, which got away.

Throughout the next week, Johnson, with commendable

determination, scoured the jungles in search of the tiger. No one
came forward to assist him; even his two henchmen refused to
accompany him on the plea that it was too dangerous. Unaided,
the white man lost his way on one occasion and was compelled to
spend the night in the forest. In the end, bitterly disappointed,
Johnson had to return to duty without bagging his tiger.

Everything was quiet for some time after that. The Ogre did not
show up and the villagers of Bellundur had to admit that, in spite
of their best efforts at noncooperation, the sahib had rid them of
the pest that had been exacting such a heavy toll of their cattle.
Buddiah, the magician, was more aggrieved than ever. He saw his
pride and reputation at a still lower ebb, for he had announced
boastfully that the sahib would not or could not shoot the tiger;
he had done so nevertheless and had rid Bellundur of the hated
cattle-lifter.

So the cattle were driven out to the jungles once again each day
for grazing. That is, until the inevitable happened!

Early one afternoon a herd rushed pell-mell back to the village

minus one of its members—and minus the nineteen-year-old youth
who had gone out with the animals that morning to graze them.
Nobody worried about the matter till nightfall. Then the relatives
of the boy grew a little anxious about him, while the owner of the
missing cow grew far more anxious about his valuable animal. A
search the next morning revealed the cow lying dead: her neck
had been neatly broken by a large tiger whose pug-marks were
clearly to be seen in the field where she had been struck down. A
hundred yards away, hidden under a bush, was the body of the
missing youth.

There was, however, this difference between the two carcases:

the cow had not been eaten, while rather more than half of the
youth’s body had been devoured by the tiger. The familiar pattern
had appeared once more: an innocent tiger had been turned into a
man-eater through being wounded and left to fend for itself.

Tragedy succeeded tragedy after that and the pattern of events

was repeated. The people of Bellundur locked themselves in their
huts at sundown while the cattle were kept starving in their pens.
Old Buddiah’s prestige was at its lowest ebb.

Lack of human prey drove the tiger into extending his

operations towards Tagarthy and more distant villages, and that
was when the beast began to be referred to as ‘The Ogre,’ a name
that was whispered with bated breath behind locked doors and
only during daylight hours. Otherwise it would surely hear and
bring dreadful vengeance upon the man who dared refer to the
creature as a tiger.

After darkness the Ogre was about! It roamed everywhere and a

man was not safe even in a locked room. The Ogre, or one of its
spies, an evil spirit of the air in the form of a bat or an owl, or one
of the many devils that lived in the jungle, might hear what was
being said and carry words to the dreaded man-eater.

Then the man who had spoken against it was indeed undone! It
would be only a matter of time before the Ogre exacted a terrible
revenge. His fate was sealed and there was no means of escape.
That was the universal opinion.

At this stage my old friend, Doctor Stanley, the medical officer

of Tagarthy village, wrote a long letter to me and related this
story, inviting me to join him in an attempt to end the Ogre’s
career. This doctor, who owned only a .12 bore shotgun and no
rifle, had shot many tigers himself in his younger days, paralleling
Dick Bird, the Postmaster of Santaveri, whom I have mentioned in
another story. Now that he had grown older, he felt that his rather
antiquated gun, although still a trusty weapon, might not be quite
up to the mark for a man-eater.

I met him three days later in the front room of his dispensary-
cum-hospital, after motoring to Tagarthy in my Studebaker. The
first thing he insisted upon was a tremendous meal, with gallons
of tea, after which, over clouds of pipe-smoke, we discussed ‘old
times’ for about three hours. Generally long-suffering by nature,
at times I become impatient; finally I reminded the good doctor
that there was a job of work to be done. Obviously the first step
was to visit Bellundur and pick up the trail from there.
 The Studebaker had a hard time to reach this village. The track,
which was always bad, had become really terrible after the last
rains. The doctor, who sat next to me, said we should have
walked. Having reached Bellundur at last, I set about undoing, as
far as possible, some of the mischief that had been done by the
tactless Johnson. I called upon Buddiah, who was sulking in his
hut, asked him to don his ceremonial robes and make pooja for me
and repeat all the mantras he knew, to enable me to succeed in
shooting the man-eater, presenting him with ten rupees to cover
incidental expenses.

He brightened up at once. In no time at all he stalked out into

the marketplace, all dressed up for the occasion, where the first
thing he did was to demand another five rupees from me to cover
the cost of a black fowl and a bottle of the local spirit called
‘arrack.’ The fowl was to be killed, cooked and eaten by him,
presumably to placate the spirits of the jungle, and the arrack was
to be drunk, also by Buddiah, presumably for the same purpose.
The old man declared that only thereafter would he be in a proper
condition to utter the mantras that would lead to the downfall of
the man-eater. Dr Stanley and I, knowing what state that would
be, pretended hearty agreement.

I handed over the money and resigned myself to a further delay

of another hour at least, which would be the shortest possible time
for the cock to be half-cooked while Buddiah had conditioned
himself with arrack for saying his mantras. But the old man, and
the villagers of Bellundur especially, had to be humoured if the
damage done by Johnson was to be repaired.

The doctor and I chatted while the unfortunate black cock was
procured, slaughtered before our eyes, parboiled into a curry and
then devoured by the greedy old necromancer. With scarcely an
interval he proceeded to empty the bottle of arrack by the simple
process of applying the neck to his mouth and pouring the
contents down his throat. Why he did not choke in the process
amazed me.

This done, the magician staggered to his feet. He was dead

drunk and could hardly stand erect. With bloodshot eyes and an
inane smile, he produced what looked like a bracelet of twisted
and dried jungle vines from a filthy cloth-bag that he brought out
from somewhere on his person. Asking for my rifle, he proceeded
to pass this bracelet over the end of the muzzle and down the
length of the barrel three or four times. He was so drunk that he
missed his aim once or twice, but I was able to rectify the error
unostentatiously by quickly guiding the end of the barrel so as to
allow it to be encircled by the bracelet.

That was the end of the mantra. The tiger’s doom was sealed! It
would fall to my rifle! The spirits of the jungle, in the person of old
Buddiah, had eaten and drunk well. The crowd of villagers, who
had been watching every detail while they stood around us in a
circle, breathed this assurance loudly. In any case the mantra,
together with their assurances, ended just in time, for the next
moment old Buddiah fell to earth as if pole-axed.

The important thing was that good feeling had been restored.
Buddiah’s prestige was up again, as was that of the villagers and of
Bellundur village itself. Dr Stanley and I were smiled upon as
‘good fellows,’ while the activities of the Ogre were momentarily
eclipsed. Just then it was no more than an ordinary tiger, waiting
to be shot.

It was now dark, and the trip back to Tagarthy in the

Studebaker was a nightmare. We made it, however, without any
broken axles or springs, but resolved that henceforth we would
walk there and back rather than risk a breakdown, which would
be inevitable if we tempted fate too much.
 Stanley procured two baits at Tagarthy, which we duly tied out
the next day at suitable points near the track to Bellundur, for you
will remember that I told you that the tiger was by this time,
operating throughout the area. After lunch we walked the seven
miles to that village, and we were able there, without any
difficulty, to procure another three animals as additional baits.
Obviously the little show we had organized with Buddiah the
previous evening had had its good effects. These baits were tied
out at points which the villagers informed us were often visited by
the Ogre.

Time was against us, however, and we were in too much of a

hurry to be able to set up a machan above any one of the five baits
we had laid that day. This is against my usual practice of
constructing a machan first and tying the bait in full view of it
afterwards, which has two advantages. Firstly a ‘kill,’ if it occurs,
is in proper view of the machan and does not have to be shifted.
Secondly, no noise is made in building the machan, which would
be inevitable if the ‘kill’ occurs first. Such sounds may arouse the
suspicion of the tiger if it is lying up or otherwise lurking within
hearing.

It was again pitch-dark when we walked back to Tagarthy,

keeping a sharp lookout with our torches against a surprise attack
by the man-eater, but the only animal we encountered was a
pangolin foraging amongst the dead leaves, out much earlier than
usual for these creatures.

None of the five baits we had tied out was touched that night,
but late in the morning of the third day, a man came running to
the doctor’s dispensary to announce that his cousin had been
taken by the tiger. The victim and his wife, together with our
informant and his wife, lived in two huts constructed side by side
and only a short mile away along the track to Bellundur. The sun
was at meridian when this cousin, who was returning from a visit
to Tagarthy for provisions, came into full view of the other three
members of the little community, gathered before their huts and
were chatting together. They had been about to call out to him
when he had screamed loudly and then vanished into thin air.

Our informant stated he had then grabbed his axe and set out to
see what was the matter, accompanied by his cousin’s wife,
wringing her hands and lamenting aloud. The thought of the man-
eater had never occurred to them. Rather they suspected that an
evil spirit from the forest had done away with their companion.

Reaching the spot where the man had disappeared, they were
terrified to find the pug-marks of a tiger in the soft sand of the
trail. Prevented by fear from going farther, they were about to turn
back when the wails of the woman, which had now increased in
volume, annoyed the man-eater who had just begun to taste his
victim not far away. The tiger growled fiercely, whereupon both
the man and the victim’s wife fled. Stopping long enough to
enable the two women to lock themselves into one of the huts, the
man had come running to Tagarthy by a round-about route to
inform the doctor and me of what had happened. The Ogre would
be there still, he affirmed, feasting upon his cousin, if only we had
the courage to come at once and shoot it.

Grabbing rifle, torch and warm coat, I set out at a jog trot with
our informant, Stanley bringing with him the .12 bore gun and
another torch. I was younger in those days than I am now, and the
doctor younger still, so that we reached the two huts in fairly good
shape, if a bit breathless. Minutes later, with the man in the
middle, Stanley to the left of him and me to the right, we
approached the place where the tragedy had taken place,
determined to flush the man-eater on its kill.

The tiger sensed we were coming long before we knew where it

was, for we heard no sounds of eating or the breaking of bones. As
likely as not it had seen our arrival at the two huts, which were,
as I have said, in full view of the spot where the Ogre had seized
its victim.

When we were quite close, the man-eater began to growl, and

its protests grew to hideous volume. Clearly, it was bent upon
driving us away. If we beat a retreat now, while the going was
good, all would be well. But if we continued to advance, it would
either rush at us, or its courage might fail at the last moment, it
would then run away.

We hesitated only a second before Stanley and I nodded to each

other. With my left arm I thrust back the man who had called us,
motioning to him with my hand to go away. Then we advanced,
shoulder to shoulder. We could not see the tiger yet. Roar followed
upon roar, and the bushes in front of us shook violently. We
stopped, gun and rifle to respective shoulders, awaiting the
onslaught that was inevitable.

It never came! At the last moment the man-eater shirked the

encounter! It was accustomed to chasing and killing men. Never
before had human beings deliberately followed and approached it.
With a final shattering roar, the tiger sprang away from the spot
and I was just able to catch a fleeting glimpse of a reddish-brown
form hurtling into a bush; then it disappeared. I could have fired.
Why I did not do so I just cannot say, but I was to regret my
mistake.

The tiger must have been really hungry, for we discovered it had
made the most of its opportunity by devouring over half its victim,
leaving only the head, arms, legs and a few ribs uneaten. Stanley
and I did not speak to each other. We were both experienced
enough to know that the human voice carries a long way. Instead,
I looked about to see if there were any possible places to conceal
myself and await the man-eater’s return should it decide to come
back to finish what scraps were left.
 But the Ogre put an end to my reflections by its next action, as
unexpected as it was sudden. It might have been hunger or natural
ill nature, or maybe the fact that as it fled it saw only two humans
and not a crowd, had dared to follow. Anyway, this extraordinary
animal stopped in its tracks, turned about and started to come for
us, roaring louder as it approached. The ground literally shook
with the intensity of the sound, while its ever-increasing volume
indicated that the tiger was getting dangerously close. You must
bear in mind that all this time we could not see the beast for it
was hidden by the bushes. What we could see was the bushes
shaking violently as it came closer and closer.

What was happening just goes to indicate the axiom I have so

often repeated in my earlier stories. There are no fixed rules in the
jungle and no two animals are alike. Like us they are individuals;
they react differently under different circumstances and the
unexpected often occurs.

Standing shoulder to shoulder once more, the doctor and I

turned to face the man-eater, which was making things easy for us
and solving the problem by attacking. In another minute the tiger
would have to show itself and then all would be over.

But the minute never came! For the Ogre was wily beyond
expectation. At the last moment it changed its mind once more
and began to circle us and the remains of its meal without
showing itself, still snarling and roaring for all it was worth. The
animal’s tactics were now clear. Again its courage failed when it
had been about to press home its attack. Now its intention was to
drive us away with the noise it was making.

Then I had an idea. Its success depended on just how observant

the tiger had been, how persistent was its memory, and how alert
its instinct. It had seen the two of us approaching. That much was
evident. Now if one of us went away and the other hid in the grass
somewhere near the remains of the victim, would the tiger be
aware of the fact? Would it think the coast was clear and return to
its meal? Would it be tempted to follow and attack the one who
was retreating? Would it see through the trick we were trying to
play by stalking whichever one of us had remained behind and
leaping upon that one from the rear?

There were too many imponderables in the situation and I

confess I did not like them at all. Moreover, the doctor was armed
only with a shotgun. If I suggested that he should go back and
leave me behind, it was possible the tiger might decide to stalk
him, when Stanley would be at a decided disadvantage.
Alternatively, if I left the doctor behind and walked away myself
and the man-eater decided to attack him instead of me, the same
disadvantage would be there. As a last resource, I could offer the
doctor my rifle and take his gun.

Frankly, I did not relish that last solution. I was accustomed to

my .405 in emergencies. No doubt Stanley had the same feelings
for his shotgun. If we exchanged weapons we would both be
unfamiliar with the firearm each of us was handling, and a
shotgun, moreover, was hardly suitable for a meeting with a man-
eater.

Evidently these very thoughts were passing through Stanley’s

mind and he solved the problem for me by whispering to me to
hide while he would go away. Without speaking, I thrust my rifle
towards him and reached for his shotgun, but Stanley turned it
way from me, motioning impatiently towards the bushes for me to
hide.

The tiger was creeping about now, circling our position and
continuing to snarl and roar alternately. A single bush, not more
than four feet high, grew about thirty feet or so away, its base
hidden by the usual carpet of grass and greenery. There was no
other large tree or rock that offered shelter. I tiptoed to the bush
and took up my position behind it, crouching on the ground with
my weapon ready. We waited till the tiger had reached a point
that was opposite the direction in which the doctor would have to
go to regain the track leading towards the two huts. Then I
motioned to him to get away quickly.

With the purpose of letting the man-eater know that he was

departing and that the coast would be clear to return to the meal,
Stanley coughed slightly and began to talk to himself as he began
to back slowly towards the track. I watched him looking intently
in the direction where the man-eater was still demonstrating, his
.12 bore gun ready for instant action should the animal charge.

But Stanley had made a mistake by talking. Instead of returning

to its kill now that the coast was clear, as the doctor had hoped,
this most unusual animal did the unexpected thing once again.
Circling the scant clearing in which the remains of its victim
reposed, and incidentally myself, the tiger began to follow the
departing doctor. Worse still, it stopped roaring and snarling.
Clearly, the man-eater now meant business. Whatever the Ogre
was doing at that moment, or intended to do at the next, was to
be done in silence. Stanley, already handicapped with only a
shotgun, was going to be still further handicapped by not knowing
from which direction the man-eater would attack him.

This thought worried me. It was hard to sit idly behind a bush
while my friend’s life might at that moment be in great danger.
Without weighing the consequences I decided to creep after the
tiger. No greater folly could have been committed than by my
action at that moment, and I will tell you why.

Try to imagine the doctor stepping backward, a foot at a time

with his shotgun loaded in both barrels ready for instant use
pointed towards where he thinks the tiger is, creeping upon him
unseen and in silence. He does not know that I have left my
shelter in the bush and am following him and the tiger. Then put
yourself in the tiger’s place, your composure now regained after
any exhibition of bad temper. You move softly and silently, bent
upon putting an end to this interfering human being who has
dared to follow you. At the same time, you are aware that you are
close enough for a final spring, but instinct warns you that to do
so will court disaster. And you do not know that a second human
being is following you. Behind them both am I, creeping forward
with equally great caution, my Winchester cocked and ready for
use at the first glimpse of the tiger. But I cannot see it, nor Stanley.
All I can hear is the faint rustle of a bush here and there before
me, as either Stanley or the tiger brushes against it despite their
caution. Finally, do not forget that the distance between the
doctor and myself cannot be more than forty or fifty yards now,
with the tiger somewhere in between.

If only that tiger had had a little reasoning power, what fun it
could have had that day! All it had to do was to conceal itself and
then mimic the sound of a charging tiger by roaring ‘Wroof! Wroof!
Wroof!’ Stanley and I would have opened fire. One or the other
would have shot his companion. Perhaps with a spot of luck—or
bad luck—we might have shot each other. I would have made
more tender eating in those days than now! So would the doctor,
even if he smelled faintly of iodoform! And what headlines for the
newspapers! ’ Shikaris after man-eater shoot each other! Man-
eater eats both!’

So intent was I on following the tiger that all this did not dawn
upon me at the time. The man-eater, unaware of being followed,
kept steadfastly after Stanley; while the doctor, naturally worried
by the silence that had succeeded the tiger’s threatening roars,
except for a faint and furtive rustling now and again as the tiger
came after him, was wondering if he would reach the track to the
huts before the attack came.

Then things happened! The doctor! The doctor reached the

track. The tiger broke the silence with a shattering roar! Seeing
nothing but hearing everything, I did not know right away
whether the man-eater was launching its attack upon the doctor
or myself. The doctor fired, and slugs from his gun spattered
through the undergrowth uncomfortably close to me. The tiger,
frightened by the sound, lost its nerve, turned, and dashed past me
at full gallop. I saw the tiger coming, threw the rifle to my
shoulder, and pressed the trigger at almost point-black range.

Stanley told me a few minutes later that my bullet whizzed past

his head within inches. The only thing that kept it from parting
his hair, he affirmed, was that he was bald! Inadvertently the Ogre
had almost succeeded in accomplishing what it had been unable
to do by the power of reasoning. The doctor and I had narrowly
escaped shooting each other.

We still had hopes, however. We both had considerable hunting

experience. Both had been ready to fire when we had actually
pressed our triggers. Both had fired at point-blank range. The tiger
must be lying mortally wounded close by, perhaps it was even
dead. One of us must have wounded it at least. In the excitement,
we overlooked the fact that I had heard the slugs from Stanley’s
gun, while he had heard my bullet.

So we searched far and wide, but not a speck of blood did we

come across. Of dead or wounded tiger there was neither sight nor
sound! Then it dawned upon us. Hard though it was to admit, the
truth stuck out a mile. We had both missed, although the Ogre had
met us almost face to face. Stanley looked woebegone. I do not
know what I looked like; but I know what I felt like!

We made our way in silence back to the huts, where to the man
and the two women still hiding there we confided all that had
happened. We were half a furlong from Tagarthy before my mind,
numbed with disappointment, started to function again.

Normally a tiger, after being fired upon, avoids the place where
that had happened for a long time. This tiger, it should be
remembered, had been fired upon not once, but twice! Therefore,
by all the rules, it should leave the neighbourhood and not appear
there again. But was there just a small chance to the contrary?
The Ogre had already shown itself to be of a most unusual
disposition on two occasions. It fled and then turned and crept
back again. And it had deliberately followed Stanley when the
way was clear to return to its kill. Would it once again display its
singular nature by returning to a place where, at least instinct
must tell it, it had suffered two narrow escapes? The chances were
99 per cent against. That left a one per cent chance that the tiger
might return!

I halted in my tracks as the thought came to me. The doctor

stopped also, wondering what was the matter. I told him. Stanley
frowned and puckered his forehead in thought. Then he shook his
head. But he was too much of a hunter himself not to realize the
chance was one that could not, must not, be missed. So we
retraced our steps to the huts.

The man and the two women, now all locked together in one of
the huts for mutual safety, were surprised at our early return.
When we told them why we had come, they were really pleased.
But they were honest enough to say they did not think we had any
chance of success. It was the man’s opinion that the tiger would be
many miles away by now.

Stanley and I retraced our steps to the place where the remains
of the man-eater’s victim lay strewn about, exercising extreme
caution while negotiating the patch of jungle through which the
doctor, the tiger and I had played our strange game of hide-and-
seek. There was neither sight nor sound of our quarry.

A strange mixture of relief and disappointment filled us, relief

that the Ogre had not launched another attack and
disappointment at the feeling that it might never return.
 My earlier survey of the possibilities of concealment, although
made in such a hurry, had about summed up the chances
accurately. Apart from the four-foot-high bush where I had stood
while the doctor retreated there was no other place in which to
conceal myself. Hiding behind that bush in daylight for a man-
eater, as I had done already, was one thing; but remaining there
after darkness was quite another. The tiger, with its ability to see
at night, would spot me immediately as it approached what was
left of its victim from any angle other than directly opposite the
bush behind which I would be hiding, while for me to see it would
be impossible. Further, should it indeed return in spite of being
shot at twice only a few hours earlier, the man-eater would
undoubtedly make an extremely cautious approach and I would
not be able to hear it. Lastly, there was no possibility of erecting
any sort of shelter behind that scanty bush that would not
immediately betray my presence.

What could I do? I was reluctant to forgo that tiny possibility of

the man-eater’s return. To commit suicide, and that too in a most
painful manner in the jaws of the tiger, I was still more reluctant.

There seemed no solution as we thought about the matter

without speaking, till suddenly the doctor had a brainwave.
Would it not be possible, with the help of the man and the two
women in the near-by huts, to dig a narrow hole just where the
human remains were scattered? He would hide in the hole which
would be wide and deep enough to conceal him, wait until the
tiger returned, and shoot it at point-black range.

Several obstacles to the execution of this plan presented

themselves. Firstly, the tiger might discover the hole and shy
away; worse still, the tiger might decide to investigate it.
Secondly, admitting that the man-in-the-hole was hidden from
the tiger, the tiger was equally hidden from the man-in-the-hole,
who would necessarily have to stand erect to be able to shoot the
beast, during which process the latter would surely spot him when
he appeared, as it would seem, out of the very ground. When that
happened, the tiger would be frightened, yes; but it would also be
decidedly annoyed. What transpired after that would depend upon
which of the aforementioned reflexes gained the upper hand.

Well, there was no use thinking further about it. The chance,
and the risk would have to be taken or the whole plan dropped.
Time was passing and it was now after 3 p.m. We would have to
work fast. We hurried back to the huts, where the inmates gladly
volunteered to help us, but stated they had no implements of any
sort to dig with. The doctor, who in his capacity of village medico
wielded much influence,

solved this by returning to Tagarthy at the double, from whence

he came back in an incredibly short time with six helpers, two
with pickaxes, two with crowbars, and two with large baskets in
which to remove all traces of the earth we dug out. With the three
earlier helpers and ourselves, the eleven of us set to work, with the
result that astonishingly soon the hole had been dug and all traces
of loose earth removed and thrown far away.

I knew that as the father of the plan, Stanley had prepared the
hole to sit in it himself. I also knew that no amount of persuasion
would dissuade him. If I tried to tell him that his shotgun was not
an effective weapon against so dangerous a quarry, he would reply
that it was just the right thing at such close range. Nor would I be
able to gainsay the truth of his assertions as, in reality, at point-
blank range a .12 bore gun has its merits. So I resigned myself to
inactivity for once by spending the night at Tagarthy.

Our helpers were just gathering their tools together, prior to

departing with me, when Dame Fortune once again took a hand in
this strange adventure. Two men burst upon us, having run all the
way from Tagarthy in search of the doctor. One was the village
patel, quite a young man for such a responsible post; the other was
his servant. The patel announced that his wife, who was heavily
pregnant, had slipped and fallen while carrying her pot of water
from the well. She had aborted and was bleeding profusely. The
doctor must come at once.

While he was still speaking, the young man summed up , the

position and realized that Stanley was preparing to sit up for the
tiger. So to make his summons more forceful, he started lamenting
aloud that the doctor, as his best friend, must come to his aid at
once to save his wife’s life, while in the same breath he denounced
the woman as a stubborn

wench. How often had he told her not to carry weights,

particularly the water pot from the well. Was he not the village
patel ? Did he not have servants enough for this task? Yet in her
wilfulness she would never listen to him. Now this was the result.
And never mind the tiger; was his wife’s life not far more
important?

Stanley looked at me, chagrin written large upon his face. Then
he gripped my arm tightly, affectionately.

‘Good luck, Andy,’ he muttered, ‘and be careful, please. Would

you like to use my gun?’

‘Thanks, doc,’ I replied, ‘you know how it is. Old Winny will do
the trick.’

In another minute Stanley and the other members of the group,

which had grown to twelve, were lost to sight. I was alone with
the remains of the dead man.

Dusk was fast approaching and there was not a moment to be

lost as I slipped into the hole we had prepared, to squat at the
bottom and look upwards at a circle of sky above my head. By
canting my Winchester, loaded and cocked, at an angle with the
butt against my right thigh and the foresight-guard leaning
against the wall of the hold opposite me, we had made sure, by
means of measuring Stanley’s .12 bore gun in just a position, that
the end of the muzzle would not be visible above ground level.

In the excitement and hurry of forming and executing what I

now began to realize was a rather insane plan, we had overlooked
the fact that it would be terribly hot inside the hole. The earth
around had been exposed to the sun’s rays all day, no air could
enter, and with my body in close proximity to the sides of the
cavity, air could not circulate anywhere. I soon began to perspire
profusely.

Fortunately in those days there were no wild elephants around

Tagarthy or, for that matter, in any of the districts to the
northwest of Mysore state. Those were the times when tigers
roamed in hundreds, but things have now changed and carnivora
are scarce, but ‘jumbo’ in his wild state has extended his
wanderings into those jungles and herds of elephants have now
made their home there, where once there were none.

I remember that it was almost deathly silent inside the hole and
I could scarcely hear the roosting calls of peafowl, junglecocks and
other birds as they settled down for the night. To hope to hear the
man-eater’s arrival by any faint sound that it might make was out
of the question. I would only be able to hear it if it roared or
snarled nearby, and the Ogre was hardly likely to do that—or so at
least I thought till I recollected that the tiger had in fact done just
that only a few hours earlier. How I hoped it would repeat its
performance rather than decide upon a silent approach!

It was almost dark when the circle of sky above my head was
crossed by an elongated black form that passed silently by. A
nightjar, with wings outstretched, had flown low over the spot,
evidently to investigate the possibility of devouring the insects
that were already assembling to feed upon the exposed flesh that
hung in shreds from the human bones and devoured portions of the
carcase of the tiger’s unfortunate victim. I could hear the
bluebottles as they buzzed across the opening above my head to
settle on the mess, while the stench of decaying flesh, increased by
the sun’s rays in which it had been baking all day, seemed to cling
to the ground and flow into the hole as an invisible, nauseating
liquid.

Would the tiger come? Would it start eating right away? Or

would it know that something unusual was afoot? It might have
been watching us from the cover of some distant bush. It might
even know, at that very moment, that one of its hated foes, a
man, had gone into hiding somewhere in the ground. Now would
be an excellent opportunity for the tiger to unearth and devour
that enemy. The thought was not a very bracing one!

Where there had been an oval of sky above, two stars now
twinkled down upon me and I knew that night had fallen. They
seemed so serene and peaceful up there, oblivious to my
predicament down in the hole. My thoughts focused upon them
and I wondered at what other tragedies, taking place at that
moment in other remote corners of the earth, they also twinkled
upon so impartially.

The next moment the two stars seemed to become endowed

with a baleful significance. They turned into two cruel eyes that
glowered down upon me in hostile anticipation. Of what?

I forced myself to cast off this depressing idea and to think of

something else. It is amazing what strange and often irrelevant
thoughts come to one when in danger, as I was then. Perhaps this
is nature’s way of providing protection from panic. I wondered if
Stanley would be able to save the life of the patel’s wife.

That was when I first heard the sound: faint but distinctly
heavy breathing.

It must be the tiger! It had located me and was creeping upon its
stomach to get close enough to pull me out of my hiding place.
Involuntarily, my hand reached towards the rifle. The touch of
metal and wood, warm like everything else in that wretched pit,
was very comforting to my nerves.

The sound ceased for a while. Then I heard a sudden, loud hiss,
followed by silence again. Could this be a passing panther?

I have already mentioned that panthers were scarce in this area

as the tigers had driven them out simply by devouring them.
Nevertheless, there were one or two to be found here and there,
and it was possible that an odd member had happened to be
passing and had stumbled upon the exposed kill, creeping forward
to snatch a mouthful. The heavy breathing and the hissing sound
could certainly have been made by a panther, bent upon stealing
from the tiger’s kill.

I did not hear anything more for quite a long time. Then came a
dull, scraping sound, as of something gliding over the ground
above my head. Could a large snake be the cause? A hamadryad?
There were quite a number of them to be found in these forests,
where the vegetation and jungles were of the ‘wet’ variety, unlike
the forests farther south.

Silence followed, while I strained my ears to pick up the faintest

of sounds, and my eyes stared upwards at the faint light of the
hole above me till they ached. The two stars still twinkled down
upon me, but whether in disdain or mockery I did not know. I saw
that they had shifted farther towards the edge of the circle above
me and would soon disappear from view, indicating that time had
passed since I had first observed them. I would miss their company
and then would really be alone. Would their place be taken by
other stars, I wondered?

This thought was still in my mind when at last the heavy

silence was broken. There was a loud crack and the man-eater
began to gnaw the bone it had just broken.
 The noise made by a feeding tiger indicates its mood. Generally
it is one of great contentment, and the sounds of mastication,
gnawing, chewing and the tearing and rending of flesh follow one
another as the feast progresses. Should there be a second tiger
present, or the killer be a tigress with cubs, there is a lot of
growling and wrangling, accompanied by threatening snarls when
the other tiger, or a cub, approaches too closely. For despite the
ties of mother love, which are considerable—and instances have
been known where a tigress has sacrificed her life for her cubs—
when it comes to eating, instinct seems to tell a feasting tigress
that food is something not to be shared too soon, and to urge her
to eat her fill before allowing her companion, mate or even her
cubs to approach and eat what may be left.

The tiger above me began to growl. I knew then that it could

not be alone. Perhaps there were cubs, perhaps another tiger,
accompanying the man-eater. The situation was decidedly
complicated and more than what I had bargained for. None of us
had considered this possibility earlier in the evening, when this
sitting-in-the-hole idea had occurred to Stanley.

I thought hard what to do next. Obviously, in order to take a

shot at the tiger, I would have to locate it first by peeping over the
edge of the hole and then by drawing the rifle right out of the hole
and placing it on the ground outside so as to take aim. All this
would entail considerable movement; I might even make a sound
of some sort; the rifle might knock against the ground. The feeding
animal would hear me and attack before I could free my weapon.
There might be a slight hope of escaping the tiger’s attention
should he, or she, happen luckily to be facing the other way.

But there was a second tiger present. Even cubs could give the
game away if they saw my head and shoulders, followed by my
rifle, emerging from the ground. It was certainly straining
imagination and luck too far to hope that all the animals above
me would have their backs to me and be looking in the wrong
direction. And if there should be two tigers above me, which of
them was the man-eater? A silly question, that: obviously the one
that was eating. But had both developed the man-eating habit, or
only one? I must not kill the wrong tiger. Therefore, I must shoot
both to take no chances.

The alternative course of action was to sit in silence in the hole,

allow the animals to finish their meal and afterwards go about
their business, then call it a day. But I had come here to shoot the
man-eater; not to hide from it. I thought of the man it had killed
and was now eating. What would Stanley and the villagers say of
me when they came in the morning to find the ground covered
with tiger pug-marks, the scraps of the man otherwise completely
devoured, and me hiding in the hole?

Well, here goes, I said to myself, and a millimetre at a time, if

such slow movement can in truth be possible, I began to position
my feet so as to support me. Then slowly, very, very slowly, I
started to raise myself, to bring my head to ground level. This in
itself, took a long time, for I had to avoid making the slightest
sound, and my thighs and legs were cramped from squatting so
long on my haunches. The tiger continued feeding, growling and
snarling now and again to keep the other tiger, or perhaps the
cubs, away.

At last I was on my knees and toes and I stretched my two hands

downwards to help support my weight on my outstretched fingers.
Then very slowly, I began to raise myself.

Time had passed, and the strain on my hands and legs began to
tell. But I must not hurry. Even now, as my ears came closer to the
surface above, the tiger’s growls grew stronger. I began to be
frightened.

My hands were beginning to tremble with the sustained strain of

supporting my weight, when I sensed that the top of my head must
have reached about ground level. I could not delay longer, for the
tiger or tigers would be able to see me should they be looking in
my direction, whilst I would not be able to see them. I therefore
quickly raised my head, until my eyes were level with the earth.

A terrifying sight confronted me. Luckily, through sitting in the

darkness of the hole for so long, my eyes had grown accustomed to
the gloom, so that I could see, only a few feet away, and lying
broadside on, the enormous form of a tiger extended on its belly,
chewing some part of the victim which it was holding between its
front paws. Worse still, there was another form, also at full
stretch, slightly farther away from me and a few feet from the
feasting tiger, but facing it, and watching anxiously as the latter
swallowed mouthful after mouthful. This second tiger, facing the
first, was also facing me, and could not fail to see the top of my
head popping out of the earth.

It let a snarl of surprise and scrambled to its feet. I ducked into

my hole like a jack-in-the-box, grabbed my rifle, and looked
upwards, expecting to find one or both tigers attacking the
opening. I was wondering whether to sit tight, or to raise myself
and the rifle quickly to ground level and risk a shot, but I
remembered there were two tigers, not one outside. So I funked it
and decided to sit tight.

All this occupied only a few seconds, but in that time the
feasting tiger had not been idle. Hearing its companion snarl, and
seeing it spring to its feet, this animal, not knowing that the sight
of me was the cause of the excitement, concluded that its
companion had decided to fight for a share of the kill. There was a
second loud roar, followed by a fearful din, as the feaster, who was
obviously the man-eater, attacked the tiger that had spotted me.

Now is my chance, I said to myself, for their attention was so

distracted that they would not notice me.
 I quickly raised myself. First the rifle, then head and shoulders,
reached ground level. For a moment I could see nothing and do
nothing because of the dust that was raised by the fighting
animals. But neither tiger was anyway in sight, nor was there any
growling or snarling to be heard.

I could not understand it. Perhaps the second tiger had fled with
the first in pursuit. But if that was so, I should have heard some
sounds at least, snarls and growls as one animal chased the other
away. Perhaps they saw the rifle, or even the top of my head
emerging from the hole, and fled at such an unexpected
apparition. Then, too, there should have been growling and
snarling; at least some sounds of departure.

As it was, the jungle was silent. I could not fathom it; it was
eerie. The thought then occurred to me that, if the man-eater had
chased its companion away, it would undoubtedly return to finish
what was left of the kill. So I ducked back into the hole to await
its return and the renewed sounds of eating.

I waited in vain. Maybe half an hour had passed when I heard a

loud, sustained human scream. It shattered the silence, rose to a
crescendo, and then faded into choking sobs and was still. Then I
heard other yells and shouts, and could make out a deeper voice
and a more shrill one. These were the voices of the man and one of
the two women from the two huts not far away. They were
screaming for help.

That was when I grasped what had happened. The second

woman had been taken by the man-eater! In chasing its
companion away from the feast, or perhaps in its headlong flight
after seeing my rifle and myself appear out of the ground, the
man-eater must have passed the two huts where the man and his
wife, and the widow of the late victim, were sheltering. But how
did the Ogre get its second victim? Perhaps it was in such a
towering rage that it just dragged her out of the hut in which she
was sleeping. This tiger certainly was not hungry enough to justify
such an action as it had been feasting all this while.

I wondered what to do. Should I remain where I was, or hasten

to the huts? In either event, there was not much that I could do.
There was little chance that the man-eater would return to the
bones of its first victim when it had a fresh one at its disposal. And
I would not be able to follow it up with the second kill, because of
the darkness. That could be done only after daybreak.

I decided to remain where I was. It was just possible that the

second tiger—the one that had been chased away—might return
to the scant remains lying above me. If it did so, I would shoot;
even if it were not the Ogre itself, this second tiger would
undoubtedly become a man-eater in time. I remembered how, a
short while ago, it lay anxiously waiting for a chance to eat the
human remains, though held at bay by the feasting man-eater.

I spent a sleepless night after that, uncomfortably hot and stung

by tiny ants and other insects that had decided to share my
shelter. Nothing came, and no sound disturbed the silence till
about four o’clock. Then a hyena discovered the bones above me
and a great commotion began. The hyena smelt the tigers and
knew it was about to commit the unpardonable crime of robbery.
It also knew that to be caught by the owner or owners would mean
death. It was undecided, therefore, between satisfying its hunger
and its fear of being killed, and in this state of indecision made a
great noise, letting the whole jungle know that it was faced with a
tremendous dilemma. I could hear the creature running rapidly
round and round, uttering weird sounds of every conceivable
dilemma. ‘Chee-ah! Chee-ay! Chee-ay!’ it chattered, then growled
like faraway thunder. ‘Goodoo-Goodoo-Grooo!’ Then it decided to
be mournful about the whole business: ‘Mee-ay! Mee-ay! Mee-ay!’
it pleaded piteously, like a cat begging for food.
 But the problem remained unsolved: the tiger did not show
itself, but might come at any moment, and that would be the
hyena’s last if it lingered. All this amused me and served to
distract my thoughts from the fearful tragedy that must have been
enacted so close to me while I was powerless to intervene.

The opening above me grew a little brighter with the coming of

the false dawn before the hyena, who had remained noisily
persistent all this time, finally summoned up enough courage to
start eating. I heard the crunch of a few bones for a short while,
then fear must have returned to its craven heart, for I heard the
pattering sound of its departure. I could picture the poor beast
slinking quickly away, a human bone between its jaws, for
gnawing later in the safety of its shelter among the rocks, or in a
hole in the ground, far from this place of danger and lurking
death.

I awaited the advent of the true dawn before raising the

Winchester and myself very cautiously above ground level. The
coast was clear and I dragged my cramped legs out of that awful
hole, stamped about for a few minutes to restore the circulation,
and set off for the huts to see what had happened. There I came
upon a dreadful sight.

The terrified man and his wife, still hiding in a corner of one of
the huts, told me a very harrowing tale. Along with the widow of
the man-eater’s victim, they had decided to sleep in one of the
huts, the one they felt was the more secure of the two. The man
had taken good care to sleep in the centre of the floor, equidistant
from all the walls while his wife had slept to the left of him. The
second woman had been forced to sleep somewhere by herself. So
she had laid down a little distance away. Naturally she must have
felt a little nervous, but as modesty forbade her to lie down to the
right of the man, she had been compelled to sleep as far away as
possible from the couple. So she lay down near the wall of the hut
and opposite their feet.
 The hut was comparatively small. It was roughly a square,
about twelve feet by twelve. Allowing six feet for the man and his
wife who were sleeping in the centre of the hut, and another three
feet in order to be clear of their legs, the second woman was,
therefore, lying at the most not more that a yard from the wall.
The foot of the walls of such huts, in the damper parts of India, are
kept a few inches from the ground so that termites cannot climb
them overnight and destroy a large part of the structure by
daylight. This practice leaves a slight opening around all four
sides at ground level.

The man-eater who had passed very close to the hut, either in
pursuit of its companion or in flight from me, was probably in
great rage. It must have caught a glimpse of the sleeping woman,
or sensed her presence, through this small opening, and had
decided to drag her out. It had inserted one of its paws under the
opening, grabbed the woman and had begun to pull her out.

Her screams and wails, which I had heard, had awakened her
two companions, who in turn had started to yell and call for help.
Meanwhile the man-eater had succeeded in dragging the woman’s
head and neck outside the hut, and had killed her by tearing out
her gullet. But the rest of her body was stuck inside, for in dying,
the woman clung to two of the bamboos supporting the wall of the
hut. These had broken, and the end of one of them, piercing her
saree and jacket, had gone right into the flesh of her side, thus
wedging her body against the bamboo wall.

The pandemonium caused by her wails, and the shouts of her

companions, seemed to have acted as a deterrent; the tiger
changed its mind and abandoned the victim. The carcase of the
woman as it lay before me was a dreadful sight. The tiger’s claws
had pierced the chest and torn one breast to ribbons. Then the
Ogre had bitten right through her gullet and had wrenched out her
windpipe, leaving the bones of her neck and the skin behind to
keep her head from being totally severed. She lay in a pool of her
own blood most of which had soaked into the dry earth, except for
some that coagulated here and there.

The two survivors, man and wife, crouched wide-eyed and

paralysed with fear in a far corner of the hut, expecting the man-
eater to return at any moment. In fact, they were so terrified as to
be oblivious of the fact that it was already daylight outside.
Hearing my approaching footsteps, and thinking they heard the
tiger returning they started to gibber in fear.

I called aloud to reassure them. The man and the woman then
hurled themselves at the door of the hut, opened it, and rushed
outside, to fall on the ground trembling and crying in terror and
relief at the same time. They were quite hysterical and took a long
while to calm down enough to tell their story.

I had entered the hut and was reviewing the dreadful sight
inside when Stanley and some of the men who had helped us the
previous evening arrived upon the scene. Stanley had been awake
all night but had not heard any report from my rifle, the sound of
which would have carried to Tagarthy village. He therefore
concluded that the tiger had not returned—or that I had been
killed—and was hurrying to find out what had happened.

I fear my first question took the good doctor aback: ‘How is the
Patel’s wife?’

He looked rather pained at my irrelevance, then muttered,

‘She’s safe. But what has happened?’ I told the story. Our plans
were soon laid.

We bundled the two survivors and their belongings out of the

hut, an action that did not require much persuasion, and advised
them to return, with the rest of our party, to the village. Stanley
would hide in the other hut, while I would conceal myself in the
one with the corpse of the slain woman. Ordinarily, the man-eater
might be expected to return to its kill, but as there was a second
tiger which was potentially a man-eater, if not already one, the
doctor would be available to deal with it.

We laid our plans carefully. To begin with, neither of us would

fire in the direction where the other was hiding. Secondly, should
Stanley see one of the tigers, or both of them first, he was to hold
his fire till the actual man-eater approached the carcase of its
victim in order to give me the chance of a shot at the real culprit.
As soon as I had fired, the doctor was to shoot the second tiger if it
was still within sight. These precautions were necessary to avoid a
mistake at the last moment for should the doctor fire first, he
might shoot the wrong tiger and the man-eater would escape. We
had to account for the Ogre primarily, although for reasons I have
already given the second tiger had to be shot too. But the man-
eater must die first and we could not risk its escape.

As I was tired after a sleepless night, while Stanley was less so,
even though he had spent a good part of the night attending to the
patel’s wife, it was agreed that I should go back to Tagarthy for a
meal and some sleep, returning by three o’clock, bringing the
doctor’s lunch and some food for both of us to eat later on besides
drinking water, tea and the torch that Stanley fitted to the barrels
of his shotgun. It was wise that one of us should remain on guard,
just in case either of the tigers took the unusual step of returning
to the kill by day.

Another idea then occurred to me. I told Stanley and he agreed

to it. We took a gunny sack from one of the huts and walked down
to the remains of the earlier kill. My plan was to remove all that
was left of it, so that should either of the tigers, or both of them,
think of revisiting the old spot, they would find nothing. That
would urge them to come to the huts, where we would be in
hiding.

A slight hitch arose when we asked our men to do this job. Being
of high caste, they recoiled with horror and flatly refused. There
was nothing but for Stanley and myself to do the job ourselves.
Stanley did not mind, for he was a doctor, but it was an
unpleasant undertaking for me. What little remained of the meat
was two days old and stank abominably. Further, bluebottles had
laid their eggs in the remains, and in the hot sun maggots had
already hatched in myriads. The flesh was covered with a seething
mass of them.

We gathered all the bits and pieces and put them into the sack.
Since none of our followers would touch it, I had the unhappy task
of conveying this nasty burden on my shoulder all the way to the
village. It was surprising how heavy those bits and pieces turned
out to be, although they represented so very little of their owner.

I smelled dreadfully and was in a bath of perspiration; some

sticky fluid had oozed through the sacking from the putrefying
flesh and bones within. It was on my hands, shoulders and neck
when I dumped my grisly burden at the entrance to the local
police chowki. The constable on sentry gazed at me goggle-eyed.
For once in his life he was too taken aback to ask for a statement. I
remembered about the statement well enough, but did not care to
remind him. Why should I? There was going to be a hell of a row in
any case, when the sub-inspector and other busybodies from
headquarters arrived at Tagarthy. Whey had we removed the
remains from the scene of the tragedy? How were the police to
know the man had been killed by a tiger? He might have been
murdered? Perhaps he had committed suicide? Time enough to
answer these questions later. What I wanted was a bath, tea and
plenty of it, a hot meal and some sleep.

I hastened to the little quarters occupied by the doctor, which

he had invited me to share with him, and yelled to his servant-boy
to prepare a gallon of tea. Then I divested myself of my stinking
clothes and washed my shirt. Next I had a bath, and what a bath!
 Emerging at least two pounds lighter in weight, I set about the
tea and had consumed maybe two quarts when the doctor’s
servant seriously suggested I leave some room for lunch. But there
was no lunch left when I stood up from the table. I observed the
servant had conceived a new respect for me as a glutton of great
capacity.

I told the boy to put the doctor’s lunch aside and to make dinner
for both of us, saying that I would take the three meals with me to
the two huts at three o’clock. In sadness, the youngster shook his
head and replied aggrievedly that there was no lunch left. I had
eaten it all. So I gave him money to make some lunch; also the
two dinners. And I told him to awaken me at 2.30 sharp.

When he awakened me it was nearly three o’clock, but as the

meals were ready and packed, together with two flasks of tea and
two canteens of water, I had only to pick up the doctor’s torch and
place it in a large bag with the food and flasks, sling the canteens
and my rifle over my shoulders, and set out for the huts.

Walking fast, I soon arrived to find a very hungry doctor who

had no news of the tigers. He swallowed his lunch while we
reviewed our plans in whispers and drank some water. The flasks
of tea we decided to keep for the night.

At four o’clock we separated; I went to the neighbouring hut

where the woman’s body lay, taking my rifle, torch, dinner and a
flask of tea with half a canteen of water, leaving Stanley in the
other hut with his share of the tea, water and food. Taking up my
position at the farther end, as far away as possible from the spot
where the corpse was lying half in and half out of the little
structure, I made myself comfortable in preparation for the long
vigil of fourteen hours till dawn.

I have cultivated the habit of sitting cross-legged for hours on

end, practically motionless and without sound, a habit essential if
ever you have to sit up for game. The slightest movement, or the
faintest sound, will betray your presence to any wild creature,
animal or bird. If your quarry is an animal possessed of a keen
sense of smell, the direction in which the prevailing breeze
happens to be blowing has also to be taken into account, and the
stronger the breeze, the farther your scent is carried. For this
reason, poachers of deer in India seldom go out on a windy night.
Falling rain prevents scent being carried far, but equally so all
animals, except tigers, take shelter from the elements, and if the
rain is really bad, even tigers and elephants restrict their
movements.

Now, as tigers have only a very poor sense of smell, that factor
did not trouble me. What I had to be careful about was that the
man-eater should not discover my presence by sight or sound.
After the adventure of the previous night, and the scare it had
received, we could expect both tigers to be very cautious. It is
remarkable how instinct enables a man-eater to differentiate
between a possible victim, helpless and defenceless, and a would-
be hunter capable of taking its life.

Having been sheltered from the sun, the corpse was not smelling
yet, and it was otherwise pleasant inside the hut, offering a great
relief from the conditions of the previous night, in the hot and
tight-fitting hole. Everything about me was quiet, for, in fear of
the man-eater, the herdsmen of Tagarthy and the neighbouring
villages for miles around had abandoned their usual habit of
driving their herds out to the jungles to graze.

The afternoon passed in silence except for the buzzing of flies

that had discovered the dead body and were busy laying their eggs
in the raw flesh. The darkness of evening was accentuated within
the hut and it soon became difficult to see, although I could
perceive the lingering daylight outside, visible right around me
through the few inches of space between the base of the walls of
the hut and the floor.
 Because of the scarcity of panthers and the larger species of wild
cats, jungle fowl, which are the normal prey of these animals,
swarmed in this area and their calls, together with those of spur-
fowl and peafowl, told me the sun was about to set. Silently, I
munched the food I had brought with me for dinner, and drank
some tea.

In due course the cries of the birds died away, to be replaced by

the calls of a nearby herd of spotted deer and the belling of a more
distant sambar stag. This told me the sun had set, although by
now it was already quite dark inside the hut where I was sitting.

Soon the nightjars began their teasing cries and a night-heron

wailed in the little stream at the bottom of the valley. Then I
knew that night had fallen indeed, and I could now see nothing in
the interior of that hut. If the man-eater came and started to
remove the cadaver of the woman, I would be compelled to use my
torch.

This raised a problem. When I used the torch, its beam would
necessarily strike against the inside of the wall of the hut and be
reflected back into my eyes. I would not be able to see beyond, or
to look through the gap between the wall and the floor. In other
words, the man-eater would not be visible to me. The thought
began to trouble me and I decided to change my position. I would
lie prone on the floor, as close as possible to that part of the
woman’s body which remained inside. This would give me a great
advantage. By keeping my rifle extended on the ground before me,
all I would need to do, when the tiger came, would be to point the
barrel in the animal’s direction and press the trigger. The man-
eater could not avoid making some noise when it began to pull the
woman’s carcase out of the hut, for, as you will remember,

in the struggle of the previous night the end of one of the

bamboos of the hut-wall had become embedded in her flesh. The
tiger would have to tear the body free from this obstruction.
 Gathering the flask of tea and my weapon, I crept quietly across
the floor till I reached the woman’s body, and then lay down
beside it, the rifle on the ground before me with the butt under my
armpit and the end of the barrel only a few inches from the
opening. Accidentally my shoulder touched something that was
cold and hard and very stiff. It was the corpse’s leg and I drew a
few inches away.

Three hours passed with no sign of any tiger. It was well after
ten o’clock. Tigers generally return to their kills around eight;
panthers very much earlier, and I was beginning to think our
quarries had decided to keep clear of the huts when the leg which
had touched my shoulder three hours ago touched it again.

What was far worse, that cold stiff leg was now moving very
distinctly. It was not only rubbing against my shoulder now, but
moving gently forwards.

Not a sound could I hear. But the leg moved again! The hair at
the back of my neck stood on end. Panic seized me. I was on the
verge of scrambling to my hands and knees and getting as far away
as possible from that awful, mangled human thing that had come
to life. Then reason returned. I could feel myself trembling and the
perspiration was pouring down my face as I discovered the
solution. The leg and its owner had not come back to life, nor did
it move of its own volition. The man-eater was moving it!

I could see nothing. There was no sense in sticking the barrel of

my rifle forward and firing blindly; that would only scare the tiger
away, to continue its depredations elsewhere. At the most I might
wound it. I had first to make certain what I was firing at.

Then it was that I heard a faint scratching sound, coming from

somewhere very close to me and a little to my right. I could still
see nothing. I was tempted to switch on my torch, but
remembered in time that to do so might result in dazzling myself.
Yet it was imperative that I should find out where the scratching
sound came from and what was causing it.

I did an extremely stupid thing. Not being able to see, I thought

I might be able to feel what was going on, and with this in mind, I
stretched my right arm very slowly forwards in the direction of the
scratching.

I did not have far to reach. My questing fingertips contacted

something hairy, something sinewy, and the next instant all hell
was let loose. The man-eater, perhaps remembering its difficulty
of the night before to free the body of its victim, or maybe in an
endeavour to secure a better grip on the corpse, had extended its
paw into the gap below the wall and was groping for a hold on
something solid. That movement of its paw was the cause of the
scratching sound I had heard a moment before. When my
fingertips touched its skin, not having heard of ghosts, the tiger
knew there was something alive inside the hut.

An ordinary tiger would have bolted. But the Ogre who was no
ordinary tiger and had always done the unexpected, lost its
temper. It let out a terrific roar, then grasped the wall of the hut in
its jaws and began to tear it apart.

My task after that was easy. A great hole appeared before me

and the beam of my torch revealed a horrifying tiger with the
matting of the wall still stuffed in its mouth. With only a few
inches to find its target, the bullet of my .405 entered high into the
throat; then I rolled over and over with my rifle to get out of range
of what I knew would follow. I was near the far end of the hut
when the Ogre hurled itself through the gap. But I had time to put
two more shots straight into

its head. With the dying animal threshing about the floor, I
rushed to the door of the hut, flung it open and leaped out, only to
be confronted by yet another terrifying spectacle.
 Another tiger was there, about twenty feet away and to one end
of the farther hut! But it was lying on the ground, stretched on its
side and still twitching. Stanley had killed the second tiger, almost
at point-blank range, with lethal balls fired simultaneously from
both barrels of his shotgun. Because of the noise made by my own
rifle, and because of my own excitement, I had entirely failed to
hear Stanley’s shots.

The doctor related afterwards that he heard the man-eater’s

roar, followed by the report of my first shot. Then the sounds of
the hut-wall being demolished. Disregarding our agreement, he
had dashed out to my aid, to be confronted by the sight of the
second tiger, standing broadside on to him , a few yards away,
watching its mate and obviously undecided what to do. He had
fired both barrels of his shotgun, loaded with lethal balls, into the
animal’s heart, killing it instantly.

As we suspected, the man-eater turned out to be a tigress, the

other animal her mate.

There was much tom-tomming and rejoicing at Tagarthy until

dawn, and when the news reached Bellundur next day old
Buddiah strutted about, filled with pride. Was he not the greatest
of all magicians? Had not his mantras brought about the doom of
the man-eater and also of her mate? Buddiah was happy indeed.
With his fame as a necromancer soaring once again, he could look
forward to many feasts of cock curry and many more bottles of
that fire arrack for which the villagers of Bellundur were famed.
He was dead drunk by midday, when I called to thank him.

_____________

1 See Nine Man-eaters and One Rogue.

 3

The Aristocrat of Amligola

HE title of this story will lead you to expect that the creature I
T am going to tell you about had nobility and fearfulness, and
that he came from a place named Amligola, but you might not
guess that the story really concerns a very large tiger that had
other characteristics which I am sure you will agree were far from
noble. Very few of you will have heard of Amligola, for it is
situated in the remoter jungles of the district of Shimoga in
Mysore state, and was only a hamlet at the time of my story.

People called him ‘Gowndnorai’ in the Kanarese tongue, being a

term approximately equivalent to ‘aristocrat,’ and he earned his
title by his unexpected behaviour at the time he first appeared in
the thick forests surrounding the hamlet. It was rumoured that he
came from the jungles of Tagarthy, a place renowned for tigers and
only eight miles away; while others said he had strayed from the
Karadibetta Tiger Sanctuary, which he had deserted in disgust
because his kindred in the sanctuary were numerous and the quest
for food had become more competitive.

The ‘Gowndnorai,’ apparently, did not like this sort of thing. It

was bad enough to have to hobnob with the proletariat of the tiger
species, but when it came to having one’s quarry snatched from
under one’s nose, as frequently happened, by younger and fleeter
tigers, or the whole hunt thwarted and the prey driven away by a
fledgeling tigress, he felt it was time to shift to more select jungles,
where there were fewer of its species and more game for him to
hunt.

There is a small hillock in the forest about two miles from

Amligola which borders the track leading from this village to
Tagarthy, and it came about that around five o’clock one evening,
woodcutters returning home along this path were surprised to see
a tiger sprawled on a rocky promontory of the hillock, basking in
the rays of the sun that had still an hour to go before it would sink
behind the tops of the towering teak trees to the west.

They quickened their footsteps. Everyone knew that these dense

jungles were the homes of tigers, although such animals rarely
showed themselves in broad daylight. The tiger they were now
watching although fortunately from an appreciable distance, was
an enormous brute and, to judge by his attitude of lazy
indifference, seemed to care little about their presence. They were
talking loudly and he could see and hear them, but he continued
to lie on the warm rock as he turned his huge head in their
direction with the mildest curiosity.

Thus the woodcutters judged it better to get home while the

going was good and before darkness overtook them. Against such a
monster they would have no chance whatever, once the sun sank
and the brief jungle twilight merged into gloom.

Quite often thereafter, the graziers, woodcutters and forest

guards saw this tiger of an evening, at about the same time,
sunning himself on the same promontory and looking at them
quite unconcernedly, as they moved through the jungle or
followed the footpath that wound around the base of the hill on
its way to Amligola.

None of them remembered having seen a tiger do this sort of

thing before. Panthers had been seen quite often, on the same
rock, on other rocks, sunning themselves of an evening; but never
a tiger. The larger carnivores are too cunning and too shy to
expose themselves in this way to an easy shot from a rifle.

Nobody fired at the basking tiger, for the very good reason that
nobody in Amligola at that time possessed a rifle, while the range
was too great for the ordinary muzzle-loading gun, a couple of
which, unlicensed of course, were owned by local villagers.

For the first few months this seemingly inoffensive tiger had
been content to confine his attentions to the spotted deer and
other wild fauna of the forest. Then, as rarely happened in this
area that was so close to the Western Ghats and received a heavy
rainfall, the southwest monsoon failed one year and the jungle
became dry. The grass withered, the fields lay fallow, and the wild
creatures that fed on the grass and the grain were compelled to
move away to regions where a little water was still to be found
and some grass for their bellies. The herds of cattle that had
hitherto fed along with the deer and had not been molested by the
tiger so far now found themselves alone.

Nevertheless, this tiger was choosy about his meals. He left the
herds and wandered into the village postmaster-cum-
schoolteacher’s field, where he started by killing the owner’s large
white bull that used to draw his cart all the nineteen miles to
Sagar town once a week, on shandy (market) day. Not only did
the tiger slay the huge bull with one slap of his paw and a twist of
its neck, but he slung the quarry across his back and walked off
with it in broad daylight, neatly leaping the six-foot-wide nullah
that divided the field from the forest.

The field was at the back of the postmaster’s house, and the
owner was in the backyard, washing his clothes at his little well,
and saw the whole thing happen. He shouted at the top of his
voice, hoping to frighten the tiger into releasing its prey, although
this would have done no good anyway because the white bull was
already dead. But, far from being alarmed, the tiger was not even
perturbed. He walked majestically at the same pace towards the
nullah, the dead bull across his back, jumped the obstruction, and
disappeared into the forest beyond.
 The tiger killed again, and quite often after that, but strange to
relate, on each occasion his prey was a lone, large bull or a fat,
sleek cow. Never did he attack the herds, as other tigers and
panthers had done before him, to choose and kill the first animal
within reach.

This tiger spent a long time in reconnoitring and selecting his

victim, and it always had to be the biggest animal he could find,
proportionate to his own colossal size, revealed by the immense
pug-marks he left on the fields and in the windblown sands of the
pathways leading into the forest.

At that time I happened to visit Tagarthy, a favourite haunt of

mine, where I came to hear about the Gowndnorai and his
colossal size. As this animal was killing normal prey I had no
intention of interfering with him, but repeated stories of his
extraordinary size made me curious to catch a glimpse of him if I
could.

So I set out on foot one dark night along the jungle track that led
through dense forest to Amligola, the rifle across my back in case
of emergency, a three-cell spotlight torch in my hand and a set of
spare cells in my pocket.

I remember that night well. On the way, the beam reflected the
green light of the eyes of spotted deer and sambar, bobbing up and
down as they tried to avoid the torch-beam; the single, red eye of
wild boar that refused to face the light but rushed away; the wide-
set blue light from the eyes of a bull-bison that stared morosely as I
passed; the red-white light of a panther’s eyes as they sank behind
a small shrub and then peeped at me from over the top; and the
pinkish-blue eyes of a sloth-bear as it sat on its haunches to watch
me as I padded past in my rubber shoes, not ten feet away.

I had entered the fields bordering Amligola when I met the

Gowndnorai and immediately recognized him, although I had
never set eyes upon him before. Two great blobs of light blazed
white-red like brilliant stars suspended just above the tops of the
grasses that were swaying gently to the night breezes as they blew
down from the small hillock. It might have been a hundred yards
away.

This tiger was, indeed, of colossal proportions.

The Gowndnorai gazed back at me unflinchingly as I stopped to

watch him with the beam of my torch directed at him steadily. We
returned stare for stare, and thus we remained for what might
have been the better part of ten minutes. Then the tiger did a
strange thing. With a low grunt, and eyes still blazing into the
bright rays that confronted him, the Gowndnorai started to walk
towards me.

No ordinary tiger would have done that; it would have bounded

away. No wounded tiger, or even potential man-eater, would have
done so either; it would have charged towards me, roaring in
furious attack, or have melted away into the jungle, refusing a
direct encounter.

The Gowndnorai did neither. He advanced upon me slowly,

inexorably, determinedly, a guttural grunt issuing from

his slightly opened mouth as he came, no signs of anger or of

fear upon his striped visage.

One fact soon became evident. This strange animal, whatever

his reason, was obviously quite determined to come right up to the
torch and find out what it was all about.

I must confess his attitude rather unnerved me. I had no wish to

shoot the beast, for he had done no harm to the human race. But
what he might do when he came right up to my torch and found a
man behind it was anybody’s guess.
 The tiger was now less than fifty yards away and still
approaching, pace by pace, when these thoughts rushed through
my mind and the reason for its strange behaviour dawned upon
me. There were just four days until Christmas and this was the
middle of the mating season. Without doubt the tiger was a male,
and a tigress was sitting on her haunches somewhere near by,
regarding the scene with admiration, as to her adoring eyes the
Gowndnorai displayed his prowess and contempt for danger.

Tigers can be very dangerous if encountered in the mating-

season in company with their newly-found spouses. Their desire to
flaunt themselves and their natural aversion to any intruder who
disturbs their lovemaking, together with a fear that some harm
might come to their mates, combine to turn them into creatures of
destruction that will wipe out the intruder, man or beast.

Then came the disquieting thought that the tigress might even
be creeping up behind me in the darkness, in support of her mate. I
did not want to remove my torchbeam from the Gowndnorai’s
eyes, in case such action might precipitate a charge; at the same
time the possibility of the close presence of the tigress behind me
left no alternative.

Taking a chance, I whipped around, allowing the torch-beam to

flash through the jungle in a quick semicircle to my right, and
then behind. Sure enough, that was exactly where the tigress was.
She was seated on her haunches, like a great big cat, directly
behind me, awaiting the oncoming of her mate.

The reason for the tiger’s strange behaviour was evident enough
after that. He had been approaching the tigress when I had
happened to move between them, and the mating urge had been
too strong to deflect him from his purpose. I had no illusions about
what he would do when he found me standing between him and
his girlfriend. It was time to get the hell out of there!
 This I proceeded to do forthwith, and with dispatch, by stepping
sideways as rapidly and as silently as possible, while still keeping
the torch-beam directed upon the tiger. The Gowndnorai halted
abruptly and his grunt turned into a loud growl. What was worse,
I could hear the tigress growling behind me. It seemed that a
concerted attack was imminent.

With my left arm I unslung the loaded rifle, slipped the butt into
my shoulder, and pressed the button of the other torch that was
clamped to the barrel of the weapon, using my thumb for the
purpose. The two beams shone together for a moment as I prepared
to slip the three-cell torch into my trouser-pocket prior to placing
my right forefinger upon the trigger.

Perhaps it was the two torches, shining together, that averted

disaster. Maybe the Gowndnorai did not like the sight, and the
potential danger revealed by the presence of a second light
appearing so suddenly where a moment before, there had been
only one. With a series of snarls he bounced obliquely forward in
the general direction of his mate, and understanding the situation,
I followed his movements with both torches still alight. As soon as
he had reached her, the two animals turned to face me. Now two
pairs of white-red eyes glared back at me resentfully.

Then I began to pace backwards in order to escape. Easier said

than done, indeed. Have you ever tried to walk backwards, in
pitch darkness along a twisting footpath, through heavy grass and
jungle, with a rifle balanced awkwardly against your shoulder in
your left hand, your thumb pressing against a torch switch, and
another torch held in your right hand which is also helping to
keep the rifle in place, while a pair of mating and naturally
resentful tigers confront you?

I succeeded in the manoeuvre for a short distance and then, as

the two tigers had shown no inclination to follow me, I whisked
around in order to hurry along the footpath for a few seconds and
afterwards whisked back again to see what the tigers were doing.
They were in the same positions, obviously glad that I was
departing.

Soon I reached Amligola and the hut of the headman, who was
my friend, where I related my adventure. Ramiah, the headman,
was a widower and invited me to spend the rest of the night with
him. Perhaps in daylight I could study the tigers under better
conditions, he suggested.

Along with numerous mugs of milk, and some rather stale

vadais (small pungent cakes) that he offered me, Ramiah and I
began to chat, but it was not long before loud roaring and
growling from the forest told us that the tigers had begun their
mating in right earnest. The din continued for quite a while. Then
there was a period of silence, after which the noises started all
over again. This sort of thing continued till we fell asleep.

Next morning I was in no hurry to investigate, for I knew that

both would be resting after their strenuous mating-sessions and
my appearance too early might precipitate a showdown. Besides, I
was feeling inordinately sleepy after the rather restless night I had
spent in Ramiah’s hut.

It was nearly ten in the morning when I awoke and, after

another bout with Ramiah’s now tough vadais, followed by at
least three cups of coffee which (rather than the tea that I would
have much preferred) is the normal beverage of the Kanarese
villager, I prepared to investigate the scene of the previous night’s
noisy mating. Ramiah excused himself from accompanying me on
the plea of urgent field work, so I set out alone.

The spot whence the noises had come, when at last I located it,
may be a little over a furlong away, revealed the energy that the
two tigers had put into their lovemaking. Although fairly hard at
this time of the year, the earth was scored and dug up in clods, the
smaller shrubs having been ripped from the soil, roots and all, by
the antics of the gambolling beasts.

From this place the ground dropped into a densely vegetated

ravine, where scratchings upon the bark of a tree, along with
freshly-shed dung which—unlike the panther—a tiger leaves
exposed rather than covered with earth, indicate the way the
lovers had entered the ravine. Curiosity prompted me to follow,
although I knew that what I was doing was rash; so with rifle at
the ready and eyes that endeavoured to see through and behind
every bush, I advanced in silence, taking care my rubber-soled
shoes did not tread upon any dry leaf or twig.

No sooner was I in the shadow of the large trees that grew in this
hollow than the sweetish stench of death was borne to my nostrils
and I knew I was approaching an animal that had been killed. A
few yards farther, and I found it. The partial remains of a huge
wild sow that had been slain by the Gowndnorai and upon which
the two tigers had feasted hungrily, for tigers love pork. Although
a sow, the pig had put up a fight, as could be seen by her hoof-
marks in the ground.

I did not examine the sow very carefully, for you may be sure I
was watching all around me against being surprised by one or the
other of the terrifying lovers, and it was while I was doing this
that I caught a glimpse of something white that showed through
the leaves of a jungle-plum bush, perhaps thirty yards away. I
approached this object, and it turned out to be the pelvis bone of a
sambar doe also half-eaten by the tigers during their spree the
night before. There was no means of knowing which of the two
animals—the sow or the sambar— had been killed first, but it was
clear that the latter had been slain some distance away and then
brought to the spot by the Gowndnorai for the benefit of his mate,
for no wild animal would have come anywhere near a spot where
a kill had already been made.
 The presence of the three crows, flying down from a branch to
the earth and up again, betrayed a third kill slightly farther away.
The fact that the crows were flying to the ground indicated that
neither of the tigers was near. This kill turned out to be a spotted
stag which the Gowndnorai had also brought to the ravine after
killing it elsewhere. Little of the stag had been devoured, for by
this time the tigers were too stuffed with food to do more than
sample the meat.

But I had not finished yet with finding kills. In fact, I tripped
over the carcase of another sambar doe that lay most halfway
between the carcase of the spotted deer and the sow. There was
little left of this sambar, most of it having been devoured by the
tigers. I was almost certain now that this sambar, and not the sow,
as I had thought, had been the first of the four victims. The sow
had followed next, her hoof-marks on the ground showing she had
fought before she had been killed. She ought not to have come
near the dead sambar. Perhaps one of the tigers had chased her
there. The other sambar and the spotted stag had been carried to
the spot later, for nowhere had I seen any traces of dragmarks
upon the ground, which made clear that the tiger had carried his
victims, one at a time, across his back. If I needed further proof of
his size, here it was indeed.

There is a strange satisfaction in reasoning out the facts of

apparent jungle mystery, and I felt this as I reached my
conclusion. The ravine was, in fact, a veritable charnel-house; the
stench of death hung heavy in the air, and suddenly I grew afraid.

Something warned me that I was being watched. I took a quick

pace to the rear to bring my back against a tree and so shield
myself against attack from behind. Then I began to scan every
bush and tree-trunk in the immediate vicinity.

Not a breath of air stirred in the forest that grew hotter with the
passing hours, as the sun climbed higher into a cloudless sky,
although I could not see it at that moment because of the trees.
Not a whisper of sound broke the stillness; even the two cicadas
that had been calling from trees higher up the banks of the ravine
were now silent. The crows had seen me and watched the scene
with mute expectation, heads cocked slightly to one side, beaks
partly open and panting with the heat. It was as if the jungle lay
in breathless suspense, awaiting the next act in the drama that
was about to be played at any instant.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tuft of grass, frail and

feathery, suddenly sway for an instant and then become still. It
had no business to sway on that breathless forenoon, unless
something had pressed against the stem near to the ground.

The something must be one of the tigers!

Most tigers—even a man-eater—will hesitate to attack if it feels

that a man has discovered its presence. It prefers to have the
element of surprise on its side. I knew this from my own
experience, so I opened my eyes as wide as possible and stared
hard at the spot where the grass had just moved. This would tell
the tiger I had discovered where it was hiding.

For a moment I could see nothing. Then two black

protuberances, tipped white behind, seemed to rise slowly from
beyond the grass, and I knew that I was looking at a tiger’s ears.
An instant later, the animal raised its head a fraction higher and I
was gazing into the baleful eyes, of one of the tigers. I knew it was
the female. Her head was too small to belong to a male of her
mate’s size. That left the tiger to be contended with. He was
probably in hiding at the moment, I knew not where, gathering
courage for a sudden onslaught, if for no other reason than to
prove to the tigress, who was watching closely, what a great brave
creature he was.
 Nothing happened while the tigress continued to peep at me
over the top of the grass, and after a while I began to hope that she
was alone. Maybe her mate had gone to look for a fifth victim!

It must have been ten minutes later when the tigress began to
make a peculiar sort of noise. I might say she was mewing, but it
was too guttural and hoarse a sound for that word to convey. She
was summoning her mate. As she had not attacked me all this
while, it was clear that the tigress, by herself, lacked the courage.
What would happen when the tiger arrived would be quite
another thing.

I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and I

slipped behind the tree-trunk that I had stood against all this
while. Then I started to back away.

The next moment a loud roar from the top of the ravine behind
me told me I was too late. The Gowndnorai had arrived.
Something in his mate’s mewing calls seemed to warn him that all
was not well. I could hear him crashing through the dead leaves
and undergrowth now, coming directly towards me at the gallop.

I am far from being a good climber, but sheer funk lent me

agility and I dragged myself up the tree with commendable speed,
the rifle hanging on my shoulder. The first fork was hardly eight
feet from the ground. I reached it and tried to climb higher, when
the rifle slipped awkwardly from my shoulder down to the crook of
my arm. I hitched it up again, and just as fast it slipped down once
more.

The Gowndnorai arrived at the base of my tree and my

movements made him look upwards and see me. I decided I must
face him and bring the rifle from the crook of my arm to my
shoulder. I expected him to make a bound at me at once, but
strangely enough he did nothing of the kind. He crouched on the
ground instead, looked up, and snarled and snarled and snarled.
 Rather foolishly, as I think of it now, I changed my mind and
decided to try to climb higher, but in any case I could not go very
far. I managed another seven feet perhaps when I found I had gone
as high as the thinning branches would permit. At this juncture,
the tigress, confident of the protection offered by her mate,
emerged and advanced towards him in gambolling leaps till the
two of them were together barely fifteen feet below.

I hoped that neither of the tigers would try to follow me, as the
bough to which I was precariously clinging was too frail to support
any additional weight, while by my own foolishness in ascending
higher I had put myself in a nasty plight. I was obliged to cling to
the branch with both my hands and knees, and this prevented any
possibility of using my rifle, which I could not unsling, since I
would fall from the tree if let go my hold. Moreover, the strain on
the muscles of my hands and legs was tremendous, and I could not
possibly maintain the position for long.

It occurred to me that I might try to shoo the tigers away by

shouting aloud. The ruse would probably succeed; but again it
might not. The sound of my voice might irritate the animals,
particularly the tiger, who till now had behaved like a gentleman.

The two tigers settled the matter after a few minutes, as if by

mutual consent, when they calmly walked away side by side.
Allowing another five minutes to pass, I descended cautiously, but
there was no sign of either animal even after I climbed the bank of
the nullah and started walking to the village. I really owe the
Gowndnorai and his mate a debt for sparing my life.

Shortly afterwards I was trudging back to Tagarthy, thinking I

had heard—and seen—the last of the tiger. But as I was soon to
discover, that thought was entirely wrong.

Hardly had I been a month in Bangalore when the headman of

Amligola, with whom I had spent the night listening to the
Gowndnorai and his mate, wrote me a postcard which he had
tramped all the way to Tagarthy to post, informing me that the big
tiger was growing overbold and begging me to come and shoot
him. It was only a matter of time, he said, before the Gowndnorai
would turn man-eater.

I oppose hunting tigers that have not molested man, and I was
not going to accept the headman’s fear of something that had not
yet happened; the Gowndnorai might never become a man-eater
and I had certainly no justification for shooting an animal that
had spared my life on two occasions.

It happened that I had a few days to spare and could think of no

more pleasant occupation than trying to see my benefactor, the
huge tiger, once again. But things had changed by the time I
reached Amligola, although it was only a matter of a few days
since Ramiah had written. The big tiger had grown bolder indeed,
killing more of the villagers’ choice cattle. Ramiah had already
lost his best bull, and now the Gowndnorai saw it fit to slay his
second best.

This was too much for the already exhausted patience of the
headman. Disdaining to wait for my arrival, Ramiah journeyed to
the town of Kumsi, about twenty miles away, borrowed his
cousin’s .12 bore shotgun, and sat up to ambush the tiger when he
next visited the outskirts of Amligola in search of prize cattle.
Having succeeded so many times before, the Gowndnorai walked
into the trap all unsuspectingly, to receive a charge of slugs full in
his face from Ramiah’s borrowed weapon. The tiger then dashed
away roaring terribly as he went. So great was his anger, caused by
the wound, that he entirely demolished a bamboo platform
erected by the villagers on a field from which to drive away the
birds that fed upon their grain, and which stood in the tiger’s path
as he rushed back to the forest.
 All that day and night, and throughout the two nights that
followed, Ramiah and his companions were forced to listen to the
pain-racked roars of the wounded tiger as he voiced his woe and
anger to the jungle at large, while they cowered within their huts.

Unaware of what had happened, as nobody told me anything at

Tagarthy, I arrived late in the evening of the fifth day at Amligola,
having walked through the jungle in blissful ignorance for eight
miles without hearing or seeing a thing. We did not hear the tiger
that night, but the morning of the sixth day brought the first
result of Ramiah’s ill-timed shot.

It was just after nine o’clock and I was about to set out on my
return journey to Tagarthy, when a man staggered into Amligola
and fell exhausted in the one lane that formed the main village
street. He said that he and another man had started out from the
village of Chordi, which was some miles away, just before dawn,
and had been travelling to Amligola when, about two miles from
their destination, they had seen a tiger following. Accustomed to
tigers and not knowing that the Gowndnorai had been wounded,
they were not unduly perturbed, but decided to keep a sharp
lookout behind them as they walked.

For the next two or three hundred yards they saw nothing. Then
they glimpsed the tiger, and this time he was not more than thirty
yards behind them. Sensing that the animal was bent upon
mischief, the two men had broken into a run, whereupon the tiger
roared and charged them.

The man who had staggered into Amligola had escaped merely
because he happened to be the faster runner. He told how the tiger
had quickly caught up with his companion, who was racing just a
yard or so behind. His friend’s dying scream had compelled him to
look back over his shoulder and the lucky woodcutter affirmed
that the sight he had seen would remain in his memory for ever.
The tiger’s countenance had been dreadful to behold. It was badly
mangled and a mass of blood. He did not think the animal had any
eyes left: its ferocity vented upon the victim it had just seized, was
truly awful. Not daring to look back any longer, the man had
raced to Amligola for all he was worth, to reach its shelter utterly
exhausted.

The wounded Gowndnorai had killed its first victim. To judge

by what we had heard, Ramiah’s slugs had blinded the
unfortunate beast.

Without delay, I hurried to the place where the attack had been
launched, Ramiah and the surviving woodcutter reluctantly
accompanying me. The tiger must have been ravenously hungry;
he had eaten the most of his victim on the spot. Then he must
have heard us coming, for he had carried away what remained as
he dashed into the undergrowth, perhaps only a matter of minutes
before our arrival. We knew the tiger had eaten well, for his
victim’s head, hands and feet lay scattered about, a sure sign of a
hearty meal.

The trail was fresh, but the undergrowth was extremely lush.
Ramiah and the woodcutter were Kanarese and not of the stuff of
jungle-men and trackers. They flatly refused to come any farther.
So I followed by way of the broken weeds and the bent branches of
his victim. It was difficult to watch ahead and both sides against a
surprise attack while moving fast at the same time.

The Gowndnorai, for all his size, did not stop to fight it out.
Probably his recent wound, and the pain he was suffering, made
him reluctant to risk an encounter with another armed man. It is
uncanny how a wild animal is able to sense the presence of a
human being who may spell danger and distinguish him from one
who is helpless, unarmed, or bears no hostile thoughts.

The trail led through the belt of thick forest into lighter scrub,
where it was more difficult to proceed, and then down a steep
decline where the tiger had finally jumped into a narrow ravine,
more a watercourse than anything else. Here I had to go down on
hands and knees and within a few yards it became too dense to go
farther. In any event, pursuit was fruitless as I could never hope to
overtake my quarry under such conditions.

Disappointed as I was, two facts were now established beyond

any doubt. Firstly, the Gowndnorai had not been totally blinded
by Ramiah’s pellets. Therefore he remained a very real danger to
the human race and would continue to be so till he completely
recovered from his wounds and went back again to killing cattle
and wild game. That was extremely unlikely to happen, however,
as once a tiger has tasted human flesh and comes to realize how
easy it is to kill a man, it rarely abandons the habit. In other
words, here was a man-eater at the beginning of his dreadful
career. Secondly, despite his enormous size, this tiger did not have
a fighting heart, so he was likely to prove more cowardly,
cunning, elusive and much more difficult to bring to book than
most ordinary tigers, normally more daring and so liable to expose
themselves.

How correct both my surmises were was revealed in a

comparatively short time. My visit to Amligola could not be
prolonged as I had to return to work to the aircraft plant in which
I was employed at that time. So leaving instructions with Ramiah
to keep me closely informed of events as they occurred, I returned
to Bangalore the following morning.

It did not take long for Ramiah to write again. He related that
the Gowndnorai had turned into a dangerous and elusive brute.
No longer did he sun himself on the slopes of the small hillock, in
full view of every passer-by. Now there was no sight of him, no
sound to be heard. Only his huge, saucer-sized pug-marks betrayed
his passing, and with each such visit some traveller, who had set
out on a journey, failed to reach his destination.
 Ramiah said that the tiger had taken to haunting the most
lonely section of the footpath leading from Amligola to Tagarthy,
from where he would snatch the last of a group of travellers.
Apparently this had happened on three occasions, and now people
shunned this track. They preferred to walk twenty-five miles by a
circular route to Tagarthy.

Having covered the short cut many times myself, I knew exactly
the spot to which Ramiah referred. It was a dip through a valley
running between two low hills, where the vegetation consisted of
tall bamboos and fairly heavy evergreen scrub that provided ideal
cover in which a tiger could spring an ambush upon a group of
passers-by.

I left for Tagarthy the next day, parked the car at the rest house
of the forest department that stood in a beautifully wooded setting
a mile away, and set out to cover the eight-mile footpath to
Amligola, which would lead through what had become the valley
of death, in which the Gowndnorai launched his attacks. It was
exactly two in the afternoon when I started, and it was a cloudy,
cool day. The conditions for a tiger to be early afoot were ideal.

I would have to progress slowly and carefully and timed my

arrival at Amligola at about six o’clock or at most half an hour
later, just as it was getting too dark to see. To stay out after that
would force the use of my torch, and realizing I was dealing with a
very shy and crafty animal, I felt he was less likely to show
himself then, and would probably prefer to launch his ambush at a
time when he thought the traveller was unprepared.

For the first mile or so, the pathway traverses beautiful park-
like country, and here peacocks, which had just begun to grow
their new plumage after dropping their tail-feathers subsequent to
the mating season, grubbed under the bushes and flapped heavily
skywards as I appeared around a corner.
 Gradually the vegetation grew more dense, the trees higher and
the undergrowth thicker. After the second mile, I could only see
the track ahead and snatch a quick glance around at it behind me.
To my left and right a wall of impenetrable green hid everything
more than a yard away from sight.

The dangerous valley about which I have spoken, where the

Gowndnorai had thrice launched his ambushes, still lay three
miles ahead, beginning at about the fifth mile along the track I
had come, with another three miles to my destination, Amligola.

The closer I approached this valley, the more dense became the
vegetation. Actually, this sort of jungle is not favoured by tigers as
a rule, who prefer the park-like country I had already come
through. Bison, elephant, sambar and barking deer are at home
here, the felines choosing the more open jungles where their main
prey, such as spotted deer, wild pig, and of course village cattle,
graze on the plentiful grass that grows there. It was another
indication of the Gowndnorai’s craftiness that had induced him to
change from the habit of his species to haunt a place affording him
the maximum cover for his ambushes.

At last I tipped down the foot of the hill, the base of which
marks the start of the valley of death. It is three-quarters of a mile,
or perhaps seven furlongs, to the point where the path starts
climbing the next hill, and dense bamboos with lush undergrowth
press heavily upon the narrow trail on both sides.

I halted for a moment to pick up a handful of sand, which I

raised to shoulder level and then allowed to trickle slowly from
my fingertips. There was little breeze, but what there was carried
the sand earthwards slightly to my left. The wind was therefore
blowing from right to left, and the tiger, if he attacked, would
almost certainly do so from the left-hand side of the track and not
from the right. My deduction was based upon a fundamental law
of the jungle.
 Felines prey upon deer and such creatures as have a keen sense
of smell. To do so upwind would render their stalk abortive, for
the currents of air would betray their presence and their quarry
would escape. Carnivores have therefore learned by instinct
always to approach downwind, that is against the wind, so that
their own scent will not give them away before they can attack.

Unlike deer, the human being has practically no sense of smell

so far as self-preservation is concerned, and the average person
would not be able to scent a tiger or a panther, even in hiding a
yard away, whatever the direction of the wind. But the feline does
not know this and so applies the same rules to stalking a man as it
would to stalking any other jungle creature. For this reason, I was
almost sure that the Gowndnorai, if he came for me, would attack
from the left;

and being the coward that he was, ten chances to one from
behind me.

Having established all this by reasoning, I began to walk silently

forwards along the track, alert for anything that might happen.

The first quarter-mile or so was fraught with apprehension.

Every little while I glanced backwards to see if I was being
followed. Once, as I looked back, I was in time to see a bush I had
just passed sway violently, then come to rest.

I swung around. I knew that I could not see beneath the bush; it
was far too thick. But I could watch the top of it. A tiger cannot
spring out of the middle of a bush, it has to creep forwards to break
clear of its branches before he makes its leap, and when it creeps
the tops of the bushes will shake. If you keep watching the tops of
the branches you will be able to see them move, then you will
know it is coming.

Sure enough the top of one of the branches very near the edge of
the pathway shook slightly as something brushed against its base.
This is it, I said to myself, and raised the .405 to my shoulder.

A moment later the branch vibrated more noticeably and out

walked a wild boar into full view. Seeing me suddenly, it swerved
head-on, the bristles on its neck rising like spines, head bent low
with tusks aimed at me, small red eyes looking upward angrily.

I felt like laughing, but sighed with relief. The fact of the boar
appearing from my left indicated that the tiger was not in the
immediate vicinity.

Noticing that I stood motionless and made no move towards

him, the boar decided that I must be harmless after all, although
something to be regarded with grave suspicion. With head still
bent at an angle to keep me in view and charge if necessary, the
pig crossed the track to plunge into the thickets on the right with a
loud brushing of the leaves. The next instant it was gone.

This time I really sighed. I went on again, relief making me a

trifle less cautious perhaps, and was soon within reach of the end
of the valley. I saw nothing in front of me; I looked back, but
nothing was there. I looked in front again, when something urged
me to turn around.

And there was the Gowndnorai, or rather his head, emerging

from a wall of green to my left that I had just passed. Not a sound
had he made. My rifle came to my shoulder and I squinted down
the barrel.

But the tiger was no longer there to aim at. Instinct and his
inherent cowardliness warned him that here was no defenceless
passer-by. He vanished as silently as he came.

Confidence made me bold and I stepped forward to catch a

glimpse of him, if possible. A low growl, and then the rustle of
leaves several yards away in the undergrowth, told me that the big
tiger would not stay to fight. He was running away.
 I arrived at Amligola shortly before dark to recount my
adventure to an astonished Ramiah.

I did not know quite what to do the next day. Ramiah said it
was useless to tie out cattle as bait, for the Gowndnorai would not
look at them. In any case, there were very few cattle in Amligola,
and none of their owners would sell for this purpose. I would have
to wait to walk back to Tagarthy the following morning if I
wanted to buy a bait.

That afternoon the Gowndnorai broke his own rule. Perhaps he

was over-hungry. Maybe he thought the valley was too dangerous
for him to haunt for a while, with me in it. So he killed a man in
the park-like jungle I have told you about, a mile or so from the
Tagarthy forest rest house where I had left my car. The victim’s
three companions came hurriedly through the valley to bring me
the news. They knew it was safe enough to traverse while the tiger
was engaged in eating this kill. It was nearly three in the
afternoon when they arrived and I had seven miles to cover to
reach the site of the incident. We found what was left of the man a
little after four-thirty.

The Gowndnorai had attacked his victim in the expected

fashion from behind a bush, out of the centre of which grew a
wild-cashew tree, killed him and carried him back to the same
bush, behind which he had set to work and eaten more than half
the body. The three men who had been walking in front of the
victim had practically run the rest of the way to Amligola.

The wild-cashew tree growing on the spot was a very lucky

factor. Its many branches and large leaves made the construction
of a machan a quick and easy matter. Although I made a bet with
myself that the Gowndnorai would never show up, because he was
far too cunning for one thing, while the noise the men made in
building the machan, in spite of all their efforts to work silently,
must have been heard by him where he lay, probably not very far
away, there was always the slimmest chance that he might
appear. By six o’clock I was in the machan, quite a snug affair
considering the short time in which it had been made, and the
three men hurried back the mile to Tagarthy which they had
covered that morning in the company of the unfortunate man
now lying mangled behind the bush.

This was the Indian spring and it soon began to grow dark.
Within another hour the remains of the corpse on the ground
beneath me was hidden from sight. There was no moonlight and I
was relying upon the torch, clamped to the barrel of my rifle, to
light the scene if the tiger returned.

All was silent for nearly an hour except for the calls of a few
night-birds and the flapping of the large fruit bats around the tree.
I glanced at the luminous dial of my watch. It was eight o’clock,
the time when tigers generally return to their kills!

Almost punctually to the hour, a group of spotted deer began to

call in alarm from the park-like jungle to the east. Their cries were
dying away when an animal moved in the bush directly below me.
The Gowndnorai had come. In another moment he could start to
eat and then would be my chance.

This was precisely the moment when I heard a tiger growl, but it
was at least a hundred yards or more away; certainly not below
me. So the Gowndnorai had a companion!

This fact raised complications. Was this the man-eater after all?
I remembered his cowardliness. Maybe another tiger was the true
man-eater. Or perhaps both had the habit!

My thoughts were interrupted when the animal below me

snarled; then dashed off at top speed. After that I heard neither of
the tigers and thought they both had gone when, a few minutes
before nine o’clock, a twig snapped and this was followed by the
crunching of bones. One of the tigers had returned. So I slowly
raised the rifle to my shoulder in preparation for a shot.

An instant later pandemonium broke out. A series of shattering

roars came from the darkness a short distance behind me, a
coughing snarl issued from directly below, and this was followed
by the sound of a large body frantically clawing its way up the
trunk of the tree upon which I was sitting. At about the same
instant a second body crashed against the tree, which shook under
the impact, and started tearing at the trunk.

The tree swayed as if struck by a hurricane and I felt I would be

hurled out of the machan. Roars, growls and snarls from below my
very feet threw me into panic. Hastily pointing the rifle-barrel
downwards, I pressed the torch-button. The light cut through the
night and fell upon a panther, only two feet below. But it was
gazing downwards.

I moved the barrel slightly, and now, I looked into the blazing
eyes of the Gowndnorai, who would never have had the courage
to attack the tree on which I was hiding had not the panther,
stealing from the kill, thought fit to take refuge in it. Neither
animal knew the tree was already occupied by me.

The first was an easy shot—between the eyes. The Gowndnorai

fell backwards as his roars came to an end. So was the second. The
panther looked up in startled amazement to provide another easy
shot, also between the eyes. I could not afford to spare him,
though I would have liked to do so. He had been eating from a
human kill and might turn into a man-eater himself.

The Gowndnorai was perhaps the largest tiger I have ever shot;
and surely the most cowardly.
 4

The Assassin of Diguvametta

F YOU were to travel in a southeasterly direction by metre-

I gauge railway from Guntakal junction in the state of Andhra
Pradesh, you would pass the large town of Nandyal and shortly
afterwards enter a delightful stretch of hilly country, heavily
forested and intersected by numerous streams. Over these you
would rattle, halting briefly at the jungle stations of Basavapuram
and Chelama, and traversing two tunnels, one short and one
extremely long. Finally you would cross a verdant valley by a
picturesque high viaduct, with tree-tops far below. In a few miles
you would probably observe a large stone water-column at the
right-hand side of the line, always overflowing, next to which
stands the ‘outer’ signal that heralds the advent of Diguvametta
railway station, where the hills and the jungle end and the
cultivated plains begin again.

The ‘assassin’s’ operations extended from this station as far as

the very long tunnel in the valley crossed by the long viaduct, but
it was particularly active in the vicinity of the dripping water-
column and the ‘outer’ signal beside it.

I have always had a sneaking fondness for the forests between

Chelama and Diguvametta, not because they are particularly well
stocked with game or carnivora, but for the utter peace and
solitude of the area, and the friendly disposition of the wild
Chenchu tribesmen who inhabit the extensive jungles in this
section of the Eastern Ghats. I have found that even the ordinary
villager of Andhra Pradesh is, on the whole, much more friendly
than his counterpart in Mysore state, where I live, while the folk
in Madras state reveal a disposition between the two.
 Also, the nature of the vegetation here is quite different from
that growing farther south, and while no elephants or bison occur,
this area represents the southernmost limit where the nilgai or
blue-bull, a large animal of the antelope species, looking like a
sambar deer, is to be found.

So to Diguvametta I travelled by train one day, passing through

the long tunnel and over the long bridge, both of which always
held for me a childish fascination, skirting the signal and dripping
water-column, to alight at Diguvametta with my small bedroll,
campkit, and rifle. A couple of urchins grabbed the bedroll and
campkit, and with my rifle slung over my shoulder, we began
walking up the road that ran parallel to the railway track in the
direction from which the train had just come.

It was perhaps half a mile to the forest bungalow, a wonderfully

cosy structure for so old a building; a plantation of teak seedlings
lay to the south of it, the jungle lay east and north, while to the
west was the road leading to the railway station, and after that
again the railway-line, as I have just said. The signal and water-
column stood a bare half-furlong away. My old friend, Aleem
Khan the caretaker of the forest bungalow, welcomed me at the
gate with his expansive smile, at the same time shouting to the
urchins to get a move-on with my samaans.

The bungalow had two suites of rooms, and as usual Aleem was
good enough to put me into the better one, the one that faced the
road and the railway. It was better because the bathroom attached
to this suite was fitted with a shower, while that on the other side
had none.

Aleem was a Muslim and had only two wives, while so many of
his co-religionists had four, the maximum allowed to a
Mohammedan legally. He had told me once before that he felt that
two were just enough. Without further ado he summoned these
two women and set them to operate the hand-pump together. This
contrivance drew water from a large well and fed it to a zinc
water-tank situated on the roof of my bathroom. For half an hour,
while I unpacked and then drank tea, hastily prepared for me by
the caretaker, I could hear the clank-clank-clank of the hand-
pump, and the chatter of the two wives as they argued with each
other and then started to quarrel, each accusing the other of
shirking her bit of the pumping. The dispute was brought to an
end by the sound of water pouring off the bathroom roof. The tank
had been filled to capacity!

Then came the much anticipated pleasure of a shower bath, or

rather a series of shower baths, one after the other, the cool water
trickling over my body in fine jets. Outside the temperature was
well over 100° F as the sun shone down with the merciless
intensity usual to Andhra, but inside that bathroom it was so
cool, so damp, so heavenly. I smiled maliciously to think I was so
callously wasting the precious liquid those two women had
worked so hard to pump for me.

Refreshed, and stretched at length in an armchair on the

veranda, I drew placidly on my pipe and drank mug after mug of
tea. A goods train clanked past heavily, an engine at either end,
the one in the front blasting clouds of black smoke from its funnel
and tugging for all it was worth, while the one at the back came
along unconcernedly, as if there was nothing to bother about at
all.

Aleem Khan squatted on his heels on the ground at the side of

my armchair, telling me some of his family troubles. His only
sister had lost her husband, a forest guard who had died suddenly
of tuberculosis, leaving his wife and two children unprovided for.
They had immediately come to Aleem for shelter and the problem
was now a major one. Aleem’s first wife had three children, the
second had two; and now his sister with her two children and
himself made a total of four adults and seven children to be fed on
his meagre salary.
 Could I do something about it? Aleem confided that, in spite of
her two children, his sister was still a comely lass, good to look
upon, with a fine figure, amiable disposition, and all the
attributes required to make a very desirable wife. In a moment of
temptation, I closed my eyes and let my thoughts run wild. What
fun it would be for me to announce my conversion to
Mohammedanism! I could then marry Aleem’s sister and take two
more wives into the bargain. With the one back in Bangalore, this
would make the fully permissible four.

Then the expense side of the question hit me a sharp blow, and
the troubles that would follow as a consequence hit me a sharper
one. I opened my eyes in horror to think of what a predicament I
was in, and then smiled when I remembered it was all in the realm
of speculation.

Hastily I told Aleem I would inquire in Bangalore for a suitable

candidate, and then, equally hastily, changed the topic. Were
there any tigers or panthers about?

A tiger had been poached just ten days ago he confided, by some
government official in a jeep, using a spotlight, on the forest
department’s fire-line two hundred yards from the rest house. This
fire-line, I must tell you, extended from west to east. It began at
the road to the northwest of the bungalow and a furlong away,
and went on in an easterly direction to another road two miles
distant that traversed the forest and connected Diguvametta to a
hamlet named Gondacheruvu, some forty miles away.

Aleem also mentioned that there was a panther about, and this
animal was beginning to prove troublesome. Its pug-marks could
be seen early in the morning around the rest house, and it had
taken his dog three weeks earlier from the place where it had been
sleeping on the back veranda. He added that his sister had not
only brought her two children but her dog as well, and this the
panther had attacked immediately outside the door of the
outhouse that Aleem had allowed his sister to occupy. But this
animal, unusually big for a village cur, had also a big heart. He
had turned on the panther with such ferocity that the latter had
fled precipitately with the cur in hot pursuit. Both Aleem and his
sister had witnessed the scene in the bright moonlight.

Nevertheless, the caretaker said he was not happy about matters

and felt the panther would summon up enough courage to return
and would eventually get the dog. But what really troubled him
was the presence of the seven children, two of whom were mere
toddlers. Should the panther become sufficiently bold—or hungry
—he might be tempted to run off with one of them.

Many people have asked me why I do not leave India and go to

England, Australia or even Canada. I have tried to answer that
question, but I do not think I have convinced anybody. This
thought returned to me as I lay in the armchair that afternoon at
Diguvametta. Where in England, Australia or Canada, where
anywhere else in the world, except perhaps Africa or South
America, would I find the conditions of India? A journey by train
or road of a few hours separated my home in Bangalore from the
cold climate to be found on any of the several mountain ranges
that lay within two hundred miles, or from the swelteringly hot
weather of the plains that lay even closer; from the dense forests
to the west, with their very heavy rainfall, and the extremely
arid, semi-desert areas to the east; from the teeming millions of
one of the cities and the utter solitude of a jungle within fifty
miles of home; from the varied languages and dialects of the towns
and the almost incoherent vocabularies of the forest tribes; from
the safety and comfort of home and the ever-present hazards of
death from a sudden sickness, snakebite or some wild animal.
Where in the world would time be of so little, if any consequence,
as in India? Where in the world would consequences themselves be
of so little importance? It matters not how you dress, or whether
you dress at all! The bare requirements of existence are all that do
matter. Everything else is thrown in along with that, sometimes in
good measure and sometimes scarcely at all; but really it does not
make much difference either way and there is never any hurry
about anything. There is a time to be born and a time to die and
each event is as inevitable as the other. Moreover, death follows
life and life follows death, so it really does not matter where you
start and where you end, as it all works out to the same thing.

My friends cannot understand when I tell them that these things

are the reasons why I love India, why I do not think I shall ever
leave it.

My reverie was broken by trouble in the form of the forest range

officer, who arrived on a bicycle to inform Aleem Khan that word
had just been received that the district forest officer (D.F.O.) was
passing through Diguvametta and would spend the next night at
the rest house. Did I have written permission to occupy the
bungalow?

I had to reply in the negative, and the range officer looked

aghast. I had committed the unpardonable crime of trespass. I was
occupying a government building without permission. He
swallowed hard and then told me I would have to get out
forthwith.

Here was the same difficulty that I had experienced in so many

forest bungalows in so many jungles. This is why I have purchased
so many parcels of land in so many areas, in order to be able to
camp in peace without being troubled by authority, that ever-
present bogy that has stalked the length and breadth of the
country from time immemorial, that stalked it during the days of
the British Raj and that dominates it even more since
Independence.

I flattered the range officer and in no time he was eating out of

my hand. Certainly, sir, he agreed, these senior officers coming on
tour were a damned nuisance. Why (and being the gentleman
that he knew I was, he could tell me in confidence), they did not
work at all when they came. It was he and his subordinates who
were the workers. These visits were only a pretext for collecting
batta, the colloquial name for a travelling allowance, when they
were hard up. Witness the fact that these ‘tours’ invariably took
place during the last week of a month. Certainly, I could remain
for the night in the bungalow, but I must promise faithfully to go
before noon the following day or he would be in grave trouble
should the D.F.O. find me occupying the bungalow without
permission.

I promised, and then inquired if there was a vacant room

anywhere in the village. The range officer did not think so.

At this stage in the conversation I mentioned that I had suffered

similarly in so many other areas that I had begun purchasing small
plots of land in nearly every jungle I visited and had at that
moment over twenty camp sites of my own. He brightened at this
idea. He had a friend, he said, in the revenue department, who
owned many acres of land just beyond the railway station. Upon
his recommendation, the ranger was sure this friend, whose name
was Ranga Reddy, would be glad to present me with a small plot
of land all my own, big enough to pitch a tent upon, as a gift and
free of all charges.

Within the hour we were at this friend’s place. There we drank

coffee and were forced to consume two dosais each. Then Ranga
Reddy took us to his land, which was a quarter of a mile beyond
the railway station and to the east of the line, and invited me to
select any spot I fancied, anywhere I wished and to the extent
required.

The field was good agricultural land, consisting of rich black

soil, and we had to go to the far corner to find a vacant bit, lying
fallow and with earth that was not quite so rich as the rest of the
field. After all, I required only a camping site and did not want to
deprive my new friend of anything of value. A stream flowed a
short distance away, while the main road bordered the plot on one
side. An ideal camping-site! Ten cents of land would be ample for
my requirements.

I told the owner of my choice. He answered with an expansive

smile that I could certainly have the land. He would take me in
his jeep the following day to the town of Giddalur, twelve miles
away, where the formal registration of my ownership would have
to be made.

I asked the price. Free, of course, he replied. This would never

do, I answered. Besides, it would not constitute a legal purchase;
he must accept some price. With hesitation, Mr Reddy said ‘Five
rupees,’ and I said,’ ‘No, take fifty.’

He recoiled in horror. ‘Take fifty rupees from a friend for such a

useless plot of land!’ Eventually we agreed to thirty rupees, which
is less than two pounds in English currency.

The next morning we were at the registrar’s office at Giddalur

when it opened for business. Half an hour later I was the proud
owner of my own camp site of ten cents of land at Diguvametta!

However, I have anticipated events a little by telling you about

the purchase of the site. I should have related, in proper sequence
of events, what happened on the night after I had returned to the
rest house from a short stroll along the fire-line where the tiger
had been shot so recently. This fire-line traversed a deep nullah
that formed the bed of a running stream where the flow of water,
now that the dry season prevailed, was not more than a yard wide.
Implanted in the mud on both sides were the pug-marks of a
medium-sized panther. This animal, like all its kind, had been
loath to walk in the water, and so it had jumped across.

I wondered if it could be the animal Aleem had told me about.

The tracks led towards the forest lodge and had probably been
made the previous night. Then I stooped to examine them more
closely and changed my mind. The dark-green layer of surface
fungus that borders old watercourses and streams in some places
grew to the water’s edge on both banks, and it had been pressed
down by the weight of the panther both on the side from which
the animal had jumped and, considerably more deeply, upon the
bank where it had landed. The fact that the dark green fungus was
still pressed down on both sides was very significant. Why had it
not returned to the upright position of the fungus elsewhere? It
would have done so had the panther made its leap the previous
night, as I had first thought. There could be only one conclusion:
the facts clearly showed that the panther had crossed not more
than an hour or two earlier.

It was now after six in the evening, so the animal must have
passed this way between four and five, long before sunset. In this
case it would be in the vicinity of the bungalow right now, unless
it had gone on to cross the railway track in the direction of the
water-tank. I turned back from my walk, wondering if I would
hear it calling during the night.

I had just sat down to an early dinner of cold roast beef that I
had brought from home when it happened. The time was exactly
7.45 p.m.; I remember this because I had just wound my watch, a
habit I follow as I sit down to dinner. Aleem’s sister’s dog had
made itself friendly and was sitting on its haunches by my chair,
gazing soulfully at me in anticipation of receiving scraps from my
plate. I gave it a piece of dried chappati.

Most dogs would have gulped the morsel and looked for more,
but this creature, in common with all village curs, decided to take
the mouthful outside and enjoy it in solitude. It ran out on to the
veranda, and then I heard a low snarl, followed by a loud yelp
from the dog.
 My rifle was in the bedroom that led off from the central dining-
room, and there was no time to get it. Realizing that the panther
had struck and that if I wanted to save the dog I would have to act
fast, I rushed on to the veranda where I was just in time to see in
the moonlight a spotted form leap down from the raised plinth on
which the veranda stood, with the dog in its jaws, still alive and
struggling.

Shouting loudly to frighten the attacker, I hurled the first

missile that came to hand at the slouching form, one of the hard
wooden chairs with which all government buildings are furnished.
The departing leopard was only fifteen feet away when the chair
descended squarely upon it, but the panther did not let the poor
dog go. On the contrary it began to bound away with the dog still
held firmly.

I rushed back into the bedroom for my rifle, hastily loaded it,
and followed in the direction taken by the panther. Bright
moonlight lit the compound, and so I had not waited to attach my
torch-equipment to the weapon. That would have taken time, and
not a second was to be wasted if I were to try to save the dog.

It was quite a different matter, however, when I reached the

jungle that flanked the bungalow’s grounds. Darkness, cast by the
foliage of the trees, enveloped me, relieved here and there by
shafts of moonlight. I soon realized that to crash about in the
underbrush and darkness would only serve to frighten the panther
and make it carry the victim farther away. In any case, it was too
late for me to save the dog’s life. So I sat down in the shadows at
the foot of a tree, annoyed with myself for not having fixed my
torch to the rifle. It would have taken time to do so, but at least I
would have been able to see.

The panther, realizing I had stopped chasing it, must have

thought I had gone away, for within ten minutes it began to eat.
Nor was it very far away, for I could hear its low growl now and
then, alternating with the sound of tearing flesh and the crack of a
bone. I was undecided whether to try to creep up to the beast or go
back to the bungalow for my torch, and as so often happens when
one is undecided, I chose to do the wrong thing.

Rising to my feet slowly, and treading cautiously in the

darkness for fear of making any sound, I tiptoed towards the noises
that reached me now and then, adopting the old hunter’s practice
of only moving while the sounds lasted, and stopping as soon as
they ceased. For when an animal you are trying to stalk is eating
or making a noise of any kind there is less chance of his being able
to hear the sounds that you might make, however slight they may
be, in your approach, but it would be much more likely to hear
you if it were silent.

I came quite near the panther that night. I do not think it could
have been more than five yards away when luck, that had helped
me so far, decided to put a spoke in the wheel. Incidentally, it
sealed the fate of three innocent people. A bear, pig or pangolin
had dug a hole in the ground. In the darkness I did not see it and
put my left foot right into that hole, bringing me down with a
jerk. I stumbled forward, and the panther knew I was there. With
a coughing snarl he was away, and I heard him bounding through
the bushes.

Extricating myself, I went on till I found the body of the dog

which the panther had started to feed upon. I could make out its
form as a light blur against the darkness of the ground. When I
returned to the rest house, Aleem and his family had come out,
searching for the dog and wondering where I had gone.

I fixed my torch on to the barrel of the .405 then, and returned

with the caretaker. Only a fourth of the dog had been eaten.
Aleem carried the remains back to the bungalow, where he said he
would bury them in the morning, while I decided to try to search
for the panther.
 It was easier now to wander in the jungle with the help of my
torch, and I scoured the area right around the building within the
radius of a furlong for over two hours. No sign of the panther did I
see, while the presence of a small sounder of pigs showed that the
spotted cat had moved away from this area completely. On the
other side of the road and bordering the railway track close to the
signal, a few spotted deer and a solitary nilgai cow grazed in
peace, suddenly shattered by a shrill whistle of an engine and the
heavy rumble of a goods train.

The panther had gone. There was considerable weeping on the

part of the women and children when what was left of the dog was
buried the next morning. A little later, as agreed, I moved out of
the rest house, stopping at the ranger’s quarters to borrow an old
tent that he had promised to lend me.

Within two hours the tent had been pitched and a camp made
on my new site. Two mud-pots, purchased in the marketplace and
stored in a corner of the tent, served for drinking and washing
water. Two fireplaces, built with stones and placed outside the
tent, were ample for my needs, one for brewing tea and the other
for cooking food. The earth was my bed; the stream not far away
was my source of water, both for drinking and bathing; a small
lantern was my illumination at night. What more did I need? Free
to come and go as and when I liked! At least, as far as
Diguvametta was concerned, I was henceforth rid of officials and
government rules and regulations for evermore. Happy was I and
very contented.

There was just one thing that could go wrong. If it happened to

rain, the black-cotton soil would be churned into a sticky
quagmire. I had not brought a campcot as I had intended to stay at
the forest bungalow. So I would, literally, be in a mess.

Early that afternoon, after I had returned from Giddalur, a jeep

came tearing down the road, and as it flashed past my tent I read
‘Andhra forest department’ in large white lettering on boards both
behind and in front. The dark face of the occupant next to the
driver stared at me hard. The district forest officer had arrived!

Later in the evening I called at the rest house on a courtesy visit.

As much as I dislike government officials, one has to keep in touch
with them in India if one wants to move about freely.

The D.F.O. was a young man, practically new to the service,

and had been recruited directly to the department after passing
through college, followed by training and a departmental
examination at one of the provincial centres. Very soon I
discovered that he knew nothing whatever about the jungle fauna
and that he harboured the usual vague ideas regarding the terrible
ferocity of tigers and panthers.

Aleem had told him what had happened to the dog the previous
night without disclosing my part in the story or, most important of
all, the fact that I had been occupying the bungalow.

So the D.F.O. in his turn now related to me a highly embellished

account of the incident, including how the panther had leapt
upon Aleem’s breast and carried away the dog that had been
sleeping there, to all of which I listened with an innocent, not to
say surprised, expression. Apparently it did not occur to him that
people ordinarily do not sleep with great hefty dogs upon their
chests.

However, the upshot was that the D.F.O. invited me to shoot the
panther. He inquired where I was staying and was markedly
surprised to hear I was the owner of ten tents and was camping on
my own site. Very generously, he suggested I should occupy the
other half of the bungalow and enjoy its comforts.

Hanging my head in shame, I reminded him that I did not have

‘official permission to occupy the Government forest lodge,’ and
slyly added that the rules of his department were very strict on
this point. Permission could only be granted by the conservator of
forests or by the collector of the district.

My new friend was offended. Was not he the D.F.O.? Was his
permission not good enough? To hell with the conservator and the
collector! ‘You come along to the bungalow right away,’ he said;
‘we’ll have dinner together tonight.’

So I came back where I started, but now as a guest, having left

rather in the fashion of a vagabond. Moreover, but this I am sure
was pure luck, I was installed once more in the western or shower-
bath side of the building. And it was fortunate, indeed, that I
returned to the shelter of the bungalow just in time, for that night
we had a heavy downpour. Next morning, my campsite was a sea
of black mud.

The D.F.O. made Aleem bring a dog from the village, at Aleem’s
own suggestion and much against my desire, and instructed the
caretaker to chain it to a teak-sapling that grew about ten yards
behind the building. He was keen that I should bag the marauder. I
dislike using dogs as bait. They are far too sensitive and suffer an
agony of apprehension when chained up, as they appear to realize
the danger they are in.

The D.F.O. had no firearm, but sat with me on another chair

inside the dining-room. By keeping the door half-open we could
see every detail outside in the clear moonlight, while the panther
might not be able to see us in the darkness of the dining-room.

You may be sure that I kept a sharp lookout, for I did not want
the dog to be killed. The cur, on its part, realizing the danger and
feeling the discomfort of the chill air, began to yelp and whine
loudly. The panther, if it happened to be anywhere within half a
mile or even more at this moment, would certainly hear it.

The D.F.O. began to doze shortly after 11 p.m., and retired to his
bed before midnight. Soon after two o’clock in the morning, with
the moon behind the trees, long shadows began to fall and hide
the dog, which had resigned itself to its fate. It had stopped
yelping and was curled up fast asleep, and out of my sight. Should
the panther attack now, I certainly would not be able to save the
mongrel from being killed. Yet I hesitated till the moon
disappeared behind the jungle to the west and it became pitch-
dark. Then I got up from my chair, untied the dog, who wagged its
tail joyously on seeing me, brought it indoors, and went to sleep
myself.

After lunch the next day the D.F.O. departed on his return
journey to Nandyal, while I left by the midnight train after giving
my Bangalore address to Aleem, along with a couple of stamped
postal covers which I always carry about with me for just such a
purpose, instructing the caretaker to write to me should any
unusual event occur. I had a hunch that I had not heard the last of
that panther. But I forgot all about the affair before I even reached
my journey’s end.

It came as a surprise when Aleem’s letter reached me about four

months later, stating that a railway ganger had been killed by a
wild animal midway between the long bridge and the water-
column with the ‘outer’ signal close beside it. The letter said that
no tracks could be found and that the ganger’s body had been
partly devoured. Then it went on to explain that there was a
division of opinion as to what kind of beast had perpetrated the
crime. Some said the killer was a tiger; others said it was a sloth
bear. A few superstitious people blamed an evil spirit, but Aleem
himself thought it was the panther. Would I come and shoot the
creature, whatever it might turn out to be?

I answered, saying that as the killing was an old one and might
be merely the odd result of a chance meeting with an irate bear,
my visit to Diguvametta would be of no use just then; but I
impressed upon him to write again should anything further
transpire.
 The next letter came about a month later. This reported that
the ganger in charge of the water-column had made a practice of
returning to the railway station by sunset. Invariably he and
another ganger, whose duty it was to light the oil-lamp serving the
‘outer’ signal at precisely six o’clock every evening would meet at
the foot of the signal and return together. This had been their
regular habit ever since the two had become friends.

On the evening before that on which the letter was written,

however, this meeting had failed to materialize. The second
ganger had lighted the lamp on the signal, came down the iron
ladder and found no signs of his friend from the water-tank, who
should have been waiting for him there. Thinking the fellow must
have fallen asleep, he called his name loudly, ‘Ram! Ram!’

No answer had come, so the second ganger, apprehending no

danger, had gone in search of his companion. He came upon the
body at the base of the stone structure that supported the cast-iron
tank of the water-column. Not much of it had been eaten: just a
little from the chest. And although it was after six o’clock, there
was still light enough for him to see in the sodden earth, saturated
by the overflow from the water tank, a number of pug-marks,
crossing and re-crossing each other. They had been made by a
panther.

The ganger took to his heels and did not stop running till he had
reached the station.

‘Come at once,’ Aleem’s letter concluded urgently. ‘A man-

eating panther is amongst us!’

Unfortunately, I had urgent engagements that day, so I decided

to leave early next morning, travelling by car so as to avoid delay
and in order to carry the tent, stores and all the other kit that I
would require for living on my camp site. I did not want to risk
again the nuisance of being ousted from the bungalow in the midst
of my operations. Moreover, when hunting a man-eater,
particularly a panther, one cannot possibly conform to
government rules that limits one’s stay in a travellers’ bungalow
or a forest rest house to not more than three days.

I had just returned that evening, completed my packing and was

about to have dinner, when I heard a bicycle bell outside. Then
Thangavelu, my servant, came in with a telegram and the
messenger’s delivery book for my signature.

Hastily I signed and tore open the cover of the telegram to get
one of the most unpleasant shocks I have ever received: ‘Panther
killed sister’s child. Come immediately. Aleem.’

Before dawn I was on my way.

If you ever go to the forest rest house at Diguvametta, at the

southeastern corner of the building and within twenty yards of it,
you will come across a little grave under a stone slab. Inscribed on
the stone is the one word: ‘Mischief.’

The story goes that many years ago, in the days of the British
Raj, a visiting British forest officer, or it may have been a
collector, was occupying the bungalow along with his little dog
whose name was ‘Mischief.’ A panther had suddenly pounced
upon the latter and was carrying it away when the Englishman
fired, killing both the panther and his own dog with the spreading
shot from his gun. In sorrow, and in memory of his pet, this officer
had buried it where it had been killed and had later returned,
bringing an engraved tombstone to place over the spot.

Aleem told me the story of the latest tragedy as I was getting out
of my car. His sister’s elder child, who was a girl, had been told the
story of ‘Mischief and had formed the habit of placing a little
bunch of jungle flowers early each morning on the grave. That
morning, for some reason, she had forgotten to put the flowers she
had gathered on the stone slab, but only remembered late in the
evening when it was almost dark. Meanwhile, the little bunch of
flowers had withered noticeably.

‘Peearree,’ which was the girl’s name, had told her mother,
Aleem’s sister, about her omission and said she would put the
flowers on the grave at once. Her mother had answered that it was
growing dark and the man-eater would catch her. Besides, the
flowers were already withered; she could put fresh flowers on the
grave the next morning.

Without heeding, Peearree had grabbed the dying flowers and

dashed out. She must have reached her destination, for the little
bunch was found there. Nobody had heard a sound; neither a
scream, nor a whimper, nor a growl. The child did not come back.

Alarmed, her mother had called out to her, but receiving no

answer summoned Aleem and his two wives from the adjoining
room. The caretaker snatched up a stick and the four of them,
carrying a couple of lanterns, went to the small grave, where they
found the flowers, but of the little girl herself, no trace. A few feet
away lay a scattered heap of glass beads, and the string on which
they had been threaded. And, of course, a little farther on, a few
drops of blood!

Aleem and the three women had hurried to the village, to

return considerably later with the ranger, a couple of forest
guards, and quite a number of people armed with hatchets, sticks,
knives and lanterns. Nobody had a gun.

They searched the undergrowth rather haphazardly that night

without result, because everyone feared the panther. Next
morning, they had looked again. This time they found the killer’s
pug-marks, and the marks left by the child’s body where it had
been hauled through the thicker bushes. They even found some
tattered remnants of clothing. After that, all signs of man-eater
and victim had vanished.
 Aleem said I should stay in the rest house and not expose myself
to risk from attack by the panther while in my tent. This I
resolutely refused to do till he tempted me with an idea, as brave
as it was dangerous. He offered to sit on Mischief’s tombstone all
night as bait, if I agreed to lie prone upon the veranda with my
rifle, hidden behind a pillar. He said he would call softly, as soon
as he felt the panther’s presence. I could then switch on my torch,
play the beam around, pick up the animal’s eyes or form in the
light and shoot it. There was no moon at this time, the nights
were totally dark.

Aleem’s was a magnificently brave, but an utterly absurd and

foolish plan. As if he would ever feel the man-eater’s presence in
time to warn me before it attacked him! He would feel nothing till
it was upon him, and then it would be too late. What was worse, I
would not be able to fire, for if I did so, I would possibly hit him
and not the panther. Even supposing Aleem sensed the panther
coming and called to me, the man-eater would never show up.

‘No!’ I kept repeating, ‘No, no, no!’ But at the same time I was
thinking that Aleem’s scheme had possibilities and they gave me
an idea: there was nothing to prevent me from dressing in Indian
clothing and sitting on Mischief’s grave! My usual attire might
scare the man-eater away, as panthers are inordinately cunning
and clever, but Indian garb would deceive him. No other party
being endangered, no charge of manslaughter could be brought
against me; nor could there be any idea of suicide. Should the
man-eater come, and should I not be aware of it beforehand, the
question of suicide could not arise, for the very simple reason that
I would not be present to answer the charge. So I told Aleem of my
scheme and now it was his turn to remonstrate.

I had my way, however, as I usually do in these matters, and

sunset found me seated on Mischief’s tombstone with crossed legs,
dressed in Aleem’s dirtiest clothing, my face and hands blackened
with charcoal, and a filthy rag tied round my forehead to emulate
a turban. The rifle lay inconspicuously on the ground close at
hand, with the torch clamped to it, covered with a light layer of
leaves so that the man-eater might not notice it. You may be
certain I took good care to sit with my back towards the rest house
so that I could watch the jungle on three sides.

The sunset hour and the corresponding break of day are the most
delightful moments to be in a forest to anybody fascinated by the
jungle and the wild creatures that inhabit it, for it is at these
times that one hears the songs of the birds of the day at their best.
The creatures and birds of the night seem to take the cue from
their brethren of the day, and their calls of welcome to the hours
of darkness that lie ahead mingle with those of their roosting
fellows, to fade away correspondingly at break of day.

But I had no ears for such music at this moment, enchanting as

it always is to me, for my ears, mind and nerves were attuned for
the coming of the killer. Now was the hour, the sunset hour, when
it would be afoot. It was at precisely this moment that it had
taken poor little Peearree, and there was every likelihood that it
would revisit the place where it had killed her in the hope of
finding another victim. Thoughts such as these came into my
mind and filled me with an ever-growing sense of danger.

It was soon quite dark. The rest house behind me, although so
close, was a mere shapeless blur against the blacker background of
the jungle behind it. Overhead, the stars twinkled here and there
in the open spaces between the tree-tops that swayed slightly to
the faint breeze. A short distance away a tall clump of bamboos
reached heavenwards, the tops of their giant feathery culms
drooping back to earth again in all directions like a graceful but
huge bouquet.

Then I heard a faint rustle a little to my left. Very soon I heard it

again, coming, it seemed, from a bush a few feet away. I strained
my eyes but could see nothing but the blob of deeper blackness
that was the bush against the blackness of the jungle beyond. My
hand grasped the loaded rifle, kept ready at my feet, and in a
lightning-swift motion the butt was at my shoulder and my left
thumb was pressed hard upon the switch. A bright beam cut
through the darkness to reflect tiny eyes that gazed back at me,
brilliant as rubies, in innocent resentment. What I thought to be
the man-eater turned out to be one of those huge black scorpions,
common in India and particularly in Andhra state, rustling the
dry leaves in its search for grubs.

These creatures grow to a length of eight inches, vary between

jet black and very dark green in colour, are covered with short,
bristly hairs, have a tremendous crab-like pair of pincerclaws
before them and a long segmented tail, with a needlesharp point
at its end. The sting of this creature brings with it intense agony
for twenty-four hours and death to such of its victims as may
suffer from a weak heart.

The scorpion halted in its tracks when the light fell upon it and
hissed audibly with vexation. I picked up a handful of earth and
tossed it at the scorpion, which hissed again before scurrying
away. Then I switched off the torch, replaced the rifle carefully on
the ground at my feet and, groping for the leaves I had displaced,
lightly covered it once again, cursing under my breath.

The whole incident was most unfortunate. The scorpion had

made me reveal my position by shining my torch. If the panther
had been anywhere near by it would have seen the light, and with
the uncanny instinct of man-eaters who can sense when they are
being hunted, the beast would beat a hasty retreat and now be far
away.

It is said that scorpions have more than two eyes. I began to

wonder if this was so and which of its eyes could have caught and
reflected my torch-beam, when I heard the whistle of an engine as
it rounded the bend just before reaching the outer signal. The
goods train rumbled to a grinding halt and the engine-driver
started to whistle again, first in short, rapid bursts and then in a
prolonged blast that disturbed the whole jungle. I could hear
voices too, the driver and his firemen talking to each other. They
seemed to be unduly excited and were making quite a lot of noise.

I began to wonder what it could be all about when what I

thought to be the solution came to me. The ‘outer’ signal must be
‘up,’ against the train entering the station, because the down
passenger on its way to Nandyal was coming in from the opposite
direction. This meant it was midnight and time had passed much
faster than I expected.

The sound of human voices continued while I heard the distant

hooting of the passenger train’s engine, followed by the sound of
its arrival at the station. The goods train driver now whistled and
started his train, which clanked slowly along. A few minutes
later, the down passenger drummed by as it picked up speed on its
journey to Nandyal.

The quiet that I had expected would follow did not materialize,
however, for soon I heard voices again, which grew louder as a
group of men carrying a couple of lanterns turned in at the gate of
the rest house and approached the building. Annoyed because all
hope of shooting the man-eater was now gone, I rose from
Mischief’s grave and approached the veranda, where I was joined
by Aleem, who had been awake and listening. The party turned
out to comprise the stationmaster, the ranger, and the driver,
guard and one of the firemen of the goods train.

They were all worked up and told how, upon coming out of the
long tunnel, the headlight on the engine had revealed what
looked like a crumpled human body lying at the side of the track.
Observing this, the driver had concluded that one of the earlier
trains must have knocked over some man who had attempted to
cross the line, and as his train was moving slowly at the time, he
decided to stop and investigate, lest the blame of having killed the
man be put on him later. To his dismay, however, the driver and
his firemen discovered that the man had not been run over at all.
On the other hand, he had been devoured by some animal, as was
evident from the fact that his gnawed bones lay scattered around.

The train guard, who had joined them by this time, suggested
the body might be that of some wandering Chenchu tribesman, as
it was clothed only in a loincloth. Having heard of the
depredations of the panther, the driver and his companions
decided to inform the stationmaster at Diguvametta, who could
report the incident by telegram to the authorities. This they had
done when the stationmaster, knowing I was at hand and had
come to shoot the man-eater, resolved to inform the ranger and me
first, before sending out his message.

So I had been right! The panther was, indeed, far away. Perhaps
it had never been near the bungalow that night. Perhaps it had
come at just about the time when the big scorpion had given me a
false alarm. Maybe it had seen my torchlight, scurried away, met
the Chenchu near the tunnel and killed him. But this was hardly
possible, considering the distance of the tunnel from where I was
sitting. As likely as not the Chenchu was a traveller who had not
heard about the man-eater, or perhaps he had heard and for that
reason had decided to sleep inside the tunnel, thinking it a safe
place where the panther would never come.

I thanked my informers and said I would do what I could. After

they had departed, as there was no point in remaining any longer
by the grave, I determined to snatch a little sleep, instructing
Aleem to wake me after four o’clock.

He must have remained awake, for it was a few minutes to four

when he called me. We brewed tea and munched a few biscuits,
after which we set out in darkness, walking in single file along the
railway track. Had the man-eater been a tiger, to have done this
would have been extremely dangerous, for a man-eating tiger
nearly always carries away the person last in line. With a panther
the risk was less: the more timid, but also more cunning, it waits
for the victim who is alone and helpless before launching its
attack, avoiding showing itself when more than one person is
present.

Dawn was just about to break when we reached the long bridge.
Here we had to wait for about ten minutes before it became bright
enough to attempt a crossing as this was a tricky business,
involving stepping from sleeper to sleeper between the lines. One
did not dare to look too much at the valley and the tree-tops far
below as we glimpsed them through the open spaces between the
sleepers.

It seemed an endless distance to the other end, but we made it

eventually. Not far away was the yawning black hole that was the
tunnel’s entrance. Just before reaching it, on our left and close to
the track, lay the mangled remains of what had been a Chenchu.

Examination showed that the man-eater must have returned to

its meal, either after the goods train had passed or later perhaps,
after the passenger train had gone in the opposite direction, for
much more of the body had been eaten than had been reported to
me. The head, feet and hands were now severed from the trunk
and lay scattered about, leaving just a possibility, though not a
strong one, that the man-eater might return.

Our thoughts were rudely disturbed just then by the rumbling

sound as of distant thunder. It issued from the mouth of the
tunnel, growing momentarily louder till it became a continuous
roar. The up morning passenger train to Diguvametta was
approaching. Making up my mind quickly and calling to Aleem to
follow, I ran a few yards from the tunnel up the track to give the
driver a chance to see me, stood between the rails and began to
wave frantically as the front of the engine, in billows of smoke,
dashed out of the tunnel.

The train was moving fast when the driver saw me. He applied
his brakes while I skipped clear of the lines, but half the train had
passed before it could be brought to a halt. I explained the
situation briefly to the driver and guard who came running from
both ends of the train, and asked them to take Aleem along and
tell the stationmaster at Diguvametta to ask the ranger to issue
orders through the local police, forbidding anybody to approach
the bridge or tunnel that night. I intended to await the man-
eater’s possible return. To Aleem I gave hasty instructions, asking
him to return with food, tea and blankets for both of us. A down
passenger was due to pass shortly after 2 p.m., and he could safely
come by it.

While I was speaking, a large number of passengers had crowded

around, wanting to know what was going on. Some of these now
insisted upon going to look at the corpse, so that it was over
fifteen minutes before the driver could continue his journey. I
watched the train as it clanked over the long bridge and
disappeared around the curve.

In an incredibly short time the vultures discovered the remains.

At first one appeared as a speck in the sky high above me, soon
followed by other specks. Then came the loud rustle of air through
their wing-feathers as they swooped to earth to alight heavily a
few feet from their prospective feast, towards which they began to
waddle in ungainly fashion.

Squatting at the mouth of the tunnel, I had an abundant supply

of ammunition in the gravel ballast of the line. I hurled the stones
at the venturesome vultures, and from such close range I managed
to score a fair number of direct hits which served to keep the
unwelcome birds at bay. All this helped to pass the time and an up
goods train to Diguvametta roared through the tunnel without the
driver noticing me, squatting to one side of the mouth, or the
scattered remains of the Chenchu, though he could not have
failed to observe the abnormal number of vultures that gathered
on both sides of the track.

The section is not a busy one and no other trains came through
till the arrival of the down passenger shortly after two o’clock,
bringing Aleem, the tea, my lunch and a blanket for each of us for
the night. The driver stopped his train for Aleem to alight and
then stepped down himself, with his firemen and, of course, the
guard and a crowd of passengers, to view the cadaver which by
now was smelling strongly.

Amidst cries of ‘good luck’ the train rumbled away again,

followed an hour later by a goods train, after which we were left
to our own devices. The vultures had by now abandoned their task
as hopeless and had flown dejectedly away, leaving us to make
our plans for the night.

There were two possible places in which to hide. The first was
the mouth of the tunnel itself; the second, somewhere above the
entrance. To determine which would be the less likely of the two
hiding places to be discovered, I put myself in the man-eater’s
place. Instinct, and a long association with the locality would
have conditioned it to the fact that huge monstrosities, rumbling
and roaring and billowing smoke, every now and then issued from
the hole in the earth. So it would certainly watch the hole very
carefully and for a long time before daring to show itself; in the
course of this close scrutiny it would very likely discover us, for I
would have to keep Aleem with me. There was nowhere to send
him away to, and it would be most dangerous to ask him to return
home unarmed.

The conclusion we reached therefore was obvious: we would

hide somewhere on the hillside, as close as possible above the
mouth of the tunnel, hoping that the panther would keep to the
general rule of not looking upwards for an enemy. The ground
above the entrance to the tunnel sloped gradually and was mostly
covered with coarse grass and weeds with a stumpy tree here and
there. It was quite rocky and boulders lay scattered around in
profusion, varying in size from a football to the height of a man.

Grateful for the luck afforded by this cover, it did not take us
long, working together, to construct a small buttress of boulders
which we placed in line a little above the entrance to the tunnel-
mouth in the form of a wall high enough to conceal us when lying
prone behind it. Between these boulders we allowed enough space
for two loopholes, one for Aleem and the other for myself, through
which to keep close watch upon the remains at the side of the
track below us, and a little of the terrain around it. For a wider
view, and to take a shot, I would have to look over the top of the
rough stone parapet we had constructed. If I were to try poking the
rifle through the aperture, I might make some sound if the barrel
struck against the stone. The panther would hear this, look up and
spot us. The one disadvantage of our situation was that we were
lying at a downward-sloping angle, with our heels at a higher
level than our heads.

We were in place by four o’clock, with the sun still blazing

down upon us and the ground fire-hot beneath. We lay on our
blankets, but these soon became unbearably warm, while the
disadvantage of the downward slope now began to make itself felt.
I suppose, because of the steady accumulation of blood in my
chest and head, rather than in equal distribution over my whole
body, I began to experience an uncomfortably stuffy sensation,
which grew more and more apparent as sunset approached. This
caused me to squirm about, and I saw that Aleem was squirming
too, from which I concluded that he, like me, was feeling
uncomfortable. If in the short space of only two hours I could feel
so suffocated, it was quite apparent that we would be compelled
to change position before very long.
 It was now beginning to get dark, and we could still make out
the remains of the Chenchu, when a barking deer called sharply
from the hill-top at the back of us. ‘Kharr!’ eh cried, ‘Kharr! Kharr!
Kharr!’

It kept barking hoarsely, but did not move away. Therefore,

whatever it had seen was evidently at a safe distance, enabling it
to hold its ground while continuing to give the alarm. A peacock
honked loudly and left its perch on a tree, also behind us, and
flapped heavily away. I caught sight of it out of the corner of my
eyes as it sailed with spread wings into the valley beneath the long
railway viaduct.

There was silence after that and darkness had almost fallen
when a junglehen, also from somewhere on the hill behind us,
fluttered from cover with a hysterical ‘Kok! Kok! Kok! Kok!’ I did
not relish all this activity behind me. Without doubt, some animal
that represented danger to the creatures that had given their
alarms, was afoot somewhere behind us. It could be any tiger or
panther, but far more likely it was the man-eater itself.

Within the next few minutes it became too dark to see the
Chenchu any more, although I could observe the line of ballast
beside the railway track, stretching away like a faint grey ribbon
from the tunnel beneath me. While I was still looking, I heard a
small stone roll somewhere behind me. The sound was faint, but
my ears, attuned closely to any noise in the jungle, did not fail to
register it.

From straining my eyes to see the ballast below, I turned my

head to the left to glance uncomfortably backwards. Aleem, next
to me was doing the same. Then the thought occurred to me:
perhaps the man-eater, in walking along the track, had dislodged
one of the small granite stones down there. Maybe the beast had
come through the tunnel itself and shifted one of the stones at the
entrance. What a lucky thing we had decided not to sit at the
mouth of the tunnel!

I was just congratulating myself in this way when a thought

struck me with horrifying significance: perhaps the panther was
not below us at all. Maybe it had seen us from the hill top above
and was crawling down upon us that very moment from behind,
waiting to get close enough before launching a final attack.

All further conjecture was interrupted at that moment as the

earth beneath me appeared to quake and tremble. As deep
rumbling increased to a prolonged roar, and a moment later a
shower of sparks and black smoke shot out of the earth before me
as a light engine, travelling backwards, rushed out of the tunnel-
mouth. Because this engine was moving in reverse, the driver
could not use his headlight, and we had no warning of his
approach. All other sounds were shut out as the black silhouette
of the engine disappeared into the darkness.

That was when the panther decided to attack, and it came from
behind us, not from down below. Maybe it could see only one of us
and therefore failed to realize that there were actually two people
present, for it came bounding along in true man-eater style, but
without making a sound, unlike the normal panther that ‘woofs’
and coughs harshly and loudly when it attacks.

We heard only the muffled fall of its soft pads on the hard
ground as it leapt towards us, a faintly-scraping, hollow, bumping
sound, which puzzled us. A moment more and it would have been
upon us but it then discovered that it was attacking two people
where it expected only one. The panther checked itself two yards
away, snarling and growling in baffled rage. Then, and only then,
did we know that the man-eater had indeed arrived.

I can hardly remember what happened next. I know Aleem

sprang up, yelling and I know I rolled violently over and over
away from where instinct told me there was danger. But I do
remember switching on my light and firing into the face of the
panther at point-blank range. It sprang forward then, passing
between us and over the edge of the tunnel above which we were
seated, to fall with a loud thud upon the railway track below.

The driver of the midnight down passenger was amazed at the

sight revealed by his headlight some time later. Two men were
drinking tea. Between them lay a dead panther, and but a short
distance away the mangled remains and bones of a man. I wager
he will remember the sight long after he retires from service. Being
a good fellow, he gave Aleem and me, along with the dead
panther, a lift to Diguvametta.

_____________
1 A fried flat cake made from rice flour.
 5

Tales of the Supernatural

ANY people have asked me if I have had occult experiences

M during the years I have spent in the jungles, and for my views
on whether such things are true or fictitious, or perhaps the
product of an overwrought imagination.

I have really no idea why the occult should be associated with

hunting experiences and forest lore, but somehow it is so. Other
hunters, far more experienced than I am, have related some
interesting happenings of this sort and we have little reason to
doubt them. I have had a few curious experiences myself and have
told them already, like that of the dead watchman of the Kalhatti
forest bungalow. 1 Fortunately I was not alone at that time; my
son Donald was with me. We both saw the watchman as clearly as
I can see this sheet of paper; yet he had been shot dead and buried
long before!

Then there was the case of Captain Neide, who removed an old
lamp from an ancient temple. He almost died of fever shortly
afterwards and only recovered when he returned the lamp to its
resting place. Practically in the same locality lived the girl who
was possessed by an evil spirit or spirits, that made her vomit
stones each time she attempted to eat her evening meal. I saw this
for myself and I saw her cured by a religious healer. Details of both
these happenings have been related by me in an earlier book 2

I am no authority on the occult and I think it is very foolish for

anyone to express an opinion on a matter he knows nothing
about. So I propose only to record some of the beliefs of the people
of South India. Of course, this is no answer to the questions of
those who have asked me for a personal opinion. In fact, I have no
answer.

Perhaps the most common belief in the south of the peninsula is

in a pair of evil spirits that exist as man and wife. The female is
referred to in the Tamil language as a minnispuram and in
Malayalam as a Yakshi. It is universally agreed that the female is
very hostile and dangerous to human beings, particularly to other
women, while the males are generally quite harmless, at least
according to Tamil ideas. Such a view corresponds closely to our
own as regards the males and females of the human race. But the
Malayalees think differently: they say both Yakshis (female
spirits) and Gandharwas (male spirits) are highly dangerous to
humans.

The Tamils believe that minnispurams (female) can adopt any

shape or form, animal or human, and frequently appear as tall
pillars of nebulous whiteness or blackness. Malayalees say that
Yakshis generally show themselves in a more comely way, as
graceful bare-breasted women, clad below the waist in semi-
transparent lungis, their hair long and flowing down their backs,
thus concealing the hollow backs that are characteristic of these
spirits. Tales are rife of how a man or youth, returning home at
night, had met one of these nebulous creatures and was tempted
to her side; he was then struck across the head or back, began to
vomit blood and died within twenty-four hours. Others have been
tempted to the edges of wells or tanks and then pushed in.

There is a story of two Namboodries (west coast Brahmin

priests) who encountered two Yakshis in the form of beautiful
girls. They spoke to the women and were invited to their home.
The priests were tempted, and the house where the two girls lived
turned out to be a very nice place indeed. Each of the
Namboodries went into a room with one of the girls. But for some
unaccountable reason one of them became nervous: instead of
making love he clutched in his hand his personal talisman, a palm
leaf with the sacred word Nghrie inscribed on it.

From the next room came the sound of giggling, which stopped
suddenly and was followed by the sound of crunching bones. The
girl did not touch the priest, but besought him earnestly to throw
away the palm leaf and make love, emphasizing the temptation
by exposing to him her naked body. But the priest, by now
thoroughly suspicious, clung tenaciously to his leaf.

Suddenly the crunching sound in the next room ceased,

whereupon the girl grew angry, abused the priest loudly, slapped
him across the face and vanished from sight. So did the house! And
he found himself alone in the darkness with the mangled body of
his friend.

Belief in vampirism, but in a special form, is common. Instead of

sucking blood, as do the European counterparts, the Indian
vampire, which also appears only at night and sleeps in the earth
all day, specializes in dogging the steps of a solitary man at night,
stopping when he stops and walking when he walks. This
continues to within a hundred yards of the man’s destination, and
then the vampire strikes! It attacks from behind, then tears its
victim to pieces to devour his flesh. The only way of escape is to
utter a very sacred word and turn upon the vampire with a drawn
knife. The vampire will scream like a stricken animal. It must be
stabbed repeatedly till it falls, when it will certainly disappear in
a pool of blood. Or so it is said!

Great success in business and much prosperous trading, together

with the amassing of several fortunes, can occur when a man
agrees to hand over his wife to a spirit of a certain genus who
confers great wealth on the family in exchange for the favour. The
earthly husband must live apart from his wife and have no sexual
intercourse with her, although he is allowed to speak to her and
even feed with her occasionally.
 The wife must live in a house apart; at nine each night the doors
must be locked and the earthly wife must retire to a windowless
bedroom. Soon a nebulous mist appears which takes the form of
the spirit-husband. He stays with her till three in the morning,
which is when all respectable spirits must depart in wraithform,
just as they came, while less respectable men sneak home with
their shoes in their hands!

Years ago, I knew a Jewish family that came from Rangoon. The
husband dealt in hardware. He had a wife and three children.
They were long-married and business was not good. Then a pact
was said to have been made with a spirit-husband who came to
like the wife, the woman being still of comely appearance despite
her three children. It is not clear whether she sought the
arrangement or the business-minded husband wanted it.

According to the rules, she shifted to a house apart, closed the

doors by nine o’clock and enjoyed her spirit-husband till three in
the morning. The earthly husband and the three children slept in
another house all night but visited her during the day. Business
improved. Everything they touched flourished and turned to gold.
The family became one of the most prosperous in Rangoon and
fabulously rich.

Then, one afternoon, something happened. The earthly husband

and earthly wife were together. The children had gone out. The
wife was still a comely woman and old habits were too strong to
resist. The couple were intimate.

That night there was a great commotion in the wife’s house

after nine o’clock. The spirit-husband appeared, and he was
highly annoyed; jealous, too. He beat her soundly and said he
would never come there again. He did not, and the fortunes of the
family went down and down. Business failed completely. They
had to sell out, and from being one of the richest, they became one
of the poorest families in Rangoon.
 There have been cases, too, of spirit-wives who come at night.
But whether these bring material riches, or material poverty and
trouble, as their earthly counterparts generally do, is not quite
clear.

Very frequently I have been asked if there is any truth in black

magic, and instances in the lives of close friends of mine are many.
I have already related the case of Ossie Brown, to which I was a
most reluctant witness. 3

About twenty years ago I was guilty of having done something

that I should have avoided; but it is not clear to me now whether I
offended the party concerned or whether I fell under the person s
influence. Call it a subconscious fancy on my part if you like. But
for more than a fortnight, at exactly 3 a.m., I would wake up with
a frightening, choking sensation, as if something or someone were
grasping me by the throat. Then I would hear heavy footsteps
outside the window—the measured, slow tread of someone
walking in army boots. I dashed out on more than one occasion
with a stick—even with a gun! Yet in the bright moonlight
nothing could be seen, while the footsteps ceased. No sooner did I
return inside than the footsteps started once again. They would
last for about ten minutes.

Things came to a head one night. I got up almost suffocated. I

heard the footsteps. I dashed out with the gun as usual and
searched everywhere. There was nothing to be seen. I came back
and the footsteps started again. I closed and locked the window. It
was all very strange, but I determined to ignore it. Switching off
the electric light, I got into bed.

The next moment something soft struck against my mosquito

curtain and fell to the floor. Leaping out of bed, I turned on the
light. There on the ground, was a ball of wet mud as large as my
fist. Where had it come from? The window was closed. My wife
and children were in the next room, sound asleep.
 At this stage I determined to do something about the matter—
something I would normally never think of doing.

There is a seer living in Bangalore who has achieved

considerable fame as a fortune-teller, a recoverer of stolen
property and necromancer. His fee for consultation is one rupee
(about one shilling and four-pence), to be presented to him on a
betel leaf—nothing more; nothing less. I had heard a good deal
about this man, and had thought him a clever rogue.

I went to see him. He had very large black eyes and a big
moustache. Other than this, there was nothing outstanding about
him. I came into his room and laid down my rupee on a betel leaf,
feeling myself to be the biggest fool in town at that moment.

Looking at me, he calmly said: ‘You are being troubled by

hearing footsteps at night. Lately, a mud ball was thrown at you.
You have been bewitched by’—(and here he described person
concerned) ‘because you refused to give the individual what was
asked.’

That’s easy to explain, you will say. Thought-reading is the

answer; or some form of hypnotism; or both. You may be quite
right. But listen to what happened next.

‘Go home,’ he told me. ‘Measure six paces from your window in
the direction in which the sun rises. Then dig a foot into the
ground. You will find something. Destroy it. You will not be
troubled again.’

I went home, feeling angry. I took a shovel in my hands, feeling

more angry. I measured six paces from my window towards the
east, and began to dig. Not only was I angry now, but also
wondered how I had become such a fool. But I found something,
and I had dug just about a foot deep. I found a doll made of clay
buried in the earth. A crude affair with misshapen head and arms
and legs. But human hair had been stuck to the head and a nail
driven through it. At the pointed end of the nail was a dried lemon
skin that had been sliced almost in half. The human hair looked
remarkably like my own.

I was amazed; and I burned the damned thing! I did not hear the
footsteps at three next morning, or ever again!

Now, how had the seer known? It could not have been thought-
reading, because I did not know about the doll myself. And he
could not have prepared the stage beforehand, for how did he
know I would consult him?

Years later, I related the incident to a person who dabbled in

such matters. He told me the clay doll with human hair was made
to represent me. The nail driven through the head signified that
the mantra had been made against my mind, my powers of reason.
If the curse had not been removed by the seer telling me where to
find the doll, I would assuredly have become insane within a short
time!

This occurrence interested me so much that I made up my mind

to investigate these matters more fully. As this friend was known
to be a black magician, a necromancer, I began worrying him to
tell me more; in fact, to initiate me into his brotherhood. But he
flatly refused!

I have a trait about which some people who do not like me

complain bitterly. It is stubbornness, coupled with persistence.
The more my friend refused, the more I pestered him. So, at
length, he initiated me as a member of the brotherhood of the
Silver Armlet!

I have my silver armlet which I wear on certain occasions, and

nobody else is allowed to touch it. Nor can I tell you all the mystic
rites of the society as I am under oath not to reveal them; but I can
give you the outline of the initiation ceremonies.
 The first entails a visit to any old cemetery—the older it is the
better—on the night of the amavasa , which is the night before the
new moon. The neophyte must go alone, after midnight, carrying
either a live black cock and a knife with which to cut its throat, or
if he feels squeamish about cutting the creature’s throat, a couple
of pounds of pig’s entrails and liver instead.

He must enter the cemetery, and after a brief pooja by lighting

camphor, etc., he should cut the cock’s throat and then proceed to
cut up the whole bird, feather and all, into finger-long pieces. Or,
if he has brought pig’s liver and entrails instead, cut that up into
pieces. Next he must walk through the cemetery without looking
back, throwing these pieces over his left and right shoulders one
by one while using the most foul language he can think of, in
whichever dialect he wishes. ‘Take this, you—and eat it,’ and so
forth. This attracts the spirit or the disembodied entity, to him.

The neophyte then goes home and performs another ceremony

which makes this spirit a servant to him.

You may have heard and read of miracles performed by holy

men in India who can produce from the air articles like fruit of
any kind, money, sweetmeats and even certain medicines. These
things are made possible by the services of a species of small genii
known as kutty shaitan, one of which becomes attached to the
individual on a sort of fifty-fifty contract basis. They each become
a servant of the other and are bound together for life. The word
kutty in Tamil and Malayalam signifies ‘small;’ while the word
shaitan in Urdu and Hindi means ‘devil’—a curious combination
of four languages. This spirit belongs to the category of
‘elementals,’ but assumes the form of a miniature negro, not more
than three to four inches tall, in order to make itself visible.

After midnight on any night, but particularly on amavasa

night, when it becomes perceptible, a curious movement can be
seen by a watcher concealed in a pen with a herd of buffaloes. He
notices something flicking from the back of one animal to another.
It looks like a large moth, or maybe a small bat, but apparently
has no wings! It dances on one back, leaps to another, sways,
disappears and reappears on the back of another buffalo. But the
animals do not appear to see it, or notice or feel its presence.

This is a kutty shaitan in its natural habitat and condition. If

the watcher sees this much and is satisfied, all is still well. But if
he wants to become like the other great men who can pick up
anything they want ‘out of the air,’ so to speak, he is playing with
fire! For to do this, he has to get the kutty shaitan into himself. He
has to make a ‘deal,’ a bargain, with the elemental spirit: a
promise that they will serve each other for life. To make the deal is
simple; but to get out of it is practically impossible.

What he has to do, to make the deal, is to approach the

buffaloes and go through the motions of trying to snatch and
capture the little sprite—although of course he can never do this
in fact—while in his mind he concentrates on the thought that he
desires the services of the kutty shaitan. He will receive a message,
sometimes at the first attempt and sometimes after two or three
failures—which is generally a telepathic message to his
subconscious and thence to his conscious mind—as to what to do
next. Generally the message instructs him to carve, (or even
purchase) a small black doll, of wood, ivory, bone or any
substance, which he must keep on a table or shelf in his house,
and perform a daily pooja to it with lighted candles, incense,
camphor and other things. This little image represents the kutty
shaitan, and this ceremony seals the bond whereby the sprite
agrees to serve him.

The man can then ask for and get anything he wants, provided
he agrees to return it within a fixed time, say a month or two. But
he cannot get something for nothing. The little sprite will bring
him money, an apple, balm for a headache, a cooked meal, even
petrol for a stalled car. But everything has to be returned at the
time promised. Otherwise, the individual, whoever he may be, has
had it!

The sprite does only one free service for its patron. It warns him
of approaching danger and contrives to get him out of it. But the
wages demanded by this sprite are costly. The life-span of its
patron is shortened; he can have no dealings with a woman; he is
hardly allowed to sleep at night; he can never accumulate wealth,
although he is permitted enough for his actual needs; he will not
be on good terms with his family; he will always be a wanderer,
restless, unable ever to settle down.

As a member of the brotherhood of the Silver Armlet, I can

assure you that black magic is a fascinating subject to study—but
a hard and ruthless taskmaster if embraced!

I have another good friend, a retired army doctor who was a

colonel in the India Medical Service during World War II. He told
me a story which he assures me is perfectly true. While stationed
at Madras, he happened to meet two brothers, Mohammed Bey
and Ali Bey, who were Egyptians. He became friendly with the
former, but did not know for a long time that both brothers were
necromancers who had been trained in Egypt under an adept.

When he learned this, the colonel jokingly told his friend. ‘Oh,
then you will be able to show me a spirit. I am longing to see one
and have been trying for years, without success.’

‘Not only will I show you a spirit,’ replied Mohammed Bey

gravely, ‘but I will make him your servant for your lifetime, to
help you in anything you want and to bring good fortune to you.
But there is one firm condition. Never, at any time, must your
employ this spirit servant to do harm to another, or for any sort of
evil purpose whatever. If you do, he will turn upon you and you
will surely die, and most painfully too. Do you agree?’
 ‘You have my word,’ the doctor said with a laugh. ‘The
proposition is very attractive and I’m extremely interested.’

Mohammed Bey then asked for a writingpad and a pencil, and

when he had been given these materials was busy for a while. The
colonel has very kindly lent me the sheet of paper on which the
Egyptian made his drawing more than twenty years ago, and I
have faithfully copied it and reproduced it on pages 129 and 130.

The mantra, or words for summoning spirits, as told by the

Egyptian necromancer

Ah, Ah, Sharheel wa burrhoode wa noodaju wa askeerah if alue

aywhel kadhamu ma amuro bi hi mitt shain hathal kagadi bi hyqi
sharheel us Fur Ya rooh (three times) Tha-al (three times) bill
amuro (seven times).

Begin by facing the north. Then turn to the right or east, and
read the above words seven times. Then turn back again to the
north. Then turn to the left or west side and read the words seven
times. Then turn back to the north. Next turn right around to face
in the opposite or southern direction, and read the words seven
times. Then turn back again to the north, where the words should
be read once more seven times. After having finished the four
points of the compass, turn in the direction of the cemetery you
have selected for your visit and read the words twenty-one times.
Lastly, breathe in slowly, hold your breath a little and then
exhale slowly three times, each time concentrating upon a good
manifestation of the spirit desired by the person teaching this, or
that you would like to see yourself.

This procedure is to be followed for twenty-two days, beginning

in such a fashion that the twenty-third day falls on a Tuesday or a
Friday. That twenty-third day is the day on which to go to the
cemetery. In other words, carry out the directions for twenty-two
days, ending on a Monday or a Thursday. The next day (Tuesday
or Friday) is the day on which to visit the cemetery.

The following drawing may be traced on a piece of paper, folded

and kept in a locket or wallet for good luck:

‘I have written in Roman-Arabic so that you may be able to read

it,’ Mohammed Bey explained (Roman-Arabic is Arabic written
phonetically in Roman characters). ‘Next come the instructions
in English. Carry these out faithfully and to the letter.’

‘Order a large garland of roses to be prepared by the evening of

the final day, and ninety minutes before midnight that day have a
bath and dress in a clean white shirt and suit. I will call for you at
11.30 and show you what to do next. One more thing. You must
fast on that last day, but you may drink a cup of milk in the
morning and another in the evening. Nothing more.’

‘Now let us start calculating which is the twenty-third day.’

Thereupon the Egyptian turned to a large calendar hanging on

the wall, made some calculations while counting the days on the
calendar with the tip of a pencil, and finally named a day and a
date.

‘Be ready,’ he added cryptically, and the doctor agreed.

 The instructions were carried out to the letter, but during the
interval the colonel never met Mohammed Bey. At the end of the
third week he had the feeling that his friend was deliberately
avoiding him. He wondered if it was all a joke.

The final day came. The garland of roses which the colonel had
ordered was ready by evening. At 10.30 p.m. he had a bath and
then dressed in clean white clothes. He tells me he felt himself a
fool.

At exactly 11.30 p.m., a car drew up beneath the portico of his

old-fashioned residence and the Egyptian alighted. He, too, was
dressed in white clothes.

‘Bring the garland, doctor,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘we

must be there by midnight.’

Wondering where they were going, the doctor did as he was told.
They reached the cemetery in fifteen minutes and, carrying the
garland of roses, the doctor followed his companion through the
wicket-gate. It was pitch-dark, except for a faint glow cast by the
stars. Inside the cemetery the Egyptian stopped for a moment.
Then he moved among the graves for some distance, as if in search
of a particular one, while the doctor followed him. They found it
at last. A grave with a granite slab and a rounded headstone. It
was too dark to see more.

‘Place the garland around the headstone, doctor,’ Mohammed

Bey directed, ‘and stand at the foot of the grave with your arms
folded across your chest. I will stand at the side. Now, whatever
happens, do not be afraid. I am here; have confidence in me. We
must wait for midnight.’

A few minutes later a distant clock chimed and then struck the
hour of twelve. But Mohammed Bey did nothing for a few minutes
more. Then he started intoning something in a language the
doctor could not understand, but thought to be Arabic. The words
came in a singsong voice and the Egyptian appeared to be in a
trance.

This continued for a while, and then something seemed to go

wrong with the proceedings. The chanting came to an end
abruptly, and was followed by angry words from the Egyptian,
with an interval, and then more angry words followed. It seemed
as if he was having a heated argument with some invisible person,
whose voice could not be heard.

The Egyptian grew more excited. He waved his arms. He

appeared to be using abusive language. Then he spat upon the
grave. The next instant he fell as if pole-axed across the granite
slab. His body twitched in the faint gloom, while horrible,
gurgling sounds came from his throat. The doctor panicked and
was on the verge of bolting, his only thought being to save himself
by running for dear life.

At that moment his professional training came to his aid. He

was a doctor after all. The Egyptian might be having an epileptic
fit, a heart attack or a seizure of some kind. It was his medical
duty to stay. Also came the paralysing thought that the Egyptian
might die if left alone. When his body was found, if it was ever
discovered that the doctor had been with him in the cemetery, he
might be accused of murder.

So he ran forward, grasped the body of his companion that was

still thrashing about and from which came dreadful gasps and
groans, and attempted to raise him.

The doctor swears he encountered a force stronger than his own

that was keeping the man down. A struggle followed, then the
Egyptian gasped: ‘Roses—the garland— give it to me.’

The doctor let go of his companion, removed the garland from

the tombstone, and threw it to the prostrate man. While he still
grovelled on the granite slab as if in an epileptic fit, Mohammed
Bey tore the garland to shreds. And as the garland

disintegrated, the black magician appeared to be gaining

mastery over the situation.

Eventually he stood up, dishevelled and breathing hard. Blood

trickled down his face from a gash across his forehead, where he
had struck it against the granite slab.

‘It’s all right now, doctor,’ he gasped, ‘but let’s get out of here.
I’ll tell you in the car.’

The two men hurried out to the car and began to drive back to
the doctor’s house. The colonel waited till his companion regained
his composure. At last the Egyptian spoke.

‘The spirit came all right. In fact, there were several. But they
were in grotesque forms, resembling strange animals. They all
volunteered to serve you. But I insisted there should be only one,
and that one should adopt a human form. They refused, and were
adamant that all should attach themselves to you and in their
present strange forms. I would not allow it. There was an
argument and suddenly the leader struck me down and they all set
upon me, choking me. If you had not thrown me the garland to
break the spell, I would have been killed.’

A clever piece of acting by the Egyptian, put on to deceive the

doctor, you will say. The cut across his forehead against the
tombstone was, of course, an unforeseen accident. Perhaps it was
not blood after all, but something surreptitiously applied!

Quite possible I do agree, and a reasonable explanation. But

remember, the Egyptian never asked his friend for money, or a
favour at any time. Then why did he go through all this trouble?
 Many Indian families, particularly on the west coast of India,
believe they are guarded by what they call ‘deities.’ These are not
evil spirits or jinns or even gods. They are thought to be superior
spiritual beings. Each is distinguished

from the other by the scent of a particular fragrant flower which

comes from nowhere. Some bring with them the scent of jasmine;
this is very common and I have smelt it myself many times in
rooms and in places where flowers of any kind certainly did not
exist. Superior orders are said to bring the scent of roses, or other
fragrances.

Amavasa night—the night before the new moon, the darkest

night of the month—is the time generally chosen for practising all
kinds of black magic, and it is on such nights that many Indian
families feel and hear the presence of their guardian spirits. These
evidence themselves by the sound of a heavy chain being dragged
or jingled, or in the case of a female spirit, by the subtle clicking of
bracelets against each other. The major guardian announces his
presence by making a noise as if a man were walking around the
house snapping his thumb against his fingers every once in a
while, or by measured, heavy footsteps.

Belief in the existence of spirits and in the occult has found its
way into all religions in India. In my own opinion, all creeds, as
originally preached and believed, were of pure and divine origin:
Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism and Christianity all
pointed the way to the Supreme Being. But priestcraft on the one
hand, and superstition and occultism on the other, have become
so intermingled with these doctrines that many of their followers
practise a religion very different, and in certain cases quite
opposed, to the doctrines of the original parent order.

The beliefs and practices of many Christian converts in India,

both Roman Catholic and Protestant, are indeed a queer mixture
of religion, superstition and occultism. Very properly, these people
are the despair of most right-thinking priests of all faiths, although
unfortunately here and there are some who encourage distorted
beliefs to the point of malpractice in order to drive home that fear
of hellfire by which they hold their congregations in submission.

Saint Anthony, who is regarded everywhere as a most

beneficent man while alive, has come to be looked upon by many
in India as an infallible means of effecting revenge upon others as
well as acquiring benefits by prayer. Horrible acts of revenge and
the defeat of enemies by fair means or foul, including painful
illness and lingering death, are sought through him. Saint
Anthony is also regarded as the main means for the recovery of
lost or stolen property and for inflicting punishment, by many
kinds of violence, upon the thief responsible. Some of the forms of
punishment which Saint Anthony is asked to inflict upon the
culprit or the enemy are of a revolting character and out of all
proportion to the crimes committed. For example, in retribution
for stealing a pound of rice, Saint Anthony is asked to inflict upon
the thief, known or unknown, such appalling diseases as cholera
and plague.

My servant is a Roman Catholic convert, but here is her

procedure for recovering lost property through Saint Anthony. To
find the thief, the supplicant must first take a bath. Then he must
wash the statue of the saint, or (if he does not possess a statue)
the glass covering the saint’s photograph. To bathe the saint’s
likeness in milk, rather than in water, is considered more
efficacious. The ceremony should be performed at sunset on a
Tuesday. After this, four candles are lighted at the foot of the
statue or photograph, before which an offering of flowers is made
and incense burned. A small coin is tied in a cloth to the top of the
frame of the photograph or placed at the foot of the statue.

A prayer is then offered to the saint to grant the favour of

finding the thief, restoring the money or property, or severely
punishing the offender, as the case may be. This is accompanied
by a vow that, if the petition be granted, charity in some form or
another will be given to thirteen beggars in the name of the saint.
This charity may be in the shape of a small gift of money, or a
garment, or a meal. Such prayers to the saint are offered every
evening at sundown for thirteen days. It is thought certain favours
of a minor kind will be granted within eight days, whereas major
favours, in respect of articles of greater value, may take longer,
but action by the saint will surely be evident within a month.

The recovery of lost property purchased by hard-earned money,

or of stolen money, is assured by the lighting of a single candle,
accompanied by incense, for thirteen consecutive evenings before
the statue or picture of Saint Anthony.

In some parts of India, particularly old Hyderabad state, these

supplications to Saint Anthony assume a more forceful character.
The feet of the saint’s statue are bound with cord, signifying that
the supplicant is not prepared to release him until or unless the
favour is granted. The most drastic—and amusing—instance that I
have met is the procedure followed by an old Anglo-Indian living
at a place called Kazipet. He was an old army man and possibly
thought Saint Anthony needed a spot of disciplining now and
again. For should the favour not be granted within the stipulated
time, the statue of the saint was subjected to rough treatment. It
was tied to a tamarind tree out in the garden and smeared with a
mixture of chili-powder and other ingredients that are known to
be extremely pungent. The idea was by torture to force the poor
saint into granting the favour, and once that happened the old
soldier brought the statue indoors again, washed it, bathed it in
milk and restored it to its pedestal.

Statues and photographs of the Virgin Mary were similarly

appealed to for general favours. Thursday was considered the right
day for the first supplication, to be repeated for eight days in
succession.
 The old English method of tying up a pair of scissors, so that the
two loops of the scissors rest on the fingertips of two persons and
rotate at the mention of the name of the guilty party, is very
widely practised in India. So is the custom of suspending a rosary
over a pot of incense, so that the cross is immediately above the
fire; it is then said to oscillate at the name of the guilty party.

In cemeteries in which Indian Christians are buried, it is

common to see the relatives of the dead come to the grave on
certain days with offerings of milk and food, presumably to
sustain the departed spirit on its long journey to higher realms.

My purpose in mentioning these things is to emphasize the

extent to which superstition and ancient customs have become
inextricably involved with Christianity in India. Superstition and
belief and fear of the unknown are rife in all walks of life in all
communities and all religions. Among the upper-class Hindus it
takes a higher form but is nevertheless powerful. From birth, a
child’s horoscope is all-important and plays a primary part in the
arrangement of a marriage—the boy and girl rarely see each other
before the ceremony—and the stars continue to have a major role
throughout the man’s life. Conspicuously marked on calendars,
for every day of the month, are two lists of timings, headed
respectively rahukalam and guligaikalam, meaning ‘bad time’
and ‘good time’, and no Hindu, and many who are not Hindus,
will dream of leaving home at a time, or embarking on a business
venture or journey at an hour which falls within the rahukalam or
‘bad time’ period. He will patiently wait till that time had passed
and the guligaikalam or ‘good time’ has come. Then he will set
out on his venture, very confident and assured of success. A ring
that has very magical properties in attracting the fair sex,
sometimes to their great embarrassment, can be made in the
following way. I took great pains to write down the formula, or
whatever you care to call it. The only snag is that the mantras
involved have to be acquired and learned. The secret is so
valuable, presumably because the reward is so great, that so far
nobody seems willing to tell me these mantras, so that I may learn
and repeat them. But I am still trying to find somebody who will
part with the secret.

However, you must procure a live fresh-water turtle of the dark

variety of medium size. This is not very difficult. For about a
rupee someone will bring one to you. They abound in fresh-water
wells throughout the countryside.

Having procured the live turtle, get some dried pumpkin seeds
that will germinate easily. These may be obtained readily from
any seedsmen, or from any pumpkin purchased in the market,
though in the latter event they should be well dried.

Next, tempt the unfortunate turtle with some food such as

earthworms or a small frog. When he sticks his neck out of his
shell to eat, decapitate him with a deft stroke of a sharp knife,
delivering the blow just behind the back of his head and high up
the neck; that is, be sure to leave a good bit of stump protruding.
After all movement has ceased insert about half a dozen of the
dried pumpkin seeds well into the raw stump of the neck. Then
bury the turtle in an upright position in the ground, so that the
neck-stump, with the seeds in it, is rather less than a couple of
inches below the surface of the ground. Then water the spot
sparingly every day.

The pumpkin seeds, or some of them, will sprout. Select the best
and healthiest. Wait till the second shoot appears, and then
carefully pluck the whole seedling, along with its roots, from the
decaying neck-stump of the turtle. Clean away the mess from the
roots, and cram the seedling tightly, roots and all, through the
groove on the underside into the hollow of a ring, which you
should have prepared in advance.

Any ring will do, but one of silver or copper is best. A hollow
groove, as deep as possible, should have been cut around the ring.
 After you have pushed as much as is possible of the seedling
with its roots into this hollow groove, seal up the same with
sealing-wax or any form of lacquer or gummy substance that will
dry and harden. The ring should not be sent to a jeweller for
sealing, as the heat he will apply to melt the metal to seal the ring
will burn up the seedling inside.

The ring, having thus been made ready and sealed, must not be
used till the next new-moon day. At midnight on the night before,
that is that night of amavasa, a mantra has to be repeated over the
ring eleven times, and it is then ready for use. Its efficacy in
attracting and embarrassing females is said to last for a lifetime.

This topic will not be complete unless I tell you of an adventure

that befell me near a town called Chitaldroog, in a jungle once
renowned for tigers, situated to the east of the district of Shimoga
in Mysore state. The village of Sampigehalli, a few miles from
Chitaldroog, is surrounded by thick forest. About four miles from
this village, along a track leading to another village named
Budhalli, in the midst of the jungle, stands a ruined temple with a
very deep well. The temple and the well are reputed to be
haunted, for which reason hardly a soul will approach within a
furlong of them in broad daylight, while the area is of course
absolutely taboo after sunset.

Because of its isolation, a sloth bear or two invariably lived in or

close to the ruins, while quite frequently a panther could shelter
in the old temple close to the bears, but without having anything
to do with them. Now and again a tiger decided to take up
residence there for a few weeks, and when that happened the
bears and the panther temporarily took themselves off to safer
abodes. For either of them to dare to share the same abode with
the king of the jungle might prove a costly experiment. But
eventually the tiger would move on, and then the bears and the
panther would come back and things return to normal.
 Some time ago a villager disappeared from Sampigehalli, and a
month later another disappeared from Budhalli. Nobody knew
what happened to them, nor was there any sign of the remains. As
villagers in India rarely leave their birthplaces voluntarily, the
disappearance of these men, one after the other, left food for
thought. It suggested that a tragedy of some sort had taken place.

About this time an unusually large tiger, said by the villagers to

be exceptionally fierce because of the manner in which it boldly
attacked their herds of cattle and never failed to make a kill, took
up its abode in the locality, or even in the old temple itself. This
was established by its pug-marks, to be seen early in the morning
returning to the temple, superimposed upon the pug-marks it had
left in the dust of the trail when it had gone forth the previous
evening. The villagers felt that this tiger had devoured their two
companions, one after the other, so they appealed to the
authorities for help against the man-eater that they were
convinced dwelt in the ruins of the old temple.

Sampigehalli was at one time a favourite haunt of mine and

several of my village friends wrote to me to come to their aid.
When I reached the village a fortnight later I made painstaking
inquiries regarding the last movements of the two missing men,
but everything seemed to be shrouded in mystery. A village girl
was mixed up in the affair and it was said that both the men were
her suitors. The girl was poor, whereas both the men were
comparatively well-to-do, owning land in their own villages. They
were married and had families, but no member of either family
had the least knowledge of the large sum of money each of these
individuals was reported to be carrying on his person just prior to
his disappearance, nor did they know why their relative had been
carrying the money about with him. All this came to light only
afterwards. For India is one of the few places left in the world
today where wives do not dare to question their husbands’
movements or authority.
 The man’s word is law and women are content to confine their
activities to the kitchen.

Meanwhile, there was no evidence whatever to connect the

tiger with the disappearance of the two men. Casually, in the
course of inquiries, I spoke about the missing men to the girl
concerned and came away feeling that she knew much more
about the matter than she would say. To my mind, she was much
more dangerous than any man-eating tiger and far more astute;
but not being a policeman, I did not feel obliged to act as an
informer or a detective. I was much more interested in the tiger
than in the girl’s motives and movements and what had happened
to her suitors.

I therefore decided to go to the old temple immediately after

lunch that day, select a suitable hiding place and remain there all
night in the hope of seeing the suspected man-eater. I had not
made up my mind whether to shoot the creature if I did happen to
see it, for something told me that it was not the culprit. In any
case it was summer time, far better known in India as the ‘hot
weather,’ and it was only a day or two until the full moon. The
moonlight and the open air would be much more pleasant than
spending the night in some little mudhouse, where the heat would
be intense, or even in the forest department’s bungalow.

After a good lunch I got together the few things I would require
for the night: my rifle, ammunition, flask of tea, water-bottle,
electric torch and some biscuits in a cloth bag, that would not
crackle as a paper wrapper would, and set out for the old temple.
In a little over an hour I reached my destination. I knew the place
well enough, although I had never spent a night there. It consisted
of a small central structure built of solid, irregular blocks of
granite, surrounded by what had once been a fairly high stone
wall. The well, which was indeed very deep, still held water and
was in the courtyard to the front of the temple.
 I do not know how much water was in the well, but the surface
glinted down below, far beneath the level of the ground. The well
itself was not more than fifteen feet in diameter, ringed at the top
by a low stone parapet about a yard high. Many of the granite
blocks forming the main temple, the four walls of the courtyard
and the parapet of the well, had become loose and had fallen
away from their original positions, while gnarled or dwarfed trees,
principally the jungle fig, had been able to take root wherever the
lantana shrub had not already taken possession. The scene in
general was bleak and dreary, and it was clear that with time the
few remaining traces of the temple and its environs would be
swallowed up by the advancing jungle.

But at the moment I was not interested in the temple as a

structure, historical or otherwise. What I was interested in was
the hiding place of the tiger, and that did not take me long to find.
The only possible place was the main temple building itself. The
earth was mostly hard, but here and there were sandy patches and
clearly imprinted in the soft ground, both coming and going, were
the pug-marks of a large tiger, leading to and from the old ruins.

I knew that if the animal were at home at that moment it would

probably be sound asleep inside. I had never been inside this
structure myself, but felt safe in conjecturing that it followed the
general pattern of such buildings, with a sanctuary in the form of
a small separate room at the farther end of what would be the one
and only prayer-room of the temple proper. This small inner room
would house a Nandi or two, stone images of varying sizes of the
sacred bull that is universally respected by the Hindus in India, or
perhaps an image or several images of one of the many gods and
goddesses.

To approach this opening would, in the circumstances, be to

invite disaster. If the tiger were at home, man-eater or not, it
would definitely resent such blatant violation of its privacy and
would probably decide to get rid of the invader with the utmost
dispatch. It was one of those occasions when brain rather than
brawn was indicated, so I stood still to take stock of the situation
and decide upon a plan.

And the solution lay right there before me in the broken parapet
of the old well. All I had to do was to sit comfortably behind it,
facing the opening leading to the main temple. If the tiger were
inside, as I felt sure it was, then sooner or later it would have to
come out, and this it could only do by using the entrance. I would
have this entrance covered in the sights of my rifle, so that it did
not matter at what angle the tiger decided to emerge. The whole
thing seemed ‘a piece of cake.’

The sun blazed down upon me when I took up my position

behind the parapet, directly facing the temple entrance. I realized
my head was above the top of the parapet, so I picked up some of
the fallen stone blocks and arranged them before me, leaving a
space about six inches square through which to peer. If the tiger
showed up, and if I had decided to shoot him by then, I could fire
through this loophole.

The only other requirement was that I should sit absolutely still.
Fortunately I am well practised in that sort of thing, so that
neither the heat nor the winged insects that came as if from
nowhere, not even the occasional slate-black lizard with its
brilliant orange and yellow back worried me when the sweat
trickled down my face and the insects settled on my lips and
lizards crawled over my body.

Then came the evening. The calls of roosting birds preceded the
squeaking of early bats and the buzz of a passing mosquito. It was
almost dark when the moon, that was not yet at the full, began to
rise. Soon its glow outlined the dark shadow that was the entrance
to the temple through which the tiger might, at any moment now,
if he was at home, be expected to emerge. What was left of
daylight faded rapidly, but moonlight took its place, so that even
before I appreciated the passage of time, it was night. I shivered a
little, for in those few minutes it had become distinctly chill.

That was when I heard the sound for the first time. Three
distinct, sharp whistles that seemed to come from the well right in
front of me. The first whistle was low, the second higher, the third
shorter, sharper, louder and pitched yet higher than its two
predecessors.

Who the hell could be hiding in the old well? To say the least, I
was very annoyed. After all the time I had spent sitting motionless
in the sweltering heat of the sun, must this so-and-so start
whistling at this critical moment and frighten away the tiger that
might be expected to emerge from the temple? Was it worth hiding
any longer? The tiger would have heard that whistling even more
clearly than I had done, and it would never show up with a
human being just outside its shelter. Or would it? If it really was a
man-eater it might think some victim was within striking
distance.

Quite ten to fifteen minutes must have elapsed when I heard the
whistling again, loud and clear, in three sharp blasts. The first low
and rather long-drawn; the second louder, shorter and higher
pitched; the third loudest, shortest and on a yet higher note. Then
there was complete silence.

I was in the act of getting up to peer down the well and curse
the intruder when a slight movement in the oblong blackness of
the temple entrance caught my eye. A greyish blur seemed to pass
against that blackness. It vanished, came again, and disappeared
once more. A moment later, clearly outlined, sideways on the
moonlight, stood the tiger!

It was obvious that it never suspected my presence for a

moment, as it never even glanced in my direction. It was looking
directly ahead when I first saw it, but stopped at that moment to
bend its neck and lick its right foreleg. I could clearly see the
movement of its head, and hear the rasping of its rough tongue
over its coat each time that it licked itself. And then, for the third
time, came those three loud whistles in rising crescendo.

That has done it, I thought. The tiger must surely hear them
now. It would crouch, growl, spring back into the shelter of the
temple, or rush away, according to its disposition or the state of its
nerves. But nothing happened! The tiger continued to lick itself,
unperturbed. Evidently it had not heard the whistling, and for this
there could be only two explanations. Either the tiger was stone
deaf, or the whistling did not register upon its hearing.

The tiger stopped licking itself and began to move forward. At

the same time I heard what appeared to be the flapping of wings
from the depths of the well before me. The sound was heavy, slow
and distinct. It must have been made by some large and heavy
bird, I decided, or a bat not much smaller than the familiar Indian
flying-fox or fruit-bat.

Then for the fourth time that evening came the whistle, louder
and closer than ever before. My decision whether or not to shoot
the tiger was quite forgotten in this mystery. Indeed, I did not even
watch it, but stared at the top of the old well, waiting for I know
not what to come out.

The heavy, slow flapping was continuous now. The large bird or
bat, or whatever it was, drew nearer every instant to the top and
would show itself in a moment or two. A strange fascination came
over me as I stared at the opening. Once again came the three
whistles, and then what seemed a large, dark shadow of indefinite
shape issued from the well.

The moonlight was bright and clear and I was staring at the
spot. There was no mistaking that I saw something, but it had no
real form or shape: a small cloud of what seemed to be dark smoke
came out of the well. It might have been six feet in diameter by
about the same height.

A great lassitude seemed to come over me; a sort of strange,

morbid despair. Did it matter what came out of the well? Was life
worth living with all its troubles? Why not jump into the well and
forget about everything?

I shook myself and stared, and as I watched the cloud hovered

for a moment above the mouth of the well and in the next second
was gone. The moonlight shone clearly through the spot which, a
moment before, had been clouded by the indefinable shape. I had
started perspiring with excitement when the tiger made its
appearance, which is something I still do to this day when I see a
tiger in the wild. Now I felt cold and clammy.

Meanwhile the tiger, which at least was of flesh and bone,

wandered away. I knew that in all likelihood it would not return
till the early hours of the morning, unless it found something to
kill and eat sooner. I would therefore, in all probability, have to
wait for a long time if I still wanted to shoot it when it came back.
But somehow I did not want to shoot this tiger; the strange
whistling, and the still stranger shadow that had emerged from
the well, interested me much more. In any case, it was far better
to sit there in the moonlight and the open air, than to be in the
stuffy shelter I was occupying four miles away at Sampigehalli.

I forgot everything but the whistling and the shadow, and fell to
conjecturing what on earth could have been the cause of what I
had seen. The whistling had not resembled the call of any bird
with which I was familiar. Rather, it was distinctly human in
timbre. The flapping of wings I had heard could have been caused
by some large bird, or the Indian flying-fox that I have already
mentioned. But neither bird nor bat had emerged from the well,
and I had never for a moment removed my gaze from its mouth.
What had come out had been something far different and quite
unexpected: a smokey shape of indefinable nature. In plain words,
a small cloud. And that cloud had vanished before my eyes!

So absorbed was I in the problem that I lost all count of time and
became oblivious to my surroundings till a low growl, somewhere
behind me, brought me back to earth with a jolt. The tiger was
standing there! It had returned from another direction and had
discovered my presence. It was reputed to be a man-eater that had
killed and devoured two men already.

I swung around in alarm, instinctively raising the .405 to my

shoulder. About forty yards away this tiger sat on his haunches in
the moonlight, staring hard at me. Then it inclined its head
slightly and snarled in mild protest. As clearly as if it had spoken
the words, this animal was saying, ‘Can’t you get the hell out of
here?’ That satisfied me entirely. It had had me at its mercy and
could have killed me before I was even aware of its presence. This
tiger was no man-eater!

I try to be grateful when a good turn is done to me and I was

definitely grateful to this animal. It had spared my life and I
would return the courtesy. I got to my feet, whereupon the tiger
disappeared from sight.

Keeping the rifle in the crook of my arm to guard against a

sudden change of mind on the beast’s part, I shone the beam of my
torch down the well, expecting to discover the mysterious
whistler who must be hiding there. But only the water, deep
down, reflected the light. There was certainly nobody in hiding,
for I searched every inch of the interior. Then I turned and started
to walk away from the place, thinking furiously. The tiger was
nowhere to be seen.

I decided to spend the rest of that night on the veranda of the

forest rest house, so I walked to the little bungalow that stood
about a mile from the village and called aloud to the watchman
who should have been sleeping inside. Nobody answered,
although I called again and again and again. Obviously, the
watchman was not on watch, but snugly asleep in some hut in the
village.

This was no surprise. Those who have lived in India will know
that invariably watchmen do not watch. They sleep soundly
instead; perhaps even more soundly than you or I, for their minds
are quite clear that night is the time when people must sleep.

So I climbed the stone leading up to the veranda which

stretched around three sides of the little rectangular bungalow.
The caretaker had been careless enough to leave an armchair out
on one of these extensions, knowing well enough that nobody
would steal such a rickety article, even if there had been a thief in
so desolate a place; so into the armchair I sank to snatch a few
hours’ sleep.

My intention was to tell my friends as Sampigehalli the next

morning that I was convinced the tiger was no man-eater, and
that if they really wanted to solve the mystery of the missing men,
they should suggest to the police that they question the lissom lass
who was so intimately connected with both of them; particularly
as to what had become of their money. Then I would head for
home in the Studebaker.

But sleep eluded me for the rest of that night. Those mysterious
whistles, the sound of flapping wings, the peculiar lethargy that
had come over me, and above all that strange cloudy shape that
had come out of the well, demanded a sane explanation.
Wrestling with the problem, tired, nature finally asserted herself
and I fell asleep after dawn had broken. It was late when I awoke
that morning, but the caretaker of the bungalow had not yet
returned.
 I went to the village, where I told my friends that I had seen the
tiger and that it had seen me. I explained it was no man-eater. I
did not tell them about the whistling sounds I had heard nor the
cloudy form I had seen, for there appeared to be no point in
complicating my story unnecessarily and making myself
ridiculous.

Then one of my friends inquired where I had concealed myself,

and I told him that I had hidden behind the parapet of the old
well. At the mention of that word, he looked at me strangely.

‘Did you see anything other than the tiger?’ he inquired. ‘Did
you hear anything?’

I did not answer for a while. Then I countered. ‘Why do you

ask?’

‘Did you see, or hear, a huge bat? The sound of beating wings?’

The sound of beating wings! Most certainly I had heard that

sound: the sound of heavy, flapping wings issuing from the depths
of the well. In fact I had heard that sound several times, each time
coming higher and closer to the mouth of the well, and it had
ceased only after that strange smoky shape had emerged. What a
fool I had been not to shine the light of my torch down the well
the first time I had heard it! I might have been able to see
something. Then I remembered I had been waiting for the tiger
and so had not wanted to show myself.

My friend had noticed the delay in my reply. His face took on a

knowing smile. So I told him everything.

He appeared horrified when I mentioned the hazy form that had

emerged from the well. Evidently others had heard the whistling
and the sound of flapping wings, but nobody seemed to have seen
anything, because no one had waited to see.
 Then my friend came up with a strange tale. According to him,
a couple of hundred or more years ago—he did not exactly know
when—the temple flourished and was a centre of widespread
veneration, while the surrounding area was ruled by a petty
chieftain who had made himself independent of the rajah whose
capital was far away. In the court of this petty chieftain was an
individual who played the dual role of adviser and jester, and for
whom the chieftain evidently had considerable regard.

The temple itself was in charge of a number of priests— all

Brahmins—governed by a high priest who was of strong character.
As always happens when people of strong minds come into contact
with each other, there was a clash of interests between the
chieftain, his adviser the jester, and the Brahmin high priest.

Of course, all the details had been long forgotten, but it

appeared that the high priest had contrived to trump up charges
against his rival, the jester, who had been accused of treachery
towards the ruling house. The result was that the unfortunate
adviser had been publicly tried, condemned to death for treason,
and forthwith thrown down the well alive, but not before he had
screamed threats of vengeance against the high priest and all the
temple monks.

The sequel to this story was that within a week the high priest
was missing, and a couple of days later his body was found
floating in the well. The jester had claimed his first victim.
Thereafter, at intervals, the other priests disappeared one by one,
and their corpses would show up, floating face downwards in the
well just like that of their high priest. Other priests came to the
temple, but each and everyone of them met the same fate.

Elaborate ceremonies were held from time to time to exorcise

the spirit of the avenging jester, but to no avail, as slowly but
surely priest after priest vanished and his drowned body was later
found floating on the surface of the water in the well. It took
perhaps a hundred years for the avenging spirit of the jester to
accomplish its task, but the time came when no priest, however
holy he might be, or appear to be, would risk his life by
volunteering to officiate in the temple. And that was how the
temple and the well came to be deserted and eventually fell into
ruin.

The narrator closed his strange tale with a very significant

sentence: ‘Consider yourself very lucky indeed, sir, that you are
alive this morning. That evil spirit could easily have thrown you
down the well, as easily as it has destroyed at least a hundred
priests in the past!’

Because I’m not a Brahmin priest, I retorted sarcastically,

adding, ‘Stuff and nonsense. Damned rot!’ The words came from
me violently, explosively. To say the least, I was annoyed! Did this
silly fellow think he could frighten me with such old wives’ tales? I
fear I was very rude to my unfortunate acquaintance for the next
few minutes, for I told him exactly what I thought of his story,
and of him for relating it.

The poor fellow’s face fell and he walked away abashed.

Unabashed, I scowled after him. Then I started packing the
Studebaker preparatory to returning home, which did not take me
long. I wished my friends goodbye, half-heartedly and rather
abruptly, noticing that the man who had told me about the
temple was not among them. In the usual hospitable Indian
fashion, they pressed me even at that last moment to extend my
stay. In answer I pressed the self-starter, shifted the car into gear,
and drove away.

I had travelled quite six miles from Sampigehalli when I stopped

the Studebaker, switched off the ignition and started to think
clearly. I had behaved churlishly for no valid reason. After all, the
man had only told me the story as he had heard it from others. It
was I who had heard the whistling, had listened to the flapping of
wings and seen the strange shadow. It was up to me to believe the
tale, or reject it if I could find some better explanation. The
sensible thing for me to do would be to try to make further
investigation into the matter by talking to more people about it.
Most sensible of all would be for me to spend another night at the
well to see if the phenomenon was repeated. Instead of doing
either of these things, I had acted like a child and cleared off in a
huff.

So I turned the car and drove back to the village, where the first
thing I did was to seek out my friend and apologize. He readily
forgave me saying he understood how I had felt, and was all smiles
again. In fact everybody smiled at my return till I told them that
this time I had not come to hunt a tiger but a ghost—the evil spirit
who lived down the well at the old temple.

At these words everybody stopped smiling. Then my friend said:

‘Sir, I don’t want to be rude, but please go back to Bangalore at
once rather than do this foolish thing. You might escape from the
tiger but not from the evil one.’

That evening, having nothing to fear from the tiger, I did not go
to the old temple as early as I had done the previous afternoon. It
was nearly six o’clock when I settled down in the place I had
earlier occupied behind the parapet of the well. I had brought my
rifle along with me in case the tiger should prove to be difficult,
but as there was no particular need to keep silent on this occasion,
I had allowed myself a large flask of tea, bread, butter and a tin of
corned mutton and even some oranges to wind up with, not to
mention my battered briar pipe.

There was no sign of the tiger as I settled myself, as quickly and

as comfortably as possible, in my old position, arranging the
torch, flask, water-bottle and other articles to right and left of me.
He might have come out of his hiding place in the holy-of-holies of
the temple before my arrival, although I did not think that was
likely. In this conjecture I proved to be right. The time was a few
minutes after seven and it was growing very cold. The nightjars
had begun to call when a stone was dislodged inside the dark
opening of the sanctuary and rolled loosely down the bank
outside.

I knew the tiger was standing at the opening, looking out to see
if it was safe enough to emerge. It might see me now, or might
already have seen me; perhaps it remembered my presence at the
parapet of the well the evening before. Precisely at that moment I
heard the first whistle, loud, rather low and rather long-drawn-
out, followed in quick succession by a louder, far higher and
shorter whistle. After that there was absolute silence.

I remembered with a sense of shock that on the evening before,

the whistling had begun just before the appearance of the tiger.
The same thing had happened again. The thought came to me:
could it be that the thing that whistled was trying to warn the
tiger of my presence?

This notion was dispelled a moment later when the tiger

emerged from the dark outline of the temple’s entrance, first as an
indistinct shape and then as an animal of immense proportions in
the early light of the newly-risen moon.

As I had observed the evening before, for some unaccountable

reason these loud whistles did not register on the tiger’s hearing,
although they were very clear to me. The fact was uncanny and
was confirmed the next moment when the three successive
whistles were repeated, more insistent and louder than ever. But
the tiger took no notice of them. Then I began to hear the flapping
of wings again, faintly and as from a distance. The source of the
sound was at first difficult to place, till it was brought home to
me, with an unpleasant shock, that it came from the bottom of
the deep well in front of me.
 Meanwhile the tiger was standing still, clearly visible in the
early moonlight. It was staring fixedly in my direction. It was
evident that the tiger now remembered having seen me there the
previous night. I wanted to flash my torch down the well to
discover the cause of the flapping sound, but this meant taking my
eyes off the tiger, something I was rather reluctant to do. The
rumour that this was a man-eater came to my mind once more
with renewed force. Supposing this was a fact: I would be at its
mercy if it should decide to attack me while I was looking down
the well.

The three whistles, coming for the third time, with the closer
approach of the flapping sound, got the better of my caution. A
quick glance showed the tiger was still looking in my direction
when I raised myself to my knees, thrust my head and shoulders
over the parapet of the well, extended my right arm with the torch
grasped in my hand as far as possible down the well and pressed
the button. The bright beam cut into the inky depths, then lost
itself in what looked to be a cloud of thick black smoke or vapour
that was heaving some distance down the well.

Forgetful of the tiger I stared down the well, transfixed with

curiosity, while the cloud that appeared to be issuing from the
bottom, and was dense enough to prevent my torch-beam from
penetrating it, rose inexorably towards me. It would not take long
to reach the surface where I was crouching.

A loud snarl brought me back to an awareness of the danger I

was in from the tiger. Quickly I shone the torch in the direction
where it had been standing, while I groped for my rifle with the
other. But the tiger was not there! Gratefully, I realized it had seen
me and bounded away, the snarl I had heard being its protest at
my intrusion. In a strange way I missed the tiger, for now I did not
have a material antagonist to deal with, but something intangible
with which I did not know how to cope. And I can tell you the
thought was most unnerving.
 The flapping came again; loud, heavy and near. The torchlight,
which I directed into the well, showed that the eddying billows of
the smoke-cloud were now scarcely five feet from the mouth of the
well and that the rays of the torch could not penetrate them. They
rose rapidly upwards and soon reached the face of my torch as I
held it pointing downwards. My hand began to tremble violently
so that the light danced crazily.

There seemed something indescribably evil about this vapour,

and it brought a reaction I had never experienced before. Unlike
normal smoke this mist eddied in dense, ribbon-like trails,
resembling the coils of a giant snake of interminable length that
twisted and wound around and around, in and out and about itself
in a seething, restless, engulfing, devouring, never-ending
movement.

Soon, it had reached my head and shoulders and engulfed me as

I craned myself forward to look down the well. The cloud was far
more dense than it had been the previous night, rather like a pea-
soup fog that could almost be felt. I am by no means a squeamish
person, but for the next few moments I did not know what was
happening. The feeling is hard to describe. Perhaps to say that I
was taken out of myself would be nearest to the mark, although I
realize that such words hardly convey any meaning.

Once again I felt unutterably tired, forlorn, depressed,

altogether without hope. A deep and urgent yearning came over
me to jump over the parapet and into the well, once and for all to
end my misery and unhappiness. It would be such an easy, such a
pleasant ending, to the tortures and troubles and trials of living.
Such an easy way out! So comfortable and soothing! So Soothing!
So Soothing!

And then the gas, or smoke, or whatever it was, lifted. Rather, it

cleared the parapet of the well and rose above my head as a dense,
heavy, whirling cloud. With its lifting my mind cleared too and I
was back to earth once more, remembering in amazement my
recent dismal thoughts of throwing myself into the well. The
cloud rose higher and higher and thinned out as it mixed with the
air. I watched it in my torchlight for a full ten minutes, by which
time it must have risen to perhaps fifty feet or more, when it
dispersed and I could see it no more.

I put out the torch and sat back to ponder the strange
phenomenon. The words of my friend and the story he had told me
came back in forceful recollection. I pondered again upon the tale
of evil and vengeance, and I remembered with dismay the odd
feeling of careless lassitude that had overcome me as the vapour
engulfed me and passed over my head: the feeling of despair, and
the comforting temptation to end all my troubles merely by
jumping down the well into oblivion. I had almost, in fact, fallen
a victim to the age-old curse myself. It gave me quite a jolt, I can
assure you, to realize that but a few moments earlier I was
dispassionately contemplating suicide.

Then there were other aspects of the occurrence that defied

explanation. The three strange whistles in quick succession; the
unaccountable sound of flapping wings; the fact that the tiger
could not hear these sounds; and strangest of all, that the weird
thing, or whatever it was that came from the well, assumed the
appearance of a dark cloud.

I walked back to the forest bungalow for the second time, to

seek the solace of the battered old armchair, more puzzled, more
vexed in mind, more dissatisfied with myself than I had ever been
before.

It was in this frame of mind that I finally drove away from

Sampigehalli the next morning, after recounting my latest
adventure to my village friends. All of them, without exception,
had nodded and wagged their heads and repeated in varying
phrases the same words, ‘We told you so.’ The man who had
annoyed me the day before said in exultation, ‘You were angry
with me yesterday. Today you are indeed lucky to be alive. Fate
spared you a second time from joining the others who have been
drowned in that well. That was because your time had not yet
come. But do not sit there for a third night, Sir. For then it might
be your time and you will surely jump into the well.’

I might have argued with him and pointed out that, if indeed it
was my fate to throw myself into the well on the third night, I
would have been compelled to remain at Sampigehalli, whether
he or I or anybody else wanted me to leave or not.

_____________
1 See: The Call of the Man-Eater.
2 See: Tiger Roars.
3 See: The Call of the Man-Eater.
 6

The Strange Case of The Gerhetti Leopard

ERHETTI is a tiny village of not even a dozen huts, lying A

G mile or so from the forest track that wandered in an almost
southerly direction from Anchetty to the larger village of
Pennagram in the Salem district of Madras state.

It is only seven miles from Anchetty, but to reach Gerhetti your

car has to descend the winding track at an almost impossible
angle, guaranteed to impose a severe strain upon the best of
braking systems, bump across a couple of very rocky streambeds
that hold no water for over nine months in the year, and then
clamber up an equally winding and impossible gradient. In the old
days of the Model T Ford, which were my young days, it would
give me childish and utter delight to sit at the steering wheel of
my beloved ‘Lissom Lizzie’, the name painted in large letters upon
her rear, press hard upon the left of the three pedals that
controlled her, and attain the summit in clouds of steam,
billowing from a red-hot engine and a boiling radiator.

On one occasion Lissom Lizzie climbed half-way up that

gradient but could not climb any more. I was bound for the forest
lodges of Muttur, a dozen miles beyond Gerhetti, where I had
arranged with Byra, my aboriginal poojaree friend, to help to
catch a crocodile that had become stranded in the Forest
department well situated upon the banks of the Chinnar river, and
I had to keep that appointment. What was I to do? Praise be to
Henry Ford and the wonderful adaptability of the Model T. I
turned the car round, placed the hand-lever to my right in a
neutral position, pressed upon the centre pedal of the three
(which was the reverse pedal in the Model T) and climbed that
fearful gradient backwards with ease! The car was strained and so
was my neck, but we made it.

A mile or so after reaching the top of the gradient, a narrower

track veers to the right, the jungle crowding in upon both sides.
Another mile along this track brings one to a water hole on the
right side, immediately opposite the driveway leading to the
Gerhetti Forest Lodge on the left. This is a delightful little
bungalow which, in those days, had but one snag. It was always
locked, the reason being that the caretaker, who was also carefree
and careless, and did not give a damn anyway, was away on
holiday, sometimes at Anchetty but more generally at Pennagram
which, although poor of soil, was rich in girls. And thereby hangs
a tale.

In the old British days there was a district Forest Officer

(D.F.O.) of the old school type in charge of this area. He had a
double-barrelled name, was stickler for rules, and did not like me
anyway. The cause of this dislike I could never fathom. Perhaps he
disapproved of my wandering about the forests of which he had
charge as if they were my own, and he showed his disdain, upon
the few occasions I was unfortunate enough to have speak to him,
by looking at me distantly, as if I were something the cat had left
on the doorstep. This gentleman insisted that before occupying
any of the Forest department bungalows in his area, I should apply
for his permission and obtain the same in writing. As a matter of
fact, this was the rule and still is. But ask anyone who has lived in
India and he will agree with me that rules are made only to be
broken. Everyone breaks them and enjoys the process. The stricter
the rule, the more it has to be broken. At least, everyone seems to
feel this way in India; and that being the case, why not I?

However, to avoid coming to grips unnecessarily with this man,

I gave him on one occasion a full month’s notice in advance, with
my request for permission to occupy the Gerhetti Forest Lodge. As
I possessed a shooting licence for the area, he could not very well
refuse. Back came his written permission in due course, but along
with it quite a substantial paragraph warning me not to try to
break the rules and regulations in any way, not to cause a forest
fire by throwing matches about, not to fail to pay the prescribed
rent for the days I was in occupation and so forth.

The glad day dawned at last and I set forth in my Model T for
Gerhetti. Fortunately, I had just reached the top of the ghat, when
down came the rain in torrents. Model T’s never worried about
bad weather, and it took more than raindrops to stop a vehicle of
that sturdy vintage. By the same standards they expected a
passenger to care nothing too, for they were without adequate
protection of the sides.

So I was soaking wet when I arrived at the front door of the

Gerhetti lodge, to find it fast closed with a lock of outstanding
size. And the carefree caretaker was away on his revels.

I had the written permission of the nasty D.F.O. to occupy the

place. I had given him a month’s notice. His office should have
notified the caretaker to welcome me with open doors.
Nevertheless, I was locked out. This old bounder, who was so hot
upon other people keeping to the rules, had himself foundered!
Besides, the rain was coming down in buckets, saturating me and
my equipment.

So I staggered around the building and discovered that the

bathroom door at the back was weak on its hinges. I put my
shoulder to it and heaved it off its hinges. The door burst open,
and that was how I got into the bungalow.

I camped at Gerhetti for the full week for which I had come, but
in all that time the caretaker never showed up. Apparently his
dates at Pennagram were more important. Then the time came for
me to leave. The bathroom door, which had left its hinges ‘by
accident’, could only be pulled to and closed. And there was no
one present to receive the rent.

From Bangalore, I sent the rent by post to the D.F.O. and made
out a strong case against his carefree caretaker. The storm, I
claimed, had ‘caused me, in seeking shelter, to slip and fall in the
mud, whereupon in an effort to save myself my hand contacted
the bathroom door. Unfortunately this mere pressure had caused
the hinges, which were of ancient vintage, to give way and the
door had opened’. The implication was that the security of this
government building was not all it should be.

But the careless caretaker turned out to be less carefree than I

had thought. He and his boss worked out as foul a plot as ever was
hatched against an innocent, upright, law-abiding, Christian
gentleman! The teak armchair from the bungalow and the zinc
bathtub in the bathroom were missing. They had been stolen!
Either I had stolen them, in which case I was liable under the rules
to be prosecuted and jailed for breaking into a government
building and stealing part of its furniture. Or my irresponsible
action in breaking into the building had rendered it insecure and
unsafe, whereafter theft of government property had inevitably
ensued, for which I was entirely responsible. I was called upon to
reply within seven days, whereafter very severe action was
proposed to be taken against me. Not a word was said about the
caretaker’s absence.

I thought fast. Had the D.F.O. been a less unpleasant individual

I would have offered to pay for the missing articles. As matters
stood, any such offer would be pounced upon as a clear admission
of guilt. Furthermore, no thief in India would go to such a
benighted spot to steal an ancient armchair and leaky bathtub,
both of which would be of no value, either for his own use or for
sale to any villager.
 Obviously, the articles had been removed by the carefree but
crafty caretaker, or by order of the D.F.O. himself, in order to ‘fix’
me. I could hardly believe that an English officer would do this
kind of thing, however much he disliked me. So the culprit was
obviously the caretaker himself. He had done this as a retaliatory
act against me, when called upon to explain his absence, as
reported by me. But where could the articles be? He would not
have tried to sell them, because that would have left a trail. So he
must have hidden them.

The obvious answer was that he had hidden them in his

girlfriend’s house. So off I went to Pennagram and arrived after
midnight, when all were asleep. I aroused my henchman Ranga,
put the case to him and asked him where we should start
searching. The question also arose as to how the caretaker could
have brought the two cumbersome articles from Gerhetti to
Pennagram, a distance of twelve miles. Ranga offered the answer
without hesitation. In a bullock-cart, carrying felled bamboos!

From the forest around Gerhetti there was a constant flow of

bamboos to Pennagram, where the Forest department had a timber
depot. As an official of the service, although a very minor one, it
would be easy for this caretaker to persuade a cartman or two to
convey the articles, concealed under the bamboos in a cart, to
Pennagram.

More fortunately, Ranga, who had once been a cartman

himself, was well acquainted with his confreres. Late though the
hour was, he set out to question those that were in town and
returned by 4 a.m. to give me the good news that not only had he
succeeded in finding two cart-drivers, each of whom had brought
one of the articles in his conveyance, but had also found out
where they were hidden.

This was an ungodly hour to awaken any solitary sentry, snugly

asleep in a police station, but that is exactly what we did soon
after. The constable was very indignant. Moreover, claiming to be
alone in charge, he declared that he could not leave his post. But
when a certain exchange had been made his conscience was
softened. Leaving us in charge of the station, he hastened to the
police lines and shortly returned with a confederate, who had
dressed himself in full uniform as befitted the occasion. This
policeman accompanied Ranga and myself to the tiny house
occupied, I do admit, by an exceedingly becoming lass. I was
obliged to admire the taste in women of the careless but carefree
caretaker. But, more important at that moment, there was the old
teak armchair and the zinc bathtub, as large as life in a corner of
her tiny abode.

The poor girl was arrested and the two articles removed to the
police station. Later that morning the sub-inspector (S.I.) arrived,
and to him I submitted two written documents. The first was a
letter of complaint regarding the theft, backdated by a few days.
The second a letter of appreciation, commending and
congratulating the S.I. He was delighted. I asked him, as a favour,
to release the girl and capture the

caretaker; but looking at me with disapproving eyes, he said he

could not do that, for the girl was ‘an accessory after the fact’,
even if she was a comely wench.

To the D.F.O. my lawyer sent a notice for defamation claiming a

fabulous sum as damages, with a copy to the Chief Conservator of
Forests at Madras. But time was kind to the poor fellow. He was on
the verge of retirement anyhow and he disappeared overnight on
furlough, from which he never returned. What gave me the
greatest satisfaction, however, was the ‘armchair’ detection I had
displayed in identifying the culprit.

You must forgive me for this digression, but my excuse is the

need to let you know that even in the jungles we have our
problems. India is a country that demands of its inhabitants a
sharpness of wit. And this brings me to another tale.

Ticket less train-travel in India is rife. To try to combat it, the

authorities institute many checks, so that in the course of even a
short journey one my be required to show one’s ticket to
‘travelling ticket inspectors’ a number of times. Now, an
acquaintance of mine who emigrated from India to the U.K. was
agreeably surprised to find that there were no ticket-checks on the
suburban line on which he travelled to work daily. So he bought
no ticket and travelled free for some months until one day he was
caught.

All this, however, has nothing whatever to do with the strange

leopard I meant to tell you about.

About two furlongs behind the forest lodge at Gerhetti is the

small hamlet of the same name, consisting of half a dozen huts.
The occupants are woodcutters, who earn a supplementary wage
by working as coolies for the Forest department, repairing the
road, stealing sandalwood and timber when they can, and
poaching deer in the summer months when there is no water in
the jungle and the animals come late at night to drink at the
water hole which, I have already told you, stands a short distance
in front of the lodge at the point where the ‘driven-in’ turns away
from the main track.

The people in this hamlet had a few sheep—keeping goats in a

forest area was strictly forbidden in British days, due to the
destruction wrought by these animals upon seedlings— and a few
fowl. There had been some cattle, but tigers and panthers had
wiped them out.

The leopard in this story, being an animal of only average size,

had begun its depredations by stealing a fowl here and there when
they wandered from the huts to feed among the fallen leaves at
the edge of the jungle. The next stage was reached when the
leopard decided to go further, raiding the hut in which the fowls
were kept by creeping through the wall of thorns and eating up as
many as possible, killing or severely injuring the rest of the birds
just for fun. It now had to turn to the sheep, there being nothing
else to eat, and these it started killing one by one, whenever
opportunity offered. I had been told about this leopard, but as it
was reported to be quite a harmless beast—indeed, almost friendly
in its habits—I had thought no more about it.

The first time I laid eyes on this animal was about 4-30 one
evening. I was reclining in the armchair on the veranda of the
lodge, sipping tea, when a movement at the water hole, the
farther bank of which was visible from where I was sitting, caught
my attention. The sun was shining brightly and the day had been
a hot one. Normally, no wild animal would be afoot. The
movement came again and some yellow object thrust itself out
from the wall of reeds that bordered the pool. I could not make out
what it was.

Perhaps a minute later, without perceptible further movement,

the object turned into a panther as it emerged fully from behind
the reeds. It was gazing fixedly towards the forest bungalow,
knowing no doubt that if there was any danger about, it would be
in this direction. I did not move in my chair. After a close scrutiny
that lasted perhaps three minutes, the leopard decided all was
safe. It stooped to drink, but stopped twice to look up at the
bungalow to make sure that all was well.

The second time I saw this animal was when it chased a

junglecock into a tree. I was returning from an early-morning
prowl when the junglecock emitted its shrill alarm cry a few yards
ahead and flapped heavily upwards.

‘Cekh! Cekh! Cekh! Cekh!’ screeched the cock, and I halted in

my tracks. No doubt it had seen or heard me. But I was wrong, for
an instant later a panther bounded out of the undergrowth and
raced after the bird, to clamber quickly but futilely up the tree on
which it had settled. The junglecock screeched again and this
time flew far away, while the leopard, warned that all was not
well, turned its head to look back sharply.

That was when it saw me. Releasing its hold, the panther fell
back lightly to the ground, arched its back for a moment while
curling its tail high above, for all the world like a friendly tabby,
then turned and padded silently away, disappearing in the bushes.

The third time I saw this animal under peaceful circumstances

was when I was chugging along in my Model T. I had passed the
Gerhetti bungalow and the water hole, and was continuing along
the track which, it will be remembered, branches off from the
main route to Muttur and Pennagram.

No cars came that way in those days and bullockcarts were few.
Cattle passed now and again, in the hot weather when the forest
had dried up, on their way to the village of Natrapalayam and the
Cauvery river, seven or eight miles away, where there was still
some grazing to be had. The few people living in this area carried
their loads on their heads or, when these were too heavy, on the
backs of ponies or donkeys, the latter for preference because they
were cheaper. The branches of the trees met above the narrow
trail, for which reason the already tattered hood of the Model T
had to be put down and the windshield lowered. Nevertheless, it
was often needful to lie sideways on the front seat to allow a
bough to scrape over the steering wheel.

Turning a sharp corner, I saw close ahead a fairly stout branch

extending across the track, and lying along this bough was a
panther that had evidently taken up this position in the hope of
being able to ambush any animal passing beneath. It had not
heard the car as I had been coursing downhill, semidepressing the
left-hand pedal of Lissom Lizzie that served as gear-cum-clutch.
 The panther rose on the branch when I was almost beneath it,
then panicked and sprang clumsily, clearing the rear seat but
landing on the back of the car, from where it took off again into
the bushes, but not before the claws of its hind feet, in finding a
purchase to make that second leap, tore a gaping hole in the
already tattered upholstery.

There is a village along this track named Jungalpalayam. It is

about half-way between Gerhetti and Natrapalayam, being two
and a half miles from each. I knew it as the ‘happy village’, for the
folks living in this hamlet, although far from civilization, medical
help, schools, places of amusement and so-called cooperative
centres that never seem to cooperate in anything, were always
contented and laughing. It did one good to visit this little place
and chat with its inhabitants. They seemed singularly free from
the political consciousness that is such a dominating factor in
India.

Each month, when the moon is at its full, and on two days
before and two days after, the villagers would play games in the
moonlight, commencing an hour or so after their evening meal,
which might be at about eight o’clock, and continuing till
midnight. Modesty forbade that the men and women should play
together, so the women would form a circle in the centre of the
village, while the men would go to the village threshing floor, a
cleared space about fifty yards to one side of the hamlet. The
women would mostly sing and dance, while the men played a
variety of games, the most popular of which was balchik or
kabbaddee, although in this particular hamlet it was known as
goddoogoddoo, a form of the popular game of salts, played widely
throughout India.

The rules of this game are simple. A straight line is drawn with
charcoal on the ground, and two teams of from five to seven
members each assemble on either side. Play starts when by a
member from, let us say, Team A (although the villagers call the
teams by such names as ‘frogs’, grasshoppers’, or even less
complimentary ones like ‘illegitimates’ or ‘bastards’) approaches
the base line, muttering repeatedly and rapidly the word
kabbaddee (or goddoogoddoo), crosses it while still muttering
incessantly, audibly, and with his fingertips lightly touches a
member of Team B (perhaps called the ‘impotents’ or ‘eunuchs’ or
some other rude name), then springs back to the charcoal base
line before any of the members of Team B can hold him down.

The point is that the man from Team A must keep on muttering
kabbaddee (or goddoogoddoo) loudly and without ceasing. Should
a member or more of Team B succeed in grabbing him and holding
him down, so that he cannot get back to the charcoal base line, a
point is lost to his team also.

After the man from Team A has scored a success or failure, as

the case may be, the turn of approaching the line falls to a man
from Team B, and so on. The winning side is that which first
attains a predetermined number of points, usually twenty-one.
Sometimes a small bet is attached to the result, each member of a
side ending up by winning—or losing— half a rupee in the course
of the evening, somewhat less than a shilling.
 On many a moonlight night have I joined the villagers of
Jungalpalayam in a game of goddoogoddoo. I was a young man in
those days and as hard as nails. Nevertheless, muttering
goddoogoddoo aloud without stop, while dodging to avoid eager,
agile, clutching village youths, would leave my lungs at bursting
point. The women would cease their singing and dancing to gather
around and witness the discomfiture of the dorai, which
invariably happened, although the side on which I played would
claim I was no liability to them, in order to make me feel at home.
I would walk or motor back to Gerhetti in the early hours of the
morning with the moon setting behind the jungleclad hills to the
west, often horrified to find myself muttering ’ goddoogoddoo—
goddoogoddoo’ automatically.

It was then the leopard struck! Evidently the branch

overhanging the track from Gerhetti to Jungalpalayam, on which I
had surprised it, was a favourite ambush for this animal, for it
launched itself one day from this very bough upon a donkey laden
with tamarind-fruit packed into two sacks, one on each side,
which the donkey’s owner was taking to market at Pennagram.
The man had stopped to pluck and munch a wild wood-apple nut
and the donkey had turned the bend in the track fifty yards ahead,
when the thud of a falling body and a hoarse gurgling sound were
heard.

Not associating the noise with any calamity to his donkey, the
man feared an elephant might be ahead of him. For this reason, he
approached the corner slowly, while keeping a sharp lookout all
round. But to his horror he saw his poor donkey dead and dragged
to one side of the track, with the panther crouched against its
belly, its fangs still buried in the donkey’s throat, enjoying the
warm blood that trickled from the severed vein.

Then the man, who ordinarily would have run away and indeed
was already prepared to run from the elephant he expected to see,
lost his temper and rushed at the panther whirling the stave he
held in his hand. The leopard, excited by the kill it had just made,
with the warmth of its victim against him and the warmer blood
trickling through its jaws, was in no mood to relinquish his feast.
In fact, I suppose it actually had no opportunity to do so before the
angry man was upon him.

The stave thudded down across the panther’s back and the
panther leapt upon the man seeking for his throat, but being
diverted by the long black beard this villager had grown, bit the
man’s chest instead. The man lost his balance, toppled backwards,
and began to scream.

I happened to have come to Gerhetti at that time, but was far

away at the moment, on the slopes of a hillside behind the
hamlet, searching for a particular kind of beetle for my cousin
who is an ardent collector. I heard those screams faintly, and
thinking some man was being done to death by an elephant, ran
in their direction. Most regrettably, I had left my rifle in the forest
lodge. People who go catching beetles do not ordinarily carry
firearms, and there was no danger to be envisaged in the area at
the time from a man-eater or rogue elephant.

The screams I had heard so faintly had stopped by now, so that I

was left guessing as to the point of their origin; but working on the
belief that an elephant had attacked a man, I guessed that
whatever had happened had taken place somewhere along the
track to Jungalpalayam. So I ran in its general direction,
stumbling through undergrowth and between bushes and trees till
at last I reached the track.

There was nothing to be seen. Should I turn right or left? The

sound had seemed so far away that I decided to turn towards
Jungalpalayam and veered left, padding along as noiselessly as
possible and expecting to come upon an enraged elephant at any
moment.

Calling aloud but receiving no answer, I had traversed the better

part of a furlong when I came upon the victim lying beside his
dead donkey. The panther had left him; perhaps his screams had
frightened the animal away, or may be at this, its first encounter
with one of the human race, the leopard still felt some of its
inherent fear of man. The man’s eyes flickered open when I called
to him and he managed to tell me his name was Subramaniam,
that he had come from Pennagram for tamarind, and of how the
panther had come to attack him. Then he lost consciousness. I
lifted him over my shoulder with the intention of carrying him to
the forest lodge, from whence I could take him in my car to
hospital at Bangalore.

Alas, I had just reached the bungalow and laid him on the floor
of the veranda, when he began to show signs of imminent death,
while blood began to pour from his mouth and the terrible wounds
in his chest. It was clear that his lungs had been punctured, and as
I picked him up again to put him in my car he died. I will not
dwell on the trouble I had in telling the authorities all that had
happened, but while proceedings were still going on I returned to
warn the people of Gerhetti, Jungalpalayam and Natrapalayam
that the leopard might possibly turn dangerous.

Surprisingly enough, nothing happened for some months. Then

the dreaded epidemic of cholera came to Pennagram and from
there spread far and wide, even as far as Natrapalayam. Two or
three persons died in this remote village, and because they had
died of an infectious disease the villagers threw the bodies into the
jungle to rot instead of burying or burning the corpses as in the
normal way.

Perhaps the panther ate some of this flesh, although no one

knew for certain, as no one would be bold enough to go near such
a corpse. Otherwise the advent of the man-eater and the reason for
the animal becoming one are shrouded in mystery.

The trouble began when a boy who had gone to the water hole
at Gerhetti with his pitcher did not return. There was no reason
for his absence other than supposed idleness, so his father went to
look for him in the evening, carrying a stout stick to lay across the
boy’s back while he was still asleep. The father found his son’s
broken water-pot, dropped when it was full and therefore upon the
return journey. He saw the boy’s blood on the grass and the
imprint of a panther’s pugs where it had been walking down the
main track before it saw the boy and pounced upon him from the
wayside. A drag-mark indicated in which direction the body had
been taken.

Panthers being far smaller, shorter and weaker than tiger, are
unable to carry away their kills clear of the ground. They have to
drag their dead victims along, for which reason they do not go far
before starting to eat. Tigers, which are not only taller but
immeasurably stronger, are able to lift a victim as heavy as a
buffalo clear of the ground. Moreover, when a tiger intends to take
its kill to some distant spot before starting to eat, it seizes its prey
by the neck and, with a quick turn of its head, throws the dead
body over its back, thereby supporting the weight evenly on all
four legs. In this manner, tigers have been known to carry their
kills for great distances, so that in the case of a man-eating tiger,
their human kills, as often as not, cannot be found.

Returning to my story: the father hastened back to Gerhetti

hamlet, called on its few inhabitants for help and, armed with
sticks and stones, the small party followed the drag-mark. They
had not far to go. What was left of the boy lay under a bush just
on the other side of the water hole.

From that day nobody would move alone in the jungle. At least
four men would form a party, arming themselves with wood-
choppers, axes or stout staves. The news spread to Jungalpalayam,
Natrapalayam, Pennagram and Anchetty. Everyone was on the
lookout for the panther.

Strangely enough, the theft of an occasional fowl or sheep by a

leopard still went on. Most of the people in the area had, at one
time or the other, seen the harmless panther I had myself
encountered upon three occasions, so nobody associated it with
the animal that had struck the tamarind-merchant down and had
later devoured the boy. The man-eater was thought to be some
passing beast, or a leopard that had become inordinately hungry
to the verge of starvation, due to sickness or wounds. A few even
subscribed to the notion that the panther was mad, having eaten
of the cholera corpses. For man-eaters in this region were
practically unknown; there had been a couple of man-eating tigers
in the past, but they had operated far away, in the region of
Kempekarai. As for a man-eating panther, nobody could
remember having heard of one.

A third victim followed the boy, this time a woman who was
returning from the well after bathing her two-year-old child. The
water in this well was very brackish and could not be used for
drinking or cooking; it could be used only for washing purposes.
Unaccountably the leopard did not touch the child, contenting
itself with killing the mother and dragging her corpse into a
nullah a few yards beyond the well. The wails of the infant
attracted the villagers, who went to investigate.

With this tragedy, the alarm spread in right earnest far and
wide. Woodcutting and all traffic in the jungle came to a dead
stop, and the poachers who by night haunted the few water-holes
in the forest put away their muskets and vintage muzzle-loaders
until the advent of more propitious times.

My tenant at Anchetty, a young man named Narayan who

cultivated the small plot of land I own there but has never
bothered to pay rent, brought me the news, with a request from
the patel of Anchetty, who was also nominally the head of the
Gerhetti hamlet, to come and shoot the panther. I was tied up
with urgent work at Bangalore just then and told Narayan I would
come in a week, sending him back with a message to the patel to
this effect, and an additional word of warning to the people of
Gerhetti to move about only in groups and never alone. Man-
eating panthers as a rule, being inherently cowardly, attack only
under cover of darkness, unlike the man-eating tiger, which is
braver and bolder and attacks at any time. In this respect the
Gerhetti leopard was different; it had taken all its three victims in
broad daylight.

On the day before I arrived at Gerhetti the panther struck for the
fourth time, and the victim turned out to be the son of the
bungalow-watcher, that carefree character who had tried to frame
me with the armchair and bathtub. The panther took its victim in
the early hours of the morning.

After the affair of the bathtub and armchair, the father had lost
his job with the Forest department and had become a minor forest
contractor, purchasing at public auction the right to gather fruit,
various medicinal seeds and leaves, henna, honey, deers’ horns
that had been shed, and other lesser items. In this business the son
played an active part, and at the time of his death the lad had
come to Gerhetti to induce some of the poojarees living there to
help him to raid the combs of the wild rock-bees that had hung
their hives on the higher rock-faces of a low mountain named
Periamalai, some four miles from Gerhetti.

The lad, whose name was Nataraj, had successfully

accomplished his mission and had succeeded in gathering some
four or five kerosene tins of this wild honey. On an average, each
of these tins held the equivalent of twenty-four bottles of honey,
each of which in turn would sell for three rupees. The trip would
thus earn him about three hundred rupees.

Well satisfied, he returned with the tins to Gerhetti, where he

decided to spend the night, as rumours had reached the hamlet
that a herd of wild elephants had recently come up from the
Cauvery river and were roaming in the ravines of Talavadi,
through which the road to the market at Pennagram passed.
Nataraj had no intention of risking his precious honey by exposing
it to wild elephants.

The forest lodge (the one from which his father had taken the
furniture) was locked, but the garage was open: in fact, it had no
doors! So Nataraj decided to spend the night in the garage, along
with his tins of honey.

In the early hours of the morning, the people in the hamlet of

Gerhetti said they heard his screams for help, but being few in
number and moreover unarmed, they fastened the doorways of
their huts more securely and waited for dawn. With daylight, a
number of them eventually came to the garage to see what had
happened. Nataraj was nowhere to be seen. Signs of a struggle
were evident. There was blood on the earthen floor and one of the
tins of honey had been overturned, attracting thousands of ants.
There was also the impression of something heavy having been
dragged across the ground and out of the open door into the
jungle, which began ten yards behind.

The panther had not bothered to take him very far. His head,
arms and legs, the portions that a panther, and even a man-eating
tiger, is rather fastidious about and leaves for a later meal, lay
scattered about in mute testimony of the panther’s appetite.
Rather small, as the pugs indicated the marauder to be, it had
eaten a lot of meat.

I arrived at Gerhetti at ten that morning and was in time to see

the remains before the police turned up from Anchetty and began
their tedious and fruitless questioning. Why had I come? they
asked. Had I an arms licence? A gun licence? A car licence? A
driver’s licence? Any question but those that concerned the
panther.

I asked them to leave the remains where they were and go away
as soon as possible, since this would give me a chance of sitting
over what was left of Nataraj and perhaps shooting the man-eater.
There was a possibility that it might return in the afternoon, and
there was also the probability that it would return after dark.

The daffedar (head-constable or sergeant), who represented the

party in the absence of his Sub-Inspector, flatly refused. He said
the remains would have to stay where they were till his boss could
see them for himself. And as he had to return to Anchetty, he
would leave the two constables who had accompanied him to
watch over these remains till the Sub-Inspector turned up, later in
the evening perhaps, more probably the next morning.

At hearing the daffedar’s words, there was unanimous

disapproval of his scheme by his subordinates. One of them stated
with some heat that he had not eaten his breakfast that morning,
and certainly could not wait for it till next day. The other man
pleaded that he was suffering from a severe cold. To this the
daffedar rejoined that he had not heard him cough even once that
day. Whereupon the constable coughed prolongedly!

Orders are orders, the daffedar affirmed sternly, and stalked

away, to mount his bicycle and ride away to Anchetty. The two
policemen stared at each other and at me, till I made them a sign
in unspoken, but otherwise universally known language, that
gave them the general idea; ‘chins up, boys; every cloud has a
silver lining’. At least this one did for them, and in a very literal
sense, for with the daffedar’s departure the two policemen were
only too willing themselves to depart even if it was only as far as
the nearby hamlet. Anything to get out of this dreadful place,
away from those blank, staring eyes in the dead, accusing face. I
was left to my own devices and the immediate problem of finding
somewhere to hide and await the killer’s possible return.

As so frequently happens there was no place that offered

concealment. This is understandable as man-eaters—both tigers
and panthers—carry or drag their kills into sheltered, dense
undergrowth in order that they may enjoy their meal undisturbed.
They do not leave their kills under some convenient tree from
which they can be shot! There was a thick growth of lantana
bushes and the panther had dragged the body of its victim between
two of these bushes, where it had eaten most of it. Any attempt at
constructing a hide in the vicinity would stick out like a sore
thumb, and the panther would never put in an appearance. All
said and done, my contemplated ambush seemed out of the
question.

I thought and thought, and finally came up with an idea. It is

rather difficult to describe, so I have produced a sketch which I
hope may convey some notion of my scheme.

To the north of the spot where lay what was left of Nataraj was
the forest lodge and the garage. To the east, not very far away,
stood the hamlet and more or less open ground. To the west was
light scrub, through which led the path from Gerhetti to
Jungalpalayam. To the south was heavier scrub, flanked by a low
hill. I had already walked along the path to the western side. No
tracks of the panther coming or going showed on the sandy
surface. So the man-eater had come from the hillock to the south
and had returned that way.

My plan was to hide in the garage till I could hear it eating—at

least I hoped I would be able to hear it. Then I would tiptoe out of
the garage to the front of the bungalow, down the pathway to
Jungalpalayam, and cut back from it to get between the panther
and the hillock, in which direction I was sure the feline would
beat its retreat.

Finally, when in a satisfactory position, I would throw some

stones (previously gathered and kept ready in my pocket) as hard
as possible in the direction of the garage, hoping the missile would
sail over the feasting feline and fall beyond it. This would frighten
it and cause it to come bounding blindly towards its only line of
retreat, southwards towards the hillock, where I would be in
hiding and awaiting it. Panthers have no sense of smell, so it
would not be able to scent me while I tiptoed down the pathway.
But they have acute hearing and it might hear me if I made the
slightest sound. That was a risk I would have to take.

As an afterthought, I decided to tear up the khaki shirt I was

wearing and hang strips of it on the bushes bordering the pathway,
so that if the leopard did happen to break in that direction
(towards the west), the sight of these strips of cloth fluttering in
the breeze might turn it back again towards the south, the hillock
—and me! It would not break towards the east because of the
hamlet, or towards the north, as the bungalow stood there.

I do not usually tear up my shirts, particularly when wearing

nothing underneath, but there was no alternative, as I was
carrying no rags of any kind and the spare shirt I had brought in
the car was a shade better than the one upon my back. So I
removed my shirt and tore it into long narrow strips. In this way, I
made some eight or ten lengths which I proceeded to tie to the
lantana and other bushes bordering the pathway. They were out of
sight of where the panther would be eating, but it would
immediately spot them if it decided to break westwards towards
the pathway, when I began throwing my stones from that
direction. It would have been better if the strips had been of white
or coloured material, rather than khaki, but one does not wear a
white shirt when hunting.

Lastly, I went to the little hamlet to the east of the bungalow

and cautioned its inhabitants, including the two constables, not
to stir out for the rest of the day. I could hardly tell you my advice
was unnecessary. With the killing and eating of Nataraj within a
few yards of their huts, the inmates had already shut themselves
up as securely as they could.
 So that it should not be in the view of the panther, I pushed the
Model T in which I had come to the front of the forest lodge. From
there it was out of sight of the garage and any panther that might
show itself from behind. And I took all the things I had in the car
in the form of bedding, food, water, and the shotgun that I had
brought as a spare weapon, into the garage. Here I would stay till
daylight the following morning, hoping against hope that the
leopard would return to what was left of its meal.

All this had taken up to half an hour to noon, and the sun
blazed down mercilessly on the dry forest that throbbed to the
sound of the cicadas, the cooing of the lesser speckled doves, and
the calls of the black-bodied and orange-winged crow-pheasant
that was diligently searching for birds’ eggs, lizards and
caterpillars by the edge of the jungle a few paces away.

The hours dragged by and the heat grew more intense, rising
from the ground in shimmering waves. Even the crow-pheasant
“felt it and gave up his search, although the tireless cicadas
continued to drone out their monotonous dirge.

The hours came and went while I strained my ears for the sound
of crunching bones that would announce the killer’s return. Not a
sound did I hear other than the scream of a king vulture high in
the sky. It must have spotted the remains long ago, but being those
of a human being the ‘king’ had delayed its earthwards plunge
that would be an invitation to all other vultures for miles around
to foregather for a feast.

Five o’clock came, bringing a noticeable cooling of the

atmosphere and a sharpening of the vulture’s appetite. It delayed
no longer, but plummeted to earth with the rattling rush of the
wind through the tough feathers of its outstretched wings, to land
with a faint thud in the vicinity of the kill. Soon other vultures
would follow and nothing would be left of the panther’s kill
beyond cleanly-picked bones. The leopard, if it should come that
night, would find nothing to eat and would wander away!

Four or five vultures joined the king at intervals, although the

huge birds still hesitated to begin their meal. Nataraj’s head, being
left intact with its staring eyes, kept them away.

Time dragged by, and with the advent of evening the chorus of
roosting birds began its tumultuous farewell to the day that is
music to the ears of those who love the jungle. ‘Kuck-kya-kya-
khuckm!’ crowed junglecocks from the foot of the hillock; ‘Kee-
kok! Kee-kok! Kee-kok!’ challenged a partridge higher up, and
‘Kee-kok-kok! Kee-kok-kok! Kee-kok-kok!’ came his rival’s reply
from the summit of the hill. ‘Wack! Wack! kuker-rawack!’ growled
spurfowl to each other, while far away a peacock joined the
chorus ‘Zank! Mia! Mia! Mia-oo-ow!’

There comes a heavy flapping of wings as the ‘king’ and its

equally cowardly companions rose ponderously from the ground
to perch on some neighbouring tree. They would wait till morning
and their appetites would certainly be sharpened.

Darkness began to fall; there was a deep silence that could

almost be felt. Then ‘Chuck! Chuck! Chuck! Chuck-ooooo!’ trilled
the nightjar and ‘Whooo! Whooo! Whooo!’ hooted a horned owl. I
fixed the two clamps that held my torch firmly to the barrel of my
rifle and adjusted the beam to form a spot. Soon after that it was
night. The leopard had not put in an appearance and my deeply-
laid scheme appeared to be coming to naught.

I will not weary you with a description of the half-dozen hours

that followed. Indeed, there is nothing to tell you, for nothing
happened. The moon, that was now on the wane, had risen late,
and should the panther come to its kill I would not be able to
follow my plan, for the night would not be bright enough to see it
when it came bounding up the hillside after being frightened by
the stones I was going to throw. I would either have to let it eat, or
to try creeping up on it, something that would be very difficult to
accomplish and was not at all to my liking.

With these reflections I must have dozed off. Then something

awoke me with a start. I could not say what it was. It was not a
sound I could hear, but a feeling of deadly peril seemed to close
over me. It was oppressive and heavy; it could almost be felt.

For a moment I put it down to imagination, but the sense of

danger remained and became very real. It seemed to close down
upon me. Without doubt something, somewhere, was threatening
me.

Then I realized what it was. The man-eater was close by! That
strange sixth sense that I have felt in times of extreme peril, and
was to save my life so may times thereafter, was telling me as if in
spoken words that the leopard was about to attack.

I closed my hands over my .405 and, without moving, I strained

my eyes to look in every direction. Moonlight framed the
rectangular doorway of the garage, with the rear of the forest
bungalow in the centre of the scene. Then something moved ever
so slightly at the bottom left-hand corner of this moonlit screen.
Something black and slightly undulating. I could not quite see
what it was, because it lay within the area of darkness thrown by
the garage in which I was hiding and only the background of dim
moonlight had drawn my attention to the faint movement near
by.

The shadow moved ever so slightly and the faintest hissing

sound reached my straining ears. A cobra? Or could it be the man-
eater?

Luckily I had made not the least movement. Had I done so, the
creature might have attacked when it realized that it had been
discovered in its attempt to surprise me. But now movement—and
very quick movement at that—was called for.

Springing to my feet I threw myself backwards, and was brought

to an abrupt halt by the wall behind me. At the same time, I
pointed the muzzle of my rifle forwards and pressed the switch of
the torch. Although the beam blinded it, the man-eater launched
its attack.

In describing the few moments that followed, I should write

humbly and with a sense of gratitude. For it is not well to boast
that ‘with one shot I killed it’, for any person even with a
rudimentary experience of wild animals will tell you that a
sambar can carry nine bullets in its body and move for miles, a
bison fifteen, a wild elephant sometimes twenty-five, and a tiger
or panther a great many before it falls dead. And it can tear you to
pieces before it dies.

Then again the cartridge may be a dud, the cap may misfire, or
the animal may turn aside just as you fire. Anything can happen.
Suffice it to say that my bullet hit its mark by sheer luck and
killed the leopard even while it was in midair, although to make
certain I fired two more into the writhing body at my feet.

The sub-inspector arrived creditably early next morning. He

was not happy to find that most of Nataraj’s bones, including his
head, had been taken away by the hyenas and jackals during the
night.
 7

The Lakkavalli Man-Eater

F YOU were to visit the township of Tarikere in the western

I parts of Mysore state, you would find two motorable roads open
to you. On these, at a distance of not more than four or five miles
from the town itself, if you had the time to stop and listen, you
would hear many stories from the villagers about the depredations
of tigers.

The first of these roads leads roughly southwestwards from

Tarikere, passing in a curve through the village of Lingadhalli, to
the south of the high horseshoe range of mountains known as the
Baba Budans, crossing its lower slopes at the hamlet of Santaveri,
and continuing to the town of Chikmagalur, about twenty miles
away.

The second road leads northwestwards, passing the eastern and

northeastern slopes of those same mountains, before curving
through two hamlets, named Lakkavalli and Umblebyle, to the
town of Bhadravati which itself is barely ten miles from Tarikere,
by a third and more direct road.

The first and second roads in this way circumvent the southern
and eastern slopes of the Baba Budan range, and the tigers that
cross the hump of the mountains from the deep valley to the west
and north, ringed in by these mountains, find themselves either in
the vicinity of the hamlet of Santaveri on the southern road, or in
the area known as the Laulbagh, west of the eastern road.

These should be kept well in mind: the hamlet of Santaveri and

the area known as the Laulbagh. For it was at these places and in
the area between them that the adventure with the tiger, about
which you are now going to hear, took place. Santaveri, at the
height of 4,500 feet above sea level, is a rocky, wild and thickly
forested region, while the Laulbagh, perhaps thirty to thirty-five
miles away as the crow flies, although more than a thousand feet
lower and far less rocky, is correspondingly more thickly forested.

I happened to be visiting my old friend, Dick Bird, who was the

postmaster at Santaveri and in private life one of the most famous
tiger-hunters in the district, having shot all his tigers with a .12
bore shotgun, spurning the use of a rifle.

‘Jock,’ he asked me, ‘have you heard about the tiger that has
turned up around Kemangundi?’

I should explain that Kemangundi is about half-way between

Santaveri and the Laulbagh area, and that Dick always calls me
‘Jock’. For I have lived in so many places and hunted in so many
forests and in so many different climates, with different fauna and
flora, and have done so many different things, that I have become
a sort of Jekyll and Hyde with a variety of names and nicknames.
Very old friends call me ‘Jock’, ‘Scotchie’, or ‘Scotch’, while those
met more recently address me as ‘Andy’, ‘Kenneth’, ‘Ken’ and
‘KDS’.

At school they called me ‘Snake Charmer’, because of my

fondness for producing these reptiles from inside my shirt and
releasing them in such places as Sunday school, the school chapel,
the classroom, the dining and study halls, and in cinemas and
other congested spots. This was long ago, of course, and I have not
been addressed as ‘Snake Charmer’ for some years, having dropped
the habit of releasing the reptiles in public.

Most embarrassing of all, young Dudhwala, my son’s friend,

insists upon calling me ‘Dot’. Personally, I do not see the least
resemblance or slightest connection between myself and ‘any
small mark with a pen or sharp point’, which the dictionary gives
as the meaning of ‘dot’. So, because of the variety of names by
which I am addressed, and being somewhat absentminded, I
occasionally become confused and look around for the party
addressed.

But to return to Dick’s question.

‘No,’ I replied, ‘I haven’t been in the area for quite a while. I

used to operate a lot in Salem district, as you know, but have had
to extend my wanderings to the Nilgiris and into Andhra state.
Tigers are still plentiful there.’

‘Well, there are quite a few still,’ Dick continued. ‘But ordinary
ones. You know, cattle-lifters. Snatch and grab beasts that haunt
the cattle-herds. The animal I have mentioned appears to be a
little different, though.’

He then went on to explain that reports from herdsmen stated a

very large tiger had recently formed the habit of attacking their
herds even while they were still on the roads and being driven to
the grazing grounds. Before their very eyes it would seize and kill
the fattest and choicest cow and carry her off, slung over its
shoulders. This had happened several times and but a few miles
from Santaveri itself, on the road I have told you about that led
from Tarikere to Chikmagalur. The same sort of thing was reported
to have taken place on another, smaller road, leading to a hillock

named Kemangundi, which branched off the main Tarikere-

Chikmagalur road shortly after passing through the village of
Lingadhalli.

Dick went on to relate that two or three herdsmen had

attempted to defend their charges by trying to frighten the tiger
into relinquishing the carcase of the victim as it was carrying it
away, by shouting and throwing stones.
 They had soon desisted, however, when this tiger, instead of
leaving the carcase and running away, had dropped the cow and
charged in their direction—whereupon they had fled.
Investigations later showed that the tiger had returned after
chasing the herdsmen away, picked up the cow and made off with
it. This tiger seemed to favour carrying its victim sluing across its
shoulders rather than holding it by the neck or throat and
dragging it along the ground.

We discussed this point and agreed that the indications were

that either the tiger was an exceptionally bold animal— perhaps
an old male—or that it intended carrying the carcase a long way
before devouring it, perhaps to some distant cave, or other lair,
should it happen to be a tigress with cubs. The animal was wise
enough to realize that dragging its kill for a long distance would
entail getting it caught in bushes and thorns; it therefore preferred
to lift the carcase bodily.

‘If only I would get some leave in this damned department,’

Dick complained, ‘I would bag it by hook or crook. But to get even
two or three days’ casual leave entails a hell of a fuss. A
replacement for me has to be called from Tarikere or Chikmagalur,
and the superintendent acts like mad. That’s what comes of being
a postmaster.’

My visit over, I returned to Bangalore and forgot all about the

tiger. In any case, I was not interested in cattle-lifters.

Some months passed until, one morning, I happened to go to the

district Magistrate’s Court in Bangalore to purchase some
government stamp paper, of which I was in need, when I met an
Indian gentleman at the stamp vendor’s booth. He was grumbling
because the particular denomination of stamp paper he wanted
was not available, nor were any smaller denominations that
would add up to the total amount required.
 I purchased the paper I needed, which was of a much higher
denomination and was available.

‘What name?’ the vendor asked me, preparing to enter this on

the back of the stamp paper, as required by rules.

‘K.D.S. Anderson,’ I replied slowly, spelling out the Anderson so

that he could write it correctly.

The Indian gentleman with us was staring hard at me. After

entering my name and receiving payment, the vendor handed me
the stamp paper, and the gentleman spoke.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he asked, ‘but are you the Mr. Anderson who
shoots tigers?’

‘Well, I suppose so,’ I answered with a smile. ‘At least I don’t

know of any other Anderson who has the bad habit.’ Then, as an
afterthought I added, ‘Perhaps you mean my son?’

‘My name is Venkatasubbarao,’ the man said. ‘I’m the Assistant

Chief Engineer working on the Lakkavalli Dam Project, near
Tarikere. You see, when the vendor asked your name and you
replied that it was Anderson, I pricked up my ears. I’ve heard of
you shooting tigers all over the place. You must really come to
Lakkavalli, sir. Come as my guest. I have large quarters and can
put you up conveniently. You will be quite comfortable and I will
make all the needful bandobast for you to shoot the man-eater.’

‘What man-eater?’ I asked in surprise.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ he answered, evidently taken aback.

‘Why, it came out in the newspaper three days ago. But come
along and have a coffee with me and I’ll tell you all about it.’

There is a restaurant, known as ‘Tiffin Room’, within a stone’s

throw of the Magistrate’s Court, and there Venkatasubbarao and I
went. Over not one, but several cups of coffee, he related the
following story.

A large tiger had appeared on the road from Tarikere that led
past the eastern slopes of the Baba Budan mountain range, and
passed through Lakkavalli before going on in a circle to
Bhadravati. It had begun by killing cattle belonging to the many
herds that were taken to graze in the jungle bordering the
roadside. The tiger was reputed to carry off its victims across its
back, and if any of the herdsmen dared to interfere, this animal
chased them off with loud growls. Invariably it would disappear in
a western direction, into the jungles of the ‘Laulbagh’.

Time passed. Nothing happened to any herdsmen, but the tiger

continued to exact its toll. Naturally, the herdsmen grew more
angry with the tiger and became correspondingly bolder. Equally
naturally, the tiger grew more angry with them and grew bolder
itself.

The day dawned when the anger of both sides came to a head.
The tiger was moving off with a particularly fat cow across its
shoulders when a herdsman, more plucky than any of his
companions, rushed after it and hurled his stave. As was its
custom, the tiger dropped the body of the victim and, roaring and
growling horribly, charged the man, no doubt expecting him to
bolt as so many others had done before.

But this man did not run away. Maybe he was braver than the
others. Maybe he was stricken stiff with fear. Maybe, having cast
his staff away, he thought it useless to run anyhow. Of course, not
being present himself, Venkatasubbarao did not know what really
happened. What he did know was that the tiger killed and ate the
herdsman before walking off again with its fat victim, the cow.

Word got around and the herdsmen in the Lakkavalli area

stopped interfering with the tiger. When it attacked a herd, the
men in charge promptly fled, and the tiger, politely, did not bother
to chase them any more. But other herdsmen, farther off, had not
heard of what had transpired near Lakkavalli. They continued
their old tactics of trying to drive the tiger off when it attacked
their animals. The tiger, having come now to realize how helpless
his human victim at Lakkavalli had proved to be, and emboldened
by that experience, killed two herdsmen one after the other at
Kemangundi, and one other not very far from Santaveri. These
three victims it was reported to have completely devoured and,
most significant feature of all, after eating them it had spurned
the carcases of the cattle it had killed.

The tiger had returned to Lakkavalli after that. Once again the
scene was set for tragedy. A herd of cattle was being taken out to
graze by two men, a middle-aged man and his son of fifteen years.
They were standing together, watching their charges, when the
boy saw the head of a large tiger observing them from behind a rise
in the ground. He drew his father’s attention to it. Both had
turned to flee, leaving their animals to the tender mercies of the
tiger, when that beast, instead of attacking the cattle, had come
after them.

The lad, being young and fleeter of foot, was running ahead
when the father saw the tiger bound past him, overhaul the boy
and pounce upon him. In heedless panic, the older man had
swerved to the right and continued his headlong flight. When he
reached the village he collapsed in a faint, and it was a long time
before he could tell what had happened.

The villagers went to Venkatasubbarao’s quarters to beg his

assistance. My new friend, however, did not own a gun and so
could not help them at that moment. He closely questioned the
father and got from him all the details, just as he related them to
me.
 A runner was dispatched to Tarikere, some eleven miles away,
for help. Meanwhile the herd of cattle came rushing back to the
village. It was intact. Not one of them had been harmed.

The next morning a mixed posse of policemen and forest guards,

nine in number and armed with lathis, arrived together with two
constables with rifles and a police sub-inspector carrying a
revolver. Thus a dozen men, led by the father, went to the spot
where the tiger had attacked. The body of the boy was not to be
seen and everybody returned.

Thereafter the problem of obtaining labour for working on the

dam became insurmountable. Those who lived in huts in the
village refused to go out, while many went back to Tarikere.
Others—and quite a large number of them—had made a practice
of cycling every morning the eleven miles from Tarikere to work at
the dam, returning the same distance in the evening. These
refused to undertake the journey any more. And those people who
brought supplies of rice, grain, bread and vegetables from Tarikere
to the technical staff working on the dam declined to travel on
that dreadful road. So not only had work on the dam practically
ceased, but the senior staff stationed at Lakkavalli were being
starved out.

My new acquaintance had taken advantage of the inactivity to

come to Bangalore on short leave, where we had met at the stamp
vendor’s counter. He earnestly begged me to return with him to
Lakkavalli to try to rid the village of the menace that had beset it.

I had work to attend to, but yielded to my companion’s pressing

request and said I would come for five or six days only. I could not
possibly stay longer.

Venkat, by which name I shall refer to him hereafter, was very

pleased. I do not think he realized that it is practically impossible
to locate a man-eater in five days. It was arranged that he should
return to the hotel he was occupying, gather the bedding and the
few other things he had brought with him, and be at my house by
3 p.m. the same day. We would then travel in my car to
Lakkavalli.

I hastened home to gather my own equipment, which is always

kept ready along with some tinned provisions, when I had another
surprise. The postman brought a short letter from Dick Bird.

Dear Jock,

Hurry up and come. Be here by tomorrow. That tiger I told you

about has turned man-eater and swallowed quite a few cattle-
men. Yesterday, it carried off my postman while he was taking the
mail bag from here to Hosur village, three mils away. I had no
time to ask for leave, so reported sick and looked for the remains of
the postman to sit up over them. We searched all day and only
found the poor chap’s cap and slippers.

And, of course, the mail bag. (Couldn’t the bloody tiger have
eaten that!)

Time’s up and I have to return to duty tomorrow. Now, no

excuses man; I’m keeping lunch for you the day after tomorrow
(that is, the day after you receive this letter), provided the tiger
doesn’t eat the reserve postman who carries the mail today with
this letter. Poor beggar, he’s in a blue funk and I can’t blame him.

Your pal, Dick

Dick was surprised when he had two guests for dinner that very
night. Venkat and I had made the trip in record time.

We chatted till a late hour, but this did not get us anywhere. I
remembered that, beginning the following morning, I had exactly
five days in which to locate the man-eater and shoot it. Dick Bird
could not leave his post. Venkat, with all the willingness he
evinced, knew nothing about shooting and had no weapon
anyway. There was no trace of the postman’s body and it was not
worth searching for it, as only bones would be left.

Venkat said that he had to be back at the dam by the following

noon, so we decided to motor to his place that very night. By road,
it was about fifty miles away, although much nearer as the crow
flies. We downed a final rum and said goodbye to Dick well after
midnight. I instructed Venkat how to operate the spotlight which
with the headlights of the car enabled us to search the jungle as
we drove along.

We were still about fifteen miles from Tarikere, at a place

named Bagavadkatte, where a stream passes under the road by a
small bridge with low parapets. Dark palms thickly fringed the
road both to right and left of us, with heavy undergrowth and
tiger-grass growing beneath the palms. It was there that we came
upon a marvellous spectacle. Standing to one side, just beyond the
parapet and evidently about to cross the road was a magnificent
tiger!

It turned its head towards the car as the beams from the
headlights, as well as the spotlight, caught it, and the reflection
from its great orbs was brilliantly white-red, like two great stars
shining by the wayside. By ‘white-red’ I mean more of white with
a tinge of red. This is how I differentiate a tiger’s eyes at night
from those of a panther, which are smaller, closer together, and
red-white in colour—that is, more of red and less of white.

We could see the tiger’s striped coat, indeed its whole form,
clearly in our bright lights.

I stopped the car. Both tigers and panthers, when a bright light
falls upon them, often try to take cover by sinking to the ground,
although they continue to stare back at the light, thus giving
themselves away. This is just what our tiger did. It sank low and
then started crawling forwards on its belly, seeking to hide behind
the parapet of the bridge.

Venkat was beside himself with excitement. He trembled

violently and the spotlight wavered. ‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!’ he
hissed, louder and louder.

The tiger heard him. It scrambled forward the few remaining

feet till the parapet hid it. Then it leapt down into the stream,
passed under the bridge, and we heard it growl as it disappeared to
our left in the long grass and undergrowth beneath the border of
date palms. I could almost see tears in Venkat’s eyes as he looked
at me reproachfully. His lips trembled. For a moment I thought he
was going to cry.

I explained to him at some length that all tigers are not man-
eaters, that we were outside the man-eater’s ‘limit of beat’ at the
moment, and that Bagavadkatte was, and had always been, a
well-known spot where tigers crossed the road, or passed under the
bridge, from the low range of hillocks on the one side to the low
range of hillocks on the other, and that the animal we had seen
was undoubtedly a perfectly harmless-to-humans, innocent beast.
Moreover, it was against rules to shoot tigers on the roadside with
the aid of a spotlight, and unsporting besides.

I am not at all sure to this day whether Venkat was convinced

by my arguments or considered me a fool. He certainly
maintained an embarrassing silence till we reached our
destination, his bungalow at about 2 a.m. There he brightened up
a bit.

This happened when the watchman of the place informed him

that the man-eater had carried away one of the few remaining
coolies working on the dam when the man was returning to the
village from work shortly after 5 p.m. the previous evening. As a
result the coolies had told the watchman to inform his master
when he returned that they would not come to work next day.
Even if my arguments at the bridge at Bagavadkatte had not
excused me in Venkat’s eyes for not shooting the tiger we had seen
there, he now had to be convinced that the animal that had
crossed the road there could not have been the man-eater.

Venkat offered me food, but I declined and said we should

snatch some sleep till five o’clock in order to be ready to start our
operations at 6 a.m. He thereupon conducted me to a little room
with a comfortable bed, and in five minutes I was asleep.

Dawn had broken when we set forth, together with the

watchman and three coolies, for the place where the tiger had
claimed its latest prey. It appeared that these same three coolies
had been with the victim when the tiger had taken him. The four
men had been walking along the high bund—or wall— of the dam
which was still under the process of construction. They had
reached the end of it and were descending the steep slope where
the sluice-gate was to be built, with the intention of climbing up
the other side, when the man-eater struck. There was a piercing
scream, and on looking around the fourth man was not to be seen
by his mates.

A moment later they caught sight of him, held securely by the

throat in the jaws of a tiger which bounded up the slope they had
just come down. The beast crossed the top of the bund and
disappeared from view. They delayed not a moment, but fled to
report the news at the village. Next they went to the engineer’s
bungalow. Nobody had attempted a rescue of any kind.

We searched the cutting which was to form the sluice-gate, and

there the tragedy of the evening before, in all its gruesome details,
was made clear to us. The man-eater had not been lying in wait in
the cuttings, as we had surmised. It had, in fact, been some
distance away when it had seen the men and had deliberately
followed them. The soft earth showed pug-marks where the tiger
had clambered up the bund, bounded along the top, and then
sprung upon the man who had been the last in line as he was
descending the slope of the cutting.

The poor fellow had probably died soon after emitting his loud
scream. There were no blood marks at the spot where he had been
attacked, indicating the tiger had not delayed in picking up its
victim and making off with him.

We found the pug-marks left by the killer as it was making off

after crossing the top of the bund. Halfway down the steep slope it
had skidded, and the piled-up earth showed the deep furrows left
by its four feet when it had dug them into the ground to stop its
slide. At this juncture it must have released his hold upon the
dead man’s throat, for when the tiger picked him up again, it left a
trail of blood all the way down the rest of the incline and into the
jungle beyond.

But for the blood trail it would have been impossible for us to
follow the spoor, for the undergrowth, due to recent rain, was
dense. But the vivid green of the carpet of weeds contrasted
sharply with the bright red of the blood-drops which showed up
clearly before us for some distance ahead.

The tiger had carried its victim westwards, and for a long
distance. It had crossed the main road at a sharp curve about half
a mile beyond Lakkavalli village and before the road had begun to
circle back towards Umblebyle and Bhadravati. The animal was
obviously making for the Laulbagh Forest Block, and I began to
suspect that it must be living in some cave in this area.

A few minutes later we crossed the Forest department’s ‘fire-

line’ and were now officially inside the Laulbagh Forest Block.
Our quarry had not stopped tor a moment, and it was becoming
difficult to follow its trail. The blood in the body of its victim had
coagulated and ceased to flow, so that the drops that had fallen
were scarce and small. Our progress was consequently slow
through having to search for them at long intervals, and I feared
that very soon the trail would die out.

That was exactly what happened ten or fifteen minutes later.

No further blood-drops could we find, nor was it possible to see the
pug-marks of the man-eater. Twelve hours had elapsed since it had
passed that way, and the freshening effect of the night breezes,
together with the dew that had fallen, had again raised the bent
stems of weeds, grass and undergrowth that had been trodden
upon or brushed aside by the tiger and the body of its victim in
passing. With stems and leaves standing stiffly erect, the weeds
and undergrowth effectively hid from us any indication whatever
as to the direction which the tiger and the victim had taken. The
trail was dead.

Venkat and my other companions were bitterly disappointed. So

was I. However, one piece of information had been gained from
our work that morning. It was clear that the tiger lived in some
cave or haunt within the Laulbagh area, as I had suspected from
the beginning, and considering the distance it had already brought
its victim, his hide-out could not be very far from the place where
the trail had died out. I made inquiries as to the existence of a
cave, but none of the villagers appeared to know about one.

As soon as we got back to the village I asked for the local forest
guard. He would know the topography of the jungle within its
jurisdiction. To my chagrin I was told that the guard had gone to
departmental headquarters at Tarikere and would return only in
the morning.

No time was to be lost, so I bundled Venkat into the car beside

me and made for Tarikere without further delay. The bee that had
got into my bonnet regarding the existence of a cave or other
hiding place would have to be swatted before I was satisfied.
 In half an hour we were at the district Forest Office, where we
found not only the guard we were seeking but also his immediate
superior, the forest ranger, and the divisional chief, the district
officer, as well. With these people around us we related how we
had followed and lost the trail of the man-eater in the Laulbagh
jungle. Could they tell us if there was a cave or any other place of
hiding in this block in which the tiger could have made its home?

The D.F.O. looked at the ranger, and the ranger at his guard.
Then the guard looked back again, and so back and forth.

‘There does not appear to be any cave in the area, Mr.

Anderson,’ the D.F.O announced at length.

The bee that had flown into my bonnet was dying an ignoble
death. My theory was shattered! The guard, standing on one bare
foot, scratched his shin with the toe of the other.

‘I don’t suppose the devil could be sheltering in the old

Munneswara Temple, could he, swami?’ he asked shamefacedly,
addressing his immediate superior, the ranger.

‘The Munneswara Temple!’ ejaculated the ranger, thoughtfully;

‘the Munneswara Temple!’

‘The Munneswara Temple!’ the D.F.O. exploded exultantly.

Then, to the guard who was hanging his head in disgrace, ‘You
fool! Why didn’t you say that before? That’s it! That’s where he is!
The old Munneswara Temple!’ The D.F.O. pranced about in the
his excitement.

When emotions had died down I was informed that an ancient

temple, almost in ruins, stood a short distance within the border
of the Laulbagh Block. From the directions given by the guard, we
must have been very near it when we had lost the trail that
morning. The inner room, or sanctuary of the temple, was said to
have partly caved in, but sufficient room was left for the tiger to
live in, the guard thought.

Back we went to Lakkavalli, the D.F.O., the ranger and the

guard following in government jeep. They said they wanted to be
in at ‘the kill’, although they promised me they would remain in
the village and not hamper me while the actual killing was taking
place.

It was now past lunch-time, but with expectation at fever heat I

decided to forgo the meal and set out with the forest guard on foot
for the ruins of the old temple. We passed the spot where we had
lost the blood trail and had gone another mile or more when there
was a sudden dip in the ground. The centre of this little bowl or
depression was an island of tangled undergrowth and bushes, and
peeping through the varied foliage I could see the grey ruins of a
small temple.

Instructing my companion to climb one of the taller trees and

remain at the top, a suggestion that he did not delay a moment in
executing, I picked my way on tiptoe towards the ruins, taking
advantage of every intervening bush to cover my advance. The hot
sun poured down on the scene and I was in no hurry.

In my excitement I discovered I had forgotten to ask the guard

the direction the temple faced. This was important, if I hoped to
take the man-eater by surprise. It would never do for me to be
watching the rear of the temple while the tiger slipped out in
front, circled around under cover of the undergrowth and attacked
me from behind.

Eventually, on closer approach, I could make out the opening

that led to the temple-sanctuary. It faced a little to my right and
was partially blocked by debris. I was lucky. All I had to do now
was creep up beside this opening, take cover, draw the man-eater
out, and shoot it.
 This is what I proceeded to do. Edging forwards, I reached the
corner of the square that formed the outside of the temple. This
struck me as being a very suitable place in which to hide and
ambush my quarry. I would be safe from attack when the tiger
rushed out. Naturally, it would charge straightforward and not
think of looking for me to its right or left.

But there was a snag. If I hid behind one corner of the building,
what was to prevent the tiger hiding behind the other corner at
the back of me and pouncing upon me from the rear? It might not
be in the temple at that moment, for all I knew. Perhaps it was
watching me from the cover of some bush while It was searching
for it.

I decided to creep up to within a couple of feet of the temple

entrance and flatten myself against the wall. At least that would
prevent me from being attacked from behind while I was peeping
around the corner in front. This I did and was in position at last.
Now it was a matter of drawing the tiger out. I had to avoid
frightening it, and I should not anger it. It had to do itself out of
curiosity.

So I moaned faintly, imitating the call of a tiger far away.

Nothing happened! Perhaps the tiger had not heard me, although I
could scarcely credit that. I moaned again, and still nothing
happened. I moaned a third time, and much louder. That distant
tiger had made a remarkably fast approach! Yet nothing transpired
and I concluded that the tiger was not in the temple. I peeped
around the corner very carefully; then I grew bolder and entered
the broken opening, stooping double. A damp, mouldering smell
greeted me. The dust at the entrance showed no pug-marks. Nor
was there any trace of human remains. Not only was no tiger
here, but no tiger had been here for months. Clearly the
Munneswara Temple was not the man-eater’s hiding place.
 We were so disappointed that the huge lunch my friend Venkat
had had prepared for himself and me was sufficient to feed the
D.F.O. and the ranger also. Moreover, a little was left over,
sufficient to give the forest guard a snack.

Sitting on the plinth of the veranda of Venkat’s bungalow

smoking, a short while later, I chafed at the delay while my
friends continued to talk over events. Time meant everything to
me, but nothing to them. It is the one thing in India that has never
been rationed; and never will be.

In the afternoon sunlight, a Lambadi herdsman grazed his

buffaloes outside. With the man-eater about, it was far too
dangerous for him to take them into the forest, while the sparse
grass in the compound of the engineer’s quarters offered a meagre
substitute. Attracted by the sight and smell of the assorted fumes
from my pipe, Venkat’s cigar and the cigarettes smoked by our two
friends of the Forest department, this individual became
sufficiently emboldened to approach us and beg for a cigarette.
The D.F.O., threw him one and we forgot his existence, after
seeing him move off to the rear of the bungalow where we heard
him and the forest guard talking to each other.

A few minutes later the guard approached. He was excited, but

also hesitated to interrupt the conversation of his exalted
superiors.

‘Well?’ muttered the guard with great diffidence. ‘I prey your

honour not to get angry, but the outcaste Lambadi tells me there
is an overhanging ridge of rock a mile beyond the Munneswara
Temple under which there is sufficient space for a tiger to shelter.
In fact, he says he saw one sunning itself on top of the rock one
evening when he was returning with his buffaloes, and before the
man-eater came amongst us. Of course, he ran away and his
animals followed. He says he had not been there again.’
 We summoned the Lambadi without delay and closely
questioned him. His reply was exactly what the forest guard had
just told us. The only new piece of information he offered was that
he felt certain that the tiger he had seen and the man-eater were
one and the same animal, bearing in mind the fact that the tiger
had not turned man-eater at that time. Within a few minutes I
was on my way again, the forest guard accompanying me rather
reluctantly this time. But the Lambadi was in better spirits.

It was half-past four when we passed the temple, and close upon
five before the Lambadi pointed out to me, about two hundred
yards ahead, a slight rise in the ground above which peeped a
sloping rock. He told me that, although we could not see it from
where we stood, owing to the intervening jungle, when I came
close enough I would find that the rock made a low overhanging
cave, the entrance to which was not more than two feet in height.
This, he thought, had been caused by the rush of rainwater during
the monsoons, for the cave was not a very deep one. On his
previous visit he had been at almost the same spot on which we
were now standing and had noticed the tiger lying at full length
and sunning itself on the top of the rock. He had run away as fast
as he could.

Once again I told my companions to climb trees and to remain

there till my return, and for the second time that day I crept
forward on tiptoe as cautiously as possible.

This time my advance lay through fairly thick jungle, and not
through open country like that which formed the depression in
which the old Munneswara Temple mouldered. I looked to right
and left and behind, to guard against flank and rear attacks. There
was an oppressive silence and I glanced momentarily downwards
at each pace that I made. On no account must I step on a leaf that
might rustle or a twig that might crackle. Now and then, despite
all my precautions, some part of my body brushed against a bush
and made a faint rubbing sound.
 I said to myself: ‘I must not do that again: the tiger will hear
me.’

I was now very near the rock, but the undergrowth in front still
hid the ground level opening mentioned by the Lambadi. I halted
for a few minutes. Maybe I could hear the tiger if I strained my
ears. I did so, but I heard absolutely nothing.

‘A few steps more,’ I said to myself, ‘and I will be able to see.’

I looked down. No leaf, or twig, no loose stone in front. It was

safe for me to take another step forwards.

I took that step, but I overlooked an insignificant little shrub to

my right. That shrub had thorns, and the thorns did the trick.
They rasped audibly against my trousers, held for a moment, and
then let go with another rasp.

Before I could guess whether the man-eater had heard me, it had
in fact done so. Instinct warned it that this was no bird, no hare or
other small creature that was approaching just out of sight. It
knew full well that no living thing that could fly, walk or creep
would dare to come so close to its dreadful presence. Therefore
this must be an enemy, and more over, an enemy that was stalking
it, the tiger, no doubt to kill it in turn.

Its reflexes gave it this message and there was no delay. The
tiger charged, its shattering roars of ‘Wroof! Wroof! Wroof!’
rending the silence.

The bushes before me parted and its head and body catapulted
through them before it caught sight of me. It halted for a moment
prior to making the final spring. Perhaps it never expected to find
a miserable human being confronting it instead of running away.
Head and paws at ground level, hindquarters and tail sticking up,
the tiger looked a bit ridiculous.
 I fired twice into its head. Then I leaped quickly aside, for one
must never forget to spring aside after firing at a tiger at close
quarters, as the odds are ninety-nine to one that it will rush
straightforward, even if it must die the next instant. A dying tiger
can in fact do you an awful lot of harm.

The man-eater did as I expected, and I shot it twice more behind

the shoulder. As it twitched and then began to stiffen, I saw that it
was quite an old animal, past the age from hunting game.

The bones of the coolie for whose body we had been searching
were strewn about the entrance to the shallow cave. They had
been gnawed clean. Red ants were devouring what small strands
of flesh adhered to them still.

The three of us returned in darkness, unafraid this time. There

was another feast at the bungalow, and it gave me indigestion.
Dreams of tigers rushing out of temples troubled me till the early
hours. Then came a farewell to Venkat and my friends of the
Forest department.

I was at Santaveri by nine in the morning. Dick offered me

lunch, but I declined. My stomach was still rumbling in
uncomfortable protest as I swallowed a quick rum. By four I was
home, having accomplished my mission well within time.
 8

What the Thunderstorm Brought

ONALD, my son, was immensely pleased with himself. he had

D just tied for the first place in a clay-pigeon shooting
competition held by the Rifle Association of Mysore state.

Now clay-pigeon shooting is something we in India do not

normally indulge in, at least so far as I know, perhaps because
there are so many wild pigeons that we cannot be bothered with
the clay variety, or whatever substance it is that goes to make a
clay pigeon. More likely, because up to this time nobody had the
apparatus to eject these little things, these clay pigeons into the
air. Certainly, I had never seen them before. I am sure I could not
hit one myself. I am essentially a rifle shot and almost useless with
a gun. My attempts years ago at snipe and duck convinced me of
that.

Donald, however, is a natural good shot with both gun and rifle.
Like me, he had never seen a clay-pigeon-shooting gadget, and
therefore certainly had had no chance to practise. But he entered
tor the competition and tied tor the first prize. And now he
suggested that we should make a trip to the jungles to celebrate
the occasion.

To the jungles? What a strange place to go to celebrate! But the

truth is we both love the jungles. In them we are at home; there
we find peace. So it did not take much persuasion to get me to go.

This time we decided to try our hand at photographing tigers by

night rather than shooting them. Donald had borrowed a
wonderful camera with a flashlight apparatus from his old friend
of schoolboy days, young Dudhwala, who was young no longer,
and about whom I have told a tale in an earlier book.* For a long
time Don had been wanting to try his hand at the most difficult
and I might also add, most highly-skilled sport of night-
photography and this was his chance.

I will not tell you to which jungle we went because it is one of

the very few places remaining in southern India where tigers are
yet to be found. Some enthusiasts have read my books and gone to
places I have named, bent upon trying their luck, and it has
become a matter of necessity, from the point of view of Indian
conservation, no longer to name them. For tigers, panthers and
bear are becoming very scarce in southern India. The heavy
shooting which resulted from the influx of foreigners into India
during World War II began their decimation. The Indian poacher
particularly, of the kind that uses jeeps with spotlights, continued
the process. Then came the deadly insecticide of which I have
already spoken, which the government still supplies almost free of
charge to protect the villagers’ crops against various pests, but
ryots whose cattle or goats have been killed by tigers and panthers
have no compunction about smearing the flesh of their slain
animals with this stuff. Almost always, success crowns this
dastardly deed by poisoning the marauder when he returns for a
second meal.

The results have been so disastrous that, particularly in Mysore

state, tigers, panthers, hyenas, and even jackals, and to some
extent vultures, have been practically wiped out by the misuse of
this chemical—without taking into account the high mortality
among human beings all over the country by suicide, murder and
accidental poisoning. The old-fashioned and far slower acting, less
deadly poisons like arsenic, strychnine and zinc salts, which can
only be purchased in minute quantities, are discoverable, but the
government will give anyone pounds of deadly insecticide almost
for the asking. It is deplorable that the authorities cannot, do not,
or will not see the truth of this matter.
 So we went to ‘tiger-land’, to a lovely cabin of bamboo and grass
that we had built on a small plot of land I had bought many years
earlier for the sum of 120 rupees (about seven pounds sterling).
Two hundred yards in front of our hut flowed a river, its presence
plainly indicated by the heavy growth of giant muthee, tamarind,
jumlum and wild mango trees that lined both banks. Here and
there were areas where dense clumps of bamboo had ousted all
other forms of vegetation, bringing their towering, feathery fronds
to overhang the cascades and pools of the stream, while dark and
silent glades, covered with a carpet of rotting leaves, reached
down to the water’s edge.

The crocodile loves such places, for the deer like them too. The
dense cover afforded by the bamboos, their shade, and the flooring
of decaying leaves permit a silent, sheltered and comparatively
safe approach for the sambar, nilgai and spotted deer when they
come in the heat of the day, and also at night, to slake their thirst
with the cool water that has cascaded down so recently from the
cold of the mountains above the forest.

In their anxiety to escape the great carnivores that may be

lurking behind any tree, any clump of bamboo, or any bush, the
deer lose no time in drinking as fast as they can, with their noses
and ears alert for the scent or sound of a tiger, and their eyes on
the watch for a panther or for the cruel wild dogs. Often enough,
in the anxiety of scanning the landscape, they overlook the ugly
crocodile, who is invisible anyhow, his head and body below the
surface of the stream and very close to the bank.

And so a sambar lowers its head to drink, and as it does so the

crocodile rises from the water. Cruel jaws, with long, saw-like
teeth, close upon the sambar’s snout while almost in the same
instant the reptile’s flat, scaly tail swings out of the water and
whips across with irresistible force, striking the sambar’s legs or
flank and throwing it off-balance into the pool.
 Never loosening its grip on the sambar’s face, the crocodile
swims backwards into deep water, dragging its struggling victim
with it. Once in its element, the crocodile throws itself into a spin
of incredible speed in order to break its victim’s neck or otherwise
render it unconscious, and the next moment both crocodile and
sambar vanish beneath the dark surface of the pool and only a
series of large bubbles disturb the placid flow of water over the
scene of the tragedy.

But we know nothing of the grim drama being enacted in the

slime and ooze at the bottom of the jungle river. From the
comfortable cane chairs on the veranda of our hut we listen to the
loud cracking of the stems of giant bamboos as they are broken by
a herd of elephants grazing on the opposite bank of the stream.
Now and again comes the faint squeak of an elephant-calf and the
dull thunder-like rumble from the digestive organs of an adult, or
a contented cow-like mooing from a feeding female. All is
peaceful and the faraway call of a peafowl alternates with the
shrill, cat-like meowing cries that come from above us, made by
the pair of brown vultures in their never-ending quest for scraps of
food left by the great jungle cats.

Although there was apparent peace in the jungle there was

some discord in our hut. Trouble arose between the caretaker,
whom we employ to look after the place in our absence, and his
wife, who brings us water twice a day in an old kerosene tin from
the river. There was muttering and grumbling, and an occasional
high-pitched female screech that put even the vultures to shame.

‘Some trouble between Boora and his wife,’ observed Donald

laconically. ‘Better see what it is about. She hasn’t brought water
for my bath yet, although I’ve told her twice already.’

So I got up and went into the kitchen, which is a smaller grass

hut about twelve feet square, situated behind our dwelling-place.
There sat Boora on the ground, idly poking a wood fire with a stick
while his spouse sat opposite him, chewing betel-nut vigorously
and spitting red saliva all over the place. An interested spectator
was my shikari Thangavelu, originally from faraway Closepet,
who had promoted himself into Don’s services as a camp-cook,
table-boy, dressing-boy, and every other sort of boy except a boy
who honestly did any work.

‘What’s the matter with you two?’ I asked aggressively, glaring

at Boora and his wife alternately. Then, addressing the woman.
‘Your bad language is disgusting.’

There was silence for a while, then Boora explained in the local
dialect: ‘Sir, I married this harridan three years ago. She has had
three children from me but doesn’t look after them. Neither does
she feed me properly. She won’t work because she’s lazy, All day
long she keeps chewing betel-nut and demands money to buy
more. Altogether, she’s too expensive a proposition.

‘As it stands when I married her I paid ten rupees to her father
for her. Now, old Javanna had offered me his youngest daughter
for fifteen rupees. She’s a comely wench and will look after me
well. What’s more, Javanna is willing to take over this bag-of-
bones from me for five rupees, half the price I paid for her, so that
the deal will only cost me ten. She can keep the three children she
had from me—I certainly don’t want’em!’

Further plans on the part of Boora were interrupted by the

screeching voice of Devi, his wife.

‘You lecherous old pig!’ she cried. ‘What do you want with a
young girl like Lakshmi? She’s only fifteen years old, although
she’s a bitch at that! You’re already half-dead, and after a week
with her I’ll have the trouble of burying your exhausted bones! As
for that old sod, javanna! He’s so old he hasn’t any teeth! Also,
he’s fond of young boys! Who’s going to satisfy me? I’m young and
vigorous still!’
 A knotty problem, indeed! But there was one redemptive factor.
Considering the rate of exchange at one shilling and four pence to
a rupee, the cost-factor involved in this mutual exchange, in
whatever way you might look at it, was not very high.
Thangavelu summed up the situation concisely with a wide grin,
and in the butler-English which he had picked up, chimed in:

‘Sar I like this place. Plenty very much damn good place. Plenty
shikar, plenty tiger, plenty deer got-it. Plenty women, too, plenty
damn cheap-rate. Here five rupees, ten rupees get-it wife. Then
too, can pay next month. When no want, can change-it. Another
wife get-it. Only ten rupees! Damn woman won’t go ‘way after.
Want-it more money. Can’t get ‘nuther wife less than ‘nuther
hundred rupees. Sar, this very damn good place.’

Thangavelu ended with a meaning grin.

‘Thangavelu, tell that bloody woman to fetch my bathwater,’

Donald roared from the veranda. Kunmarie, the local shikari ,
turned up just then with the information we had asked him to
bring us. He had been scouring the jungle since dawn and reported
that a tiger as well as a panther, had walked up the bed of a dry
nullah about half a mile away. The panther seemed an old
resident as Kunmarie said his tracks, both old and fresh, appeared
many times. The tiger was evidently on a casual walk and could
not be expected to return that way for some time.

So the prospects were that if we tied a bait with the object of

taking a photograph later, it would probably be a panther and not
a tiger that would kill it. We were after tiger only; we reiterated
this fact to Kunmarie, asking him to go out again to try to find a
place frequented by a tiger rather than a panther.

That afternoon he returned with news of success. Across the

river, he said, was a well-frequented game trail on which were
tiger-pugs, both old and fresh. Further, there was a convenient
tree, safe from interference by elephants, from which we could
easily take our photographs when the time came. The tiger was
sure to pass the same way that night or the next.

We had procured four buffaloes as bait and decided to tie out

two of them—the larger on the tiger-frequented game-trail across
the river, and the smaller in the nullah four furlongs away, where
the panther was almost certain to get it. Thangavelu went with
Kunmarie to help tether the two animals, while Don and I went
for an evening walk along the river bank.

This particular jungle was still a veritable paradise for game and
we saw large herds of spotted deer, with a fair number of sambar
and individual nilgai, browsing by the

water-side. Around a curve in the river we came upon a bull-

elephant having his evening drink. As we were not on a shikar trip
we carried no firearms. For a moment or two the bull looked
nasty; no doubt he resented our intrusion on his privacy. Then he
thought better of it, wheeled and lumbered away into the thicket
of overhanging trees. It was extraordinary how so large an animal
could move so quietly.

The following morning Kunmarie went to the game-trail and

Thangavelu to the nullah, to see what had happened to our baits
during the night. In the jungle the unexpected frequently
happens, and the reports they brought us were as surprising as
they were heartening from the photographic point of view. A tiger,
and not a panther, had come along the nullah where we had tied
the smaller bait, expecting the panther to kill it. It had easily
broken the tethering-rope and had taken the buffalo-calf a little
distance away to a ditch. There it had eaten every scrap except
the head and four hooves. Because they were sheltered by
undergrowth the vultures had not discovered the remains.
 Strangely enough a panther, and not the tiger we had expected,
had come along the game-trail across the river. It in turn had
killed the large buffalo-calf we had tied for the tiger, evidently
with some difficulty, for Kunmarie reported marks of a struggle.
But the panther had not been strong enough to sever the tethering-
rope. So it had eaten a small portion of the buffalo-calf, leaving
the rest by the side of the game-trail where we should be able to
photograph it easily if we wished, from the big tree bordering the
trail when it returned that night.

Don was in high spirits. He would photograph his tiger at last.

Naturally he decided to sit over the scant remains, consisting of
the head and legs, of the smaller calf we had tied out in the
nullah. To make sure the tiger put in an

appearance, he proposed tying our third bait near by, just in

case the tiger thought the remains of the first one too insignificant
to merit a second visit.

Incidentally, I might remark that this is a plan I have found

most successful with both tiger and panther. After all, they are
individuals just as we are; they differ among themselves just as we
differ and they suffer from some at least of our faults. The
commonest of these is greed. Some panthers and tigers hardly ever
return to their kills a second time. Others return only after they
have spent a very long time reconnoitering the locality and feel it
safe to show themselves. It is in this process of surveyance that
they frequently discover the presence of the hunter, perched in his
tree-machan or wherever he may have concealed himself. To
exploit this greed, I have found it good to tie another live bait
within sight of the partially eaten one, and if possible to sit at a
spot between them; or if that is not practical, to sit over the new
bait in preference to the old, partly-eaten one.

What happens is this. The tiger or panther returns to the scene

of its first kill but does not approach the carcase straight away. It
is suspicious and circles the spot several times to discover the
presence of the man its instinct warns is in hiding somewhere.
During this manoeuvre it comes upon the new live bait. One
might conjecture that this would make the feline more suspicious
than ever. How does a live animal come to be so close to the place
where he had left a dead and almost completely devoured victim?
But you must remember that tigers and panthers cannot reason as
human beings do. They are creatures of instinct, even if such
instinct is often uncanny in its efficiency.

The immediate result is that the prowling tiger or panther kills

the live animal. No doubt the prospect of fresh meat is always
more enticing than the decomposing flesh that has been exposed
to the sun and vultures throughout the day, and so the tiger or
panther brings about its own undoing.

I had no camera suitable for night photography, and as we were

not on a shooting excursion and carried no firearms there seemed
no point in my sitting on the big tree across the river merely to
hear a panther tucking into a good meal. So I decided to spend the
first part of the night in sitting in the comfort of a cane chair on
the veranda of our bamboo hut, listening to the sounds of the
jungle; and the rest of it in bed.

Showers of rain had been sporadic in the area, and for this
reason each of us had brought along a tarpaulin sheet to sling as a
roof over the machan in case of necessity. This is a practice I do
not recommend at all. Firstly, it makes the machan very
conspicuous and calls for extra camouflaging. Secondly, when the
rain comes the noise of the water on the roof is so great that your
cannot hear a thing. Worse still, any creature on the ground below
at fifty yards cannot help but hear the pandemonium overhead. It
looks up, discovers the machan and knows you are there. But it
certainly is no joke to sit up in a tree all night in pouring rain,
even if you are waring a greatcoat or waterproof cape. The rain
has a strange knack of getting inside anything.
 Don decided to use the tarpaulin and I went along with
Kunmarie and Thangavelu, together with another man named
Bunda, to help him with his machan.

A soap-nut tree grew to one side of the nullah and on this Don
decided to sit. It was within about thirty yards of the ditch in
which lay the head and legs of our first bait and it overlooked the
course of the nullah in both directions. There was a third
advantage to this tree. The tiger, in stalking our bait the night
before, had come down by way of a third nullah, which was more
a shallow ditch, and the soap-nut tree grew just opposite the point
where this ditch met the main nullah. So it was strategically in an
excellent position and, according to all the rules of the game, with
ordinary luck the tiger should make itself visible somewhere, and
Don should get the chance of a good photograph.

Our three henchmen made an excellent job of the machan, and

as the sky was clouding over Don decided to stretch the tarpaulin
above the platform of the machan , across a stick cut and placed
in position so as to afford a slope on both sides to allow any water
to flow off. The tarpaulin itself was cunningly concealed with
leaves and branches that entirely hid it from view. The four of us
went away about 5 p.m. leaving Don with the camera all set for
an adventurous night.

I will tell you first what I heard from our bamboo cabin, and
then let Don tell his part of the tale.

Thangavelu served dinner early, and then I sat on the cane chair
on the veranda, smoking my pipe and sipping rum and lime-juice.
Darkness had only just fallen and the jungle was silent for the
moment. The ‘Aiow! Aiow! Aiow!’ came the cry of spotted deer
from across the river while a sambar stag on the near bank
hoarsely took up the warning with his strident ‘Dhank! Dhank!
Oo-onk!’ and a doe sambar, farther away, heard the signal of
danger and in a higher tone not quite so hoarse, answered ‘Wonk!
Wonk! Wonk!’

A bribe of langur monkeys on a banyan tree, the top of which

was just visible to me in the darkness to my right, had all gone to
sleep long ago. All except the watchman who, with a true sense of
responsibility, had remained wide awake. Later, when he began to
feel drowsy, he would awaken his relief, who would keep watch
till the time came to awaken the next big male, and so on,
throughout the night and all day long too, for the big male langurs
have an uncanny sense of discipline and responsibility. They take
upon themselves.

each in turn, the duties of a watchman, perched at the very top

of the highest tree, to look for possible danger and guard the
females and young from an unexpected attack.

The langur watchman heard the sambar and the spotted deer
and echoed the alarm to awaken the members of his tribe: ‘Harr!
Ha-harr! Harr! Ha-harri!’ I could picture the mother-langurs
clutching their young to their breasts while peering down from
their perches on the banyan tree into the blackness of the night
below to try to discover the killer and reckon from where it might
be creeping upon them.

I could plot the progress of the tiger’s approach by the cries of

the spotted deer and the sambar. He crossed the river and
frightened a barking deer in the act of drinking. ‘Khrr! Khrr!’ the
little animal cried. Its cry is quite unlike any other noise
associated with the deer species. It sounds more like the hoarse
bark of a dog and accounts for the colloquial name by which this
small creature, otherwise called the muntjac is known.

The tiger was now disdainful. It knew it had been discovered

and scorned to conceal its movements any longer. ‘Oo-oongh!’ it
roared, and then modified its utterance to a softer but deeper
‘Aungh! Ughh; Ughh-aa!’ There was not anger in the sound, nor
was it very hungry.

As if by magic, at the sound of its roars, deep silence descended

upon the forest. The deer and monkeys were stilled. Even the frogs
by the riverside stopped their croaking. All living creatures, large
and small, knew that the king of the jungle was on the prowl and
they trembled in fear. Only a solitary wood-circket, ensconced in
cool comfort behind the water-pot in what goes for the bathroom
of our bamboo-cabin, disdained the challenge of the striped terror.
Maybe it had not even heard. Maybe it could not be bothered with
such big clumsy creatures as tigers. Probably its problem was more
mundane.

Then the silence was shattered down by the river: ‘Haa-ah! Haa-
ah! Haa-ah!’

The panther had returned long ago and had no doubt been
eating its fill of our larger bait. All this fuss had upset it, while the
roars of its bigger, irascible and bullying cousin, the tiger, had
made it jittery and irritable. It resented the proximity of that
majestic terror, but did not know what to do about it. Angrily it
repeated: ‘Haa-ha! Haa-ah! Haa-ah!’ while deciding whether to
remain or slink away.

I knew that Don must have heard all these sounds too, and that
he would be getting ready to take his picture of the tiger, which by
this time should be near the remain of the buffalo calf it had killed
the night before, and the live bait we had tied near by.

Silence fell over the forest again. The frogs resumed their
croaking by the river and the night seemed to grow black and yet
blacker. I looked up at the sky and wondered why I could see no
stars. A moment later knew the answer as thunder rumbled across
the range of hills behind our cabin. Repeated flashes followed, and
the artillery of heaven was loosed upon us, each crash preceded by
vivid forked lightning that snaked across the sky like rivers on a
giant map.

Then the wind started. I could hear it howling in the distance as

it raged down the hillside with a prolonged banshee wail rising
ever louder and louder until it hit our own jungle. I could hear the
trees tossing wildly as their branches clashed in agony, although it
was far too dark to see a thing, and the bamboo supports of our
cabin swayed, straining, creaking and groaning. I thought that the
thatched roof would be blown away.

Then suddenly as quickly as it came, the wind passed. I could

hear it receding into the distance across the forest tops as far as the
distant horizon. But the lightning increased in intensity, and the
crashes of thunder drew ever nearer and more intense. All at once
a giant tree was struck. It was cleft asunder as a vivid flash lit the
forest as bright as day, so close to our hut that the thunderclap
was instantaneous. I thought of Don in his soap-nut tree and was
worried. It was not a very big tree or a high one, however, and
hardly likely to attract the lightning that had so many loftier trees
to choose from.

The rain reached the cabin and for a moment even approaching
down the hillside, long before it reached the cabin. Donald must
be really glad, I thought, that he decided to put the tarpaulin roof
above his machan.

The rain reached the cabin and for a moment even the thunder
was drowned in the uproar of falling water. The grass roof above
me hissed, and streams of water from a hundred leaks dripped,
pattered and flowed in all directions upon our possessions. What
had been, only a moment earlier, a cosy cabin became a wet and
muddy hole with pools of water on the floor and no dry spot
within sight. I sat on, inwardly cursing the labourers who had
made such a poor job of the roof.
 Thangavelu, awakened at last by the hubbub, in which perhaps
he was dreaming of wives for sale by the dozen at five rupees a
head, dashed in, gazing in dismay at all the wet things around
him, and then scuttled about aimlessly, trying hopelessly to find
shelter for them.

The deluge continued for an hour and then settled down to a

steady drizzle.

‘Quak-ker! Quak-ker! Quak-ker! Quak-ker!’ The frogs had now

changed their note. This was the mating call of a thousand throats
from the river and surrounding puddles, to salute the advent of the
monsoon. I rose and prepared for sleep. The only dry spot seemed
to be under the bamboo bed rather than upon it.

At that moment I heard the unmistakable scream of an enraged

elephant. It came from the direction of the nullah and Don’s
machan. Thangavelu, who was still pottering about aimlessly,
heard it too. He stopped and we looked at each other anxiously.
Then we both went out on to the soaking veranda in order to hear
better.

The elephant screamed again. There was no mistaking the fact

that the scream came from the nullah. Then I heard distant
shouting, muted by the continuous pattern of the rain, but there
was no doubt that it was a human voice, shouting words I could
not make out. The voice came from the same direction as the
elephant’s scream. Who but Donald was out there in the nullah?

Then the truth dawned upon me suddenly. My son was in

danger: the elephant was trying to pull him out of the machan ,
and he was trying to drive it away. And he was unarmed.

The irony of the situation struck me and I cursed myself for my

overconfident carelessness. I should have known better; they boy
was not to blame. We were defenceless. For we had brought no
firearms with us, leaving them behind because we had come on a
photographic excursion and did not want to be tempted to shoot!

Grabbing the larger of the two lanterns in one hand and, for
want of anything better, a walking-stick made from sandalwood
in the other, I dashed out and began to stumble through the
drenched jungle as fast as I could to cover the half-mile to the
nullah. I was hardly aware of the cold or the fact that I was
bareheaded and without a coat as the rain soaked me to the skin.

I had run as best I could for quite a distance before I became

aware of another lantern bobbing behind me. It was Thangavelu,
carrying the other light. He loved Donald, and I was grateful for
his presence. No other servant would have dared to venture forth
on that foul night, in pitch darkness and unarmed, to a place
where a wild elephant was rampaging in fury.

Then we heard a tearing, rending sound, and a crash, and I

knew the elephant had pushed over the tree on which Don had his
machan. I tried to run faster and Thangavelu ran beside me. But I
could not make the pace, so we resorted to shouting as we jog-
trotted along, hoping to attract the elephant’s attention and draw
him away from Donald.

This is how Donald himself tells his part of this story: ‘I don’t
know why my father, when he writes his books, brings me into
them. For one thing, I hate writing and talking about myself.
Actually, the entire incident appears to me now as “much ado
about nothing”.

‘Dad had told how it all started and how I came to be seated on
the soap-nut tree with Dudhwala’s flashlight camera to try to
photograph the tiger that had killed and devoured our bait the
previous night. There was so little left that I had decided to tie a
live one near by to tempt the tiger when he prowled around, as
tigers generally do, before approaching their kills.
 ‘The machan was a comfortable one; the head and feet of the
first calf lay in a ditch some thirty yards to my left, while below
me was the nullah that Kunmarie, our shikari, said was a regular
route for tigers and panthers on their way to the river. Entering it
was a smaller watercourse which the tiger used the night before. A
shade to my right, and in clear view, was our third bait—a live
one—another buffalo-calf. The second bait was killed by a
panther across the river the night before.

‘Darkness had just fallen when the deer and langur monkeys
sounded their alarm cries and I knew that a tiger or a panther was
afoot—probably a tiger, to judge by the amount of noise the
animals were making. Then the tiger roared fairly near, and soon
afterwards I could hear a panther answering in the distance. Most
likely it was the one that killed our second bait.

‘I got ready to take my picture. All the same, I wished I had a

rifle in my hands instead of a camera. The old man is always
talking about taking photographs instead of shooting, and I guess
he is right, but the temptation was there nevertheless. I felt
strongly now and wished I had my .423 with me.

‘The next sound I heard was a thud and the cry of the live bait. I
knew it was a tiger and not a panther that was killing the calf, for
a panther has to choke his victim, who naturally struggles. There
was no sound of a struggle whatever, for the calf was already dead
with a broken neck.

‘I pointed the camera downwards and to my right, in the

general direction of the live bait, and pressed the switch-button.
There was a blinding flash and the tiger uttered a startled ‘Gr-a-
ahm!’ This was followed by the faint crash of undergrowth. I knew
that it had gone.

‘There was nothing more for me to do and I stretched out to

sleep, contented with the hope of a good photograph. The machan
was a bit hard and I wished I was back in our bamboo cabin.

‘I must have fallen asleep after that, for I woke with a start to
find my machan swaying crazily as the tree bent and threshed in a
mighty wind. The night was extraordinarily dark till a flash of
lightning, followed almost at once by a crash of thunder, told me
we were in for a storm, and a big one too. Branches and leaves
were torn from the trees and they whipped past my face, while my
tarpaulin roof was partly blown away. One end held, the corner
that we had lashed to the tree-trunk, while the other threshed
loudly in the wind, whipping against the branches and making a
great noise.

Then all at once the wind fell and the rain came. It was more
like a waterfall than rain. I closed Dudhwala’s camera and
flashlight apparatus and put them away in their case and hoped
the water would not get through. I was like a sponge myself; so
full of water that it seemed to be running through me. And the
rain went on falling.

‘Now something unusual occurred. The tiger came back.

Probably the lightning had made it think himself a fool for
running away in the first instance. What it had seen must have
been only a flash of lightning, no more. So it came back and
started tearing at the calf it had killed a short time before.

‘I dared not attempt to take another picture. God knows what

would happen to Dudhwala’s camera, I thought, if I opened it in
the torrential rain. There was no point in trying to do anything;
even the beam of my torch could not reach the tiger through the
falling rain.

‘Eventually the rain eased off a little and I could hear the tiger’s
gnawing more clearly. Then I heard a fresh sound: the squelch of
giant footfalls approaching along the nullah, wading through the
rushing water that I could hear gurgling down the watercourse
below. An elephant!

‘Probably is was too wet for it to eat and it just wanted to

shelter, for he was breaking no branches. It squelched nearer and
nearer.

‘The tiger heard it too and did not like it. It let out a terrific
“Wr-aah!” Ordinarily it would slink away, for tigers and elephants
avoid one another as much a possible. But this tiger was an
exception. It was eating.

‘Moreover, it was angry. So he snarled again and again: “Wr-

aah! Wr-aah! Wr-aah!”

The squelching stopped abruptly. The elephant attempted to

strike its trunk against the ground in the usual note of alarm and
warning. But its trunk met mud and water instead of firm earth,
and the resulting noise sounded more like somebody with a severe
cold blowing his nose.

‘This annoyed the tiger more and he growled louder than ever,
and the elephant would have as likely as not gone away then and
left the tiger to its feast, and me in peace, but for an unfortunate
turn of events.

‘There was a sudden gust of wind and the end of the tarpaulin
waved like a flag, banging against the branches of the tree almost
above the elephant’s head. The tiger took off with a leap at
hearing this new sound and crashed into the undergrowth at the
elephant’s side. This startled and angered the great beast; confused
and alarmed, it did not know whether the tiger meant to attack it
or if the strange object that was lashing about above its head
spelled danger. It looked up and saw everything: the tarpaulin, the
machan , and me!
 ‘Jumbo let out a terrible scream and rushed straight at the soap-
nut tree, its forehead banging against the trunk with a sickening
thud. The heavy rain had saturated and loosened the earth, the
tree-trunk went off the perpendicular and assumed a slant, and I
knew well enough that with another push or two it would come
crashing to the ground.

‘Jumbo screamed again, backed a little and was obviously

gathering itself for a further assault. Although it was very dark, I
could faintly make out his shape, so close as to be almost within
arm’s reach, directly to my left. A faint streak of whiteness against
that inky-black background indicated its tusks and confirmed that
it was a bull. Moreover, I could smell him now. In spite of the rain
that must have washed him well, his body gave out the rank,
unmistakable odour of a wild tusker, especially strong when the
animal is angry.

‘In the next rush the soap-nut tree would fall to earth and take
me with it. so I started shouting madly, at the top of my lungs, the
first words, just any words, that came into my mind. My voice had
the desired effect—at least for the moment. The elephant delayed
his charge and screamed again. The next second would decide my
fate.

‘My electric torch! Why had I not thought of it before? The light
was sure to frighten him off. Hastly I grabbed it and shone it
directly into the elephant’s face.

‘By all the rules of the game he should have beaten a hasty
retreat. Instead, he screamed louder than ever, and a second later I
felt as if a steamroller had hit me, when he dashed his forehead a
second time into the trunk of the soap-nut tree. In slow motion, as
if deliberately staged, the tree heeled over to the accompanying
noise of rending roots. Then, gathering momentum, it crashed to
earth, carrying me, machan and everything with it.
 ‘When I felt myself falling I grabbed at the branch above my
head so that, apart from the shock, I should receive no physical
injury. I thought fast. The first idea that came to mind was to dash
for it; but I was enmeshed in the branches of the blasted tree and
could not find my torch. In falling I had let go of it in order to grab
the branch. God knows where it had gone. It was pitch-dark and to
escape from the entanglement of bamboos that formed the
machan and which were now jumbled all around me, and from
the branches of the tree itself, would take a considerable effort,
and would lead the elephant to where I was.

‘The elephant solved the problem by finding the end of the

tarpaulin that had been threshing about in the breeze and seizing
it with his trunk. One end was still tied to a branch, so he tore it
in two and I could hear him tramping and stamping upon the
other piece a few paces away.

‘I cowered among the branches, but peeped out to see if I could

discover how close he was. It was utterly black everywhere, but
his movements betrayed that he was within fifteen feet. I could
smell him strongly and hear him breathing as he slogged the end of
the tarpaulin against the ground with his trunk, stamped upon it
and tore it to shreds. The noise continued for a full minute or two
when another noise reached me. I could hear men shouting.

‘They appeared to be approaching, and soon I could make out

dad’s voice and another, which I recognized as Thangavelu’s. The
twinkle of lights in the distance showed that they were carrying
lanterns or torches. Abruptly the bull stopped beating the
tarpaulin. He was silent for a moment and then banged the end of
his trunk against the ground in alarm and anger. I heard him
turning around to face the approaching men.

‘Dad and Thangavelu were coming in at the run now, shouting

as they did so. I knew my father was unarmed and that it was
going to be touch-and-go whether the enraged bull decided to
charge them or beat a retreat himself. Perhaps if I started shouting
it would help to confuse the dammed beast.

‘Just then, stumbling and squelching down the water-filled

nullah the two men came, holding their lanterns in front of them
and shrieking like banshees. The old man was yelling “Don, are
you all right?” but I dared not answer. The elephant was far too
close and the sound of my voice would bring him down upon me.

‘The flickering lights showed me the towering form of the

creature as he faced them, his trunk curled inwards, the inevitable
sign of an elephant on the verge of a charge. I would have to do
something to divert his attention, so I let out a yell and kept on
yelling.

‘The elephant trumpeted shrilly. Dad and Thangavelu, who had

now seen him, stopped running and held their lanterns aloft, to
join in the general pandemonium, by yelling too. Dad was doing
something so ridiculous that I almost laughed in spite of the
danger we were all in at that moment. He was brandishing a stick.

‘The screeching sounds we were all making must have sounded

hideous. But, thank God, the bull thought so too and lost his
nerve. He wheeled abruptly and thundered up the bank I lost no
time in getting free of the tree and getting to Dad and Thangavelu.

‘“Are you all right?” the old man asked.

‘I could not help smiling. He appeared in worse shape than I was

and his voice was hoarse from screaming.

‘“Thanks. I’m fine.” I assured him.

‘“Thank God,” he said, and then, “Let’s get out of here.”

‘“That’s a sentiment with which I fully agree. And fast,” I

added, rather unnecessarily.
 ‘We stumbled away from the soap-nut tree as quickly as we
could. Elephants are individuals after all, and this one could
change his mind and return.’

The following morning we went back to recover Dudhwala’s

camera and Don’s torch. A sight awaited us.

Perhaps the camera had been thrown clear of the falling tree, or
perhaps it had got caught up in the tarpaulin. Anyway, either
deliberately or by accident, the elephant had stamped it flat. Gone
was Dudhwala’s camera and Donald’s precious flashlight
photograph of the tiger eating its kill! But we found the torch
unharmed.

Later that day we sat by the swollen banks of the river,

watching the spotted deer and the langur monkeys feeding and
playing upon the opposite bank. The wind of the previous night
had knocked down the wild figs by the thousand from the great
tree on the other side of the river. A herd of about thirty spotted
deer were feasting upon them, while the family of langur monkeys
that had found the figs earlier and had been tucking into them
were now too full to eat any more. They were frolicking and
playing with one another and the spotted fawns like children.
Now and again a half-grown langur would leap from the branch of
a tree onto the back of a startled spotted doe, tweak her ears or
pull her stumpy tail and then jump back again. The spotted stag
was indignant at such activities and so were the older langurs, but
the fawns frisked about, trying to play catch-as-catch-can with
the younger monkeys. It was an unusual and pretty sight.

But as we were looking, death struck where all had been so

peaceful. The herd of deer had moved away but the monkeys were
still gambolling when a rusty brown streak leaped out of the
jungle upon a half-grown langur that had strayed a short distance
from the band.
 For once the langur watchman had failed in his duty. Perhaps he
had been too distracted in watching us to notice the lone, slinking
wild dog that had successfully stalked the happy monkeys and
now stood upon the opposite bank of the river with one of them
dangling from his jaws.

Most of the monkeys scampered to the tree-top, screaming

invectives, but the langur watchman and the big males leaped
down in concerted attack, voicing the harsh langur war-cry: ‘Hok!
Hok! Hok! Hok!’ They were too late. The young langur was
already dead.

Don and I stood up and shouted in unison. My voice, already

strained by my efforts of the night before, must have sounded
ghastly, for the wild dog dropped the dead monkey in fright and
ran a few yards away. There he stopped to gaze at us stonily. These
creatures are exceptionally bold, far more so than the great cats of
the jungle. They hardly fear man, although they do not attack
him as a rule.

The river was swollen and too deep to wade across, but while
still shouting to keep the wild dog at bay, we made it by
clambering along the trunk and branches of an ancient tree that
had fallen years ago and still spanned the stream. The silver-grey
body of the black-faced little langur was warm when we picked it
up, the great tail, nearly a yard in length, hanging limply from the
carcase.

The monkey tribe was still on the tree-top, screaming invectives

at the watching murderer, while the watchman and the other
males bared their teeth at the wild dog and us alternately. Then
they appeared to understand that we were not responsible for the
little creature’s death and fell silent as we picked up the lifeless
body and placed it as high as Don could reach on the crotch of the
tree where the monkeys were grouped. After that we returned to
our side of the river.
 The langurs came down now and surrounded the carcase of their
companion. Some smelled it, others handled it. An old female,
who might have been its mother, picked it up and kissed it. The
large black eyes in those jet black faces seemed strangely shiny
and moist. Do langurs weep?

We left ‘tiger-land’ that afternoon, disappointed but richer in

experience for our little adventure with the elephant. The geese
had come down from the Himalayas in larger numbers than usual
this year, and Don had planned a geese-and-duck shooting
expedition with some friends. So we had to return in time to meet
them. I did not join the party.

_____________
* See: Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers.
Jungles Long Ago

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. A Night in Spider Valley
2. The Medical Lore of India
3. Occult Lore and Other Matters
4. Some Indian Game Sanctuaries
5. The Anaibiddahalla Tigress
6. In a Jungle Long Ago
 Introduction

MONG the pleasures of writing books are the letters that often
A come to an author from readers all over the world. Some of
them are highly flattering and add to the writer’s vanity as they
record the hours of enjoyment derived from his stories. A few ask
questions and demand an early answer, while others seek to put
the author on the spot in one way or the other.

Recently I received a letter from England in which I was asked

why I preach animal preservation in nearly all my books, while
most of my stories are about shooting them. But I feel that most of
my readers will believe and understand me when I say that I have
never killed for pleasure, at least not since I was very young. I do
plead guilty for the sins of my youth; but the urge to slay
wantonly died in me comparatively early; since then I have been
able to kill only in cases of necessity.

Due to something I once told Malcolm Barnes, my publisher,

which he included in his foreword to my last book, Tales of the
Indian Jungle, I have received many letters urging me to continue
writing, if for no other reason than to increase public interest in
the jungles and the wild life that remains in India. So I have
decided to try to do just that, but in this new book there are no
stories of shooting man-eaters, or of shooting anything for that
matter. Instead, you will find reminiscences of adventures in the
jungle a long time ago. Some of the things we did then were
pointless; some were just crazy and I would not have the guts to
undertake them again today, now that I am, I hope, a wiser man.
And there is a chapter on occult lore and another on jungle
medicine.

All these reminiscences are jewels in a long chain of memories;

precious jewels that sparkle for me brightly as I gaze at each and
remember it once again, reliving those wonderful days and nights
when we passed each exciting moment so happily, so fully, with
never a thought of the what-might-have-happened or what-might-
happen. The present was all that mattered and we lived each
moment to the full.

Those were the times when there were no problems, no

frustrations, no anxieties for the future. We were of and in the
jungle, and that was all that mattered—with the trees and the
animals and the sunshine about us in the daytime, and the moon
and the stars and the fireflies, the croaking of frogs and the
chirping of the crickets by night, we were in a paradise of
contentment, the calls of frightened deer and the chorus of a pack
of jackals were the music to which we fell asleep beside the
embers of our fires, stoked now and again by the one whose turn it
was to be on ‘sentry-go’, so to speak, as he added a bunch of
faggots or a small log, when the sparks would leap skywards,
pursued by a billow of smoke.

Camp life was relaxing in every sense of the word; but we were
strict, very strict, about the duties of the ‘sentry’ for two hours,
which was the length of time each of the party was obliged to
spend in protecting the camp, and for which we cast lots the
evening before.

The ‘sentry’ was required to stoke the fire and keep his senses
alert for the approach of elephants, particularly of a single bull.
Also to listen to the sounds and cries of the night, from which his
comrades would be able to learn what had happened in the forest
while they slept. The offender who was caught dozing at his post
not only became the butt of caustic comment, but was compelled
to do a double duty the following night.

So imagine now that you are seated before this fire. You are in a
glade of a great forest; towering trees surround you, clothed in a
cloak of blackness broken by a thousand sparklers, the myriad
tropical fireflies. Close your eyes and listen to my tales of tigers, of
adventure and mystery, as the jungle breezes waft the night scent
of the wild flowers on a cool current that fans your brow, and
remember that you are in a land where time is of no consequence
and the word ‘hurry’ is never spoken.

—Kenneth Anderson
 1

A Night in Spider Valley

RIC NEWCOMBE, who figures so largely in this story, was at

E school with me. We were great friends, and one of the reasons
for this was that Eric had a very pretty sister.

Unfortunately, he was one of those people occasionally

encountered who have an inevitable attraction for trouble. To
make my meaning clear, if you were with Eric you could surely
expect something unfortunate to happen. It was almost a
certainty.

Sometime, as boys, we raided orchards, or we raided the girls’

school at night, dressed as ghosts or Red Indians, or the
dormitories of the convent, running the gauntlet of the nuns a
dozen times; yet we always escaped, except when Eric was with
us. For we tried it all again with him in the party. Dressed as
‘yoemen’ of old—Eric was ‘Guy Fawkes’, I remember—we had
once terrified the girls in their beds at the convent and were
making good our escape, pursued by various nuns with umbrellas,
but vaulting over the wall to freedom, at whose feet do you think
we fell? None other than our own headmaster, returning from a
late night about which he was careful not to speak.

Eric was such a bumpkin that, not content with falling in love
with a girl whose parents strongly disapproved, he had to fall off
the wall he had climbed over in order to see her and to break his
arm in the process. And when we were in pursuit of ‘The Killer of
Jalahalli’, a panther that had been wounded, whose story I have
already told* Eric, who was with me, had to go and get himself
mauled. Not long afterwards we visited a circus and Eric
conceived the idea of stroking a panther in its cage. As might have
been expected, the panther resented this familiarity and badly
clawed his hand. I might mention that for both of these
catastrophies I got all the blame from his wife, for he had married
that girl some years after falling off the wall.

Then one night we went to shoot wild pig at Gulhatti. It poured

with rain. We were sitting in a field for the pig, but I decided to
give up and return to the forest bungalow. But not Eric. What was
a little rain after all, he asked? He would bag a pig regardless. He
got pneumonia instead, and his wife blamed me even for that!

I have told you about these incidents so that you might

appreciate that I was not overenthusiastic when this Jonah
suggested we do a night jaunt into the jungle in search of
adventure. To ensure we met with excitement in some shape or
form, he stressed we should go unarmed but should carry torches
and a supply of food. That was something at least. He was such a
crazy character that I would not have been surprised it the least
had he made it mandatory that we went torchless and foodless as
well.

Eric was very likeable, extremely persuasive, very fond of

nature and the wild, quite unassuming and altogether
irresponsible. He was quite unaware of the possible trouble that
some of his actions could bring to him and his unfortunate
companions. I am always game for an adventure, but when I
realised it was to be in the company of this amiable character, I do
confess I felt a considerable degree of doubt.

Those of you who have read of my adventures with the tiger I

have called ‘The Novice of Manchi’* and my earlier story about
The Marauder of Kempekarai’,** will remember the valley I have
described in those stories and which I called ‘Spider Valley’. It is a
deep and densely forested valley in the district of Salem,
extending southward for about twenty miles from a little hamlet
named Aiyur and enclosed between two lofty mountain ranges.
 This valley is the bed of a stream, and a narrow footpath
accompanies the stream, crossing it every now and then as the
stream turns to right and left in an attempt to shorten the overall
distance. The mountain ranges to west and east tower above the
valley bottom, sometimes oppressively close, giving the traveller
the impression that he is in a leafy tunnel. A delightful forest
lodge, known as the Kodekarai bungalow, on the slopes of the
Gutherayan peak at a height of over 4,000 feet, and to the east of
the valley, overlooks the scene as the stream and the valley
struggle onward to their ultimate junction ten miles away with
the Chinar river, itself a tributary of the great Cauvery river,
which is the biggest in south India.

We chose ‘Spider Valley’ for ghoom (a Hindustani word

signifying to ‘wander’ or ‘stroll’) for a variety of reasons. It was a
very densely forested area and abounded in those days with
elephant, bison, tiger, panther and bear. Sambar and jungle-sheep,
rather than spotted deer, were plentiful because of the hilly
terrain and adjacent mountain ranges. Rock snakes, commonly
termed pythons, were said to be present in numbers, and smaller
animal life was abundant. The tall, waving bamboos and the
damp undergrowth were the home of millions of fireflies as well as
of a luminiscent beetle and three varieties of ‘glow-worm’.
Finally, I knew it to be the only area in Salem district where, by
virtue of the dampness of the evergreen jungle, a hamadryad (king
cobra) might be encountered.

In those early days I owned a fleet of Model T Fords, thirteen of

them at one time in fact and all in running order. Purchased at
various military auctions as scrap at prices ranging from Rs. 50/- to
Rs.250 (£2.50 to £12.50), I tinkered with them and put them back
upon the road for use on my trips to the jungle. The cheapest buy
was an engine on its chassis and wheels for Rs.12 (about 60p.).
Upon this chassis I fixed a body consisting of a dual-purpose box
machan that could be rigged up on a tree or placed over a hole dug
in the earth. Handles helped to fix this machan to a tree, while
loopholes in the sides provided apertures for firing when it was
employed to cover a pit dug in the ground. The whole contraption,
as I have indicated, was clamped to the chassis of the model to
form an inverted compartment in which to carry my tools, food,
water and bedding. A comfortable cane chair, secured over the
petrol tank, made a fine driving-seat. As for mudguards, there
were none. Nor a windshield. A pair of dark glasses served to keep
the grit out of my eyes.

It is true I was covered with dust by journey’s end, or

bespattered with mud on a rainy day, but this added to the fun. A
companion, if there was one, would be seated on a similar cane
chair to my left, and I would delight in driving the left front wheel
of this vehicle very skilfully through pools of rainwater or heaps of
cowdung, and laugh when he was showered with mud or worse.

Eric had a great liking for this vehicle which he called ‘Sudden
Death’ and was adamant that we should make our journey in it,
or rather on it, which would be a truer term, in preference to any
of the other Model Ts.

I must tell you that it was, and still is, against the law to travel
about on a chassis as a regular means of transport. The law
requires that there must be a regular body of some sort on any
vehicle. The question of registering ‘Sudden Death’ and obtaining
a number for it had therefore to be solved. You will remember it
was sold as scrap and had no number at the time. So I removed the
numberplate from one of my other Model Ts and drove that
vehicle down to the registration office for the needful action. On
the application form that had to be filled in was entered both the
engine number and chassis number of ‘Sudden Death’. The engine
and chassis numbers of the vehicle used as a substitute were
doctored with a coating of shellac which made them
indecipherable; it could be removed later by scraping and a few
drops of petrol. ‘Sudden Death’ was duly registered and given a
new number. That, too, under its very own engine and chassis
serial numbers. The law was powerless after that to prosecute me
for driving about on a chassis that did not have a regular body, for
the portable machan could not officially be regarded as such. The
car that had been presented in its place resumed its own identity
when its own number was put back after the shellac coating had
been removed.

There were two other features about ‘Sudden Death’ which I

have still to record. The first was that I have fitted it with a
special carburettor—also picked up as scrap—which enabled me
to start the engine on petrol, and switch to kerosene when it had
heated up. A Model T. covered about twenty-four miles to the
gallon. Petrol in those days cost fourteen annas per gallon (about
£0.05), and kerosene 8 annas a gallon, or about half the price. So
motoring on kerosene was economical indeed. Engine oil was 3½
Rs. or £0.20 a gallon, while brand new tyres were around Rs. 15 or
£0.70 each.

The other feature of ‘Sudden Death’ was a Ruxtel back axle.

This provided a very low and a very high gear, in addition to the
two transmission gears operated by pedal on every Model T.
‘Sudden Death’ could, therefore, because of her 22 hp engine and
light weight almost climb a wall, and on the flat she could nip
along under kerosene at a speed that made many a new car look
like a tortoise. As for a failing spark plug, I never bothered to carry
a spare. Pending cleaning it when I had the time to do so, all that
was required was removal from the cylinder head, for ‘Sudden
Death’ would then snort along on three cylinders as if she had
never had a fourth!

As we would be on the move all night, we planned to wear the

lightest clothing, the proverbial khaki, while I donned the pair of
knee-length, alpaca-lined, rubber-soled boots that I generally wore
on such prowls. They are light, noiseless and soft, but thick
enough to absorb the fangs of any Russell’s viper or a cobra that
might be lurking in the undergrowth and inadvertently stamped
upon. Eric wore rubber-soled boots with the ends of his pants
tucked into them. Snakes offer the greatest hazard at night, far
greater than that of running into an elephant or a bear. Tigers and
panthers, unless man-eaters, wounded or in the act of mating,
offer practically no danger at all.

‘Sudden Death’ took us to the Aiyur Forest Lodge without

incident. Here we had dinner. Then, carrying our food and a
change of clothing in haversacks upon our backs, and a bag of
spare torch-cells each, we set forth for Spider Valley, the best part
of three miles away. I had a five-cell torch hanging in a cloth case
at my side while I used a three-cell torch, handier for spotting.
Eric carried a pair of three-cell torches.

There is a fire-line leading through the forest in a southeasterly

direction from the lodge. After nearly a mile this traverses the
edge of a water hole, then changes direction westwards and after
some time meets a track leading up a hill to another forest lodge at
a place named Gulhatti.

At this water hole we had our first adventure. Our torches

revealed a row of twin-pointed green lights on the opposite bank
of the pool which kept bobbing up and down restlessly in an
attempt to escape the unwinking stare of our torch-beams. A herd
of spotted deer had been caught in the act of drinking!

I sank to my haunches to watch them, but Eric left the path we

were following and moved down towards the water. This was a
mistake, for his clothing got caught in the wait-a-bit thorns that
clustered around the pool. Apart from scratching himself, he made
quite a lot of noise and made yet another mistake. He moved into
the beam from my torch, thereby revealing to the deer that the
bright objects they had been staring at all this while, but could
not quite identify, were connected with their deadliest enemy—
man. With a drumming of hooves the herd disappeared like magic.
But a far more ominous sound took its place.
 ‘Woof! Woof! Woofl’ A bear had come down to drink. And he,
too, had done the unexpected thing.

He must have been moving along the very pathway we had been
following and had decided to drink. So he went down to the pool
just ahead of Eric. Being hard of hearing and poor of sight, the
bear did not hear us at first, nor notice our torch-beams. Maybe he
had his head down and was drinking. But when Eric began to
crash about and show himself in my light, and the spotted deer
thundered away in alarm, the bear realised that something was
cooking and that something was directly behind him.

Like all his kind when they get alarmed, he did not wait to
think. It did not even occur to him to run away. Instead, he rushed
headlong at the intruder. Time enough for him to find out the
nature of the intruder later. So he charged straight at Eric at top
speed, and Eric at the moment was caught in the wait-a-bit
thorns!

What did he do at this critical moment! He hurled his three-cell

torch straight at the oncoming bear, then only a few feet away.
Only he could have done such a thing.

Here was a bear coming hell for leather at the light when—
behold!—the light came hell for leather at him! By luck the torch
struck Bruin somewhere in the face, with the result that, as
quickly as he had made up his mind to charge, he now made up
his mind to run away. Veering to his left he disappeared in a
crashing of bushes and loud ’Woofs!’ Eric left the thorns with some
of his clothing adhering there, rushed to where I stood rooted to
the spot, and exclaimed ‘A bear!’

I remained silent.

We turned due west for some time and then south along a much
narrower track, which was the pathway we were to follow for
twenty miles till it met the Chinar river. It led downhill and we
entered Spider Valley. The vegetation grew densely on all sides;
the lantana bushes, with their clusters of red, pink and orange-
coloured flowers, visible in our torch-beams, were rapidly giving
away to increasingly dense clumps of bamboo.

Then we heard the sound of elephants: a crash as one of these

monsters tore down a culm of bamboo, followed by a curious
‘wheenk’ as the tender upper leaves and outer skins of which
elephants are very fond were peeled off. Finally the thicker base
stem was cast away. Truly wasteful creatures they are; for the sake
of a basketful of tender leaves and skin, a whole massive culm had
been destroyed.

Was this animal alone, or was there a whole herd grazing at the
head of the valley for which we were making? We squatted on the
ground to await further evidence, and for a while there was
absolute silence. Then we heard the swishing as the elephant beat
upon the ground a bunch of leaves that he had gathered at the end
of his trunk preparatory to stuffing the whole lot into his mouth.

Then silence again, but not for long: ‘Phutt! Phutt! Phutt!
Phutt!’, followed by a prolonged ‘whooshing’ sound.

He was closer to us than we had thought for these sounds

revealed that he was answering the call of nature. It was also
becoming apparent that he was probably alone.

He was directly ahead of us and the breeze was blowing from us

in his direction, so that it could only be a matter of minutes, if not
seconds, before he caught our scent. Then one of three things
might happen.

Normally he should just have melted away into the jungle as

elephants have a habit of doing, regardless of their great bulk,
when they get scent of man. On the other hand he might stand
absolutely still, as motionless as a rock, hoping that we might
either pass him by without noticing his presence, or if he was on
mischief bent, to allow us to come close enough to enable him to
charge down upon us devastatingly. The third, but most
improbable alternative, was to charge us without further ado.
Elephants, even when in musth or in any other irritable mood, are
unlikely to do this. The majority think things over for a minute or
two before acting.

I was about to grab Eric and move off to the left to start a long
detour in order to avoid the creature when a fresh sound came to
our ears: ‘Quink! Quink! Quink!’ The sound of a baby elephant
nuzzling up to its mother.

We now knew we were in far less danger: unless one gets too
close to such a baby, a herd will generally avoid human beings. It
is the solitary elephant one has to be careful of.

At least, that was the way things ought to have gone.

But there were other factors. For one thing, it was night; for
another, the beams from our torches would frighten the elephants,
even annoy them. We had deliberately chosen a dark night, for
although the jungle looks pleasantly ethereal in the moonlight, to
move about in such light gives one’s position away far sooner than
in real darkness. Further, our torch-beams would not carry very far
in moonlight and the reflection of the eyes of an animal would be
far weaker than in pitch darkness.

We had already agreed to talk as little as possible, so I

extinguished my torch and with my free hand reached out to grasp
and turn off Eric’s too. For a moment the darkness was intense,
then as our eyes became accustomed to the gloom, the darkness
softened and the glitter of the stars added considerable
illumination to our surroundings.

The silence continued to be intense. It became oppressive. It got

on our nerves. Eventually it became ominous as we began to feel
we were being watched.
 A low and continued rumbling like distant thunder came from
our right. But the sky was clear and star-spangled, so the noise
could not possibly herald rain. Where did it come from?

Eric was staring hard to the right as we heard the rumbling

again. I could see he was a little alarmed. Finally he put his lips to
my ear and asked in a whisper, ‘Do you hear that? Can it be a
tiger?’

I raised my finger to my mouth to enjoin silence, rubbed my

stomach with my other hand, and stabbed my forefinger in the
direction where we had first heard the elephants. The starlight
was bright enough for us to see each other and Eric recognised my
action. I was trying to tell him that the rumbling sound came from
the digestive processes of an elephant’s stomach.

There are five fundamental lessons a night-prowler should learn

if he hopes to prowl with success, whether ‘ghooming’ like
ourselves or reconnoitring the front lines of an ‘enemy’. The first
is not to talk, or even whisper, on any account. The second is to
‘freeze’ at sight or sound of an animal or an enemy as the case
may be. The third is to keep to the shadows and avoid crossing
open spaces. The fourth is to be careful where you place your foot,
for even if it is too dark to see, taking a false step into thorns or
causing the dried leaves to rustle, will give away your position.
You must cultivate the habit on these occasions of moving each
foot forward in the manner of soldiers on a ceremonial slow-step
parade rather than raising the knee and bringing the foot
downwards, as in normal walking. Of course, this requires a little
practice, but more than that it needs conscious forethought,
remembering to use the ‘glide-step’ in a night-time ghoom rather
than lapsing forgetfully into your ordinary walk.

The fifth and least thing to remember at all times, especially

when you ‘freeze’, is to ‘freeze’ literally and not keep fidgeting
about, slapping at mosquitoes, scratching, raising your hands to
your face, and such-like actions.

You should never forget that the faintest whisper becomes

audible in the still night air, while the slightest motion attracts
the attention of an alert animal, or an enemy, as the case may be,
and will give you away. Bear these five tips in mind always if you
have occasion to go out on a night ‘ghoom’, or under different
circumstances if you don’t want to invite an enemy bullet in your
direction. Eric had broken the very first of them by whispering to
me and the nearest elephant had heard him.

An instant later there came an earth-shaking ‘Tri-aa-ank! Tri-

aa-ank’—the alarm cry of a frightened female.

These huge creatures are almost unpredictable. You can never

say how they may react even under exactly similar circumstances,
though with a wide experience of them in the wild, I can say that
usually, under certain conditions, you may expect one of them to
behave in this way or that.

After that alarm call, pandemonium reigned for a short time.

Then followed a chorus of cries from all around us: ‘Kakk! Kakk!
Kakk!’ as mothers summoned their young peremptorily,
accompanied by ‘Quink! Quink! Quink!’ as a dozen baby-
elephants hurried to shelter beneath their mothers’ bellies. What
was more frightening was a prolonged roar from the streambed
now only a few yards in front of us.

‘Ahha-a-a-a-a-ah!Ahha-a-a-a-a-ah!’ A bull-elephant, probably

the master of the herd, had herd the alarm signal of his mates; he
cried his reassurance as he hurried to their aid, while another
male, this time to our left but further off also answered with a
roar. Then the first bull, coming headlong toward us, splashed
through the water. We heard the squelching as he hurried across
the stream, roaring as he came.
 We were unarmed, remember, and on foot. I grabbed Eric by the
elbow. We turned and scurried back along the path. No time, now,
for cautious walking. Rather, we broke into a jog trot.

Meanwhile the bull behind us, still roaring, rejoined the females
who had raised the first alarm. He had stopped roaring now. Only
the squeals and squeaks of the young and the coughing ‘Kakk!
Kakk!’ calls of summoning mothers could be heard. The second
bull, who had also been roaring, had probably joined them as
well, for his roars stopped too.

If either or both the bulls decided to chase us now, as likely as

not they would start off in silence and only give vent to the
shrieking trumpet-sound of attack when they actually saw or
scented us. This would be quite different in timbre from the shrill
cry of fear and alarm first voiced by the frightened cow. The
attacking note is pitched higher and is more prolonged. There is no
mistaking the quality of hatred, anger and menace that is put into
such a sound, while the alarm-cry is lower-pitched and of shorter,
quicker duration, rarely voiced more than twice in succession.

Instead, we heard crashing sounds which seemed to be receding

behind us. The ‘quicks’ of the young had stopped. Evidently the
leader had decided that discretion was the better part of valour
and was taking his charges away. Now numerous splashings
announced that the animals were crossing the stream. We stopped
running and sat down to listen.

A few moments later complete silence reigned except for a

distant ‘Ponk! Ponk! Ponk!’ as a sambar doe, high up on a hillside
to our right, who had heard all the commotion below, decided
some danger might be afoot and voiced her own alarm.

Eric brought his lips to my ear again and whispered ‘what now?’

I shrugged, held up the palm of a hand to signify we should wait

a little and then, by pointing my forefinger down into the valley,
indicated that we would continue our journey. Eric saw my point.
Having started, we were not going back just for the sake of a few
elephants.

We waited perhaps fifteen minutes to allow the herd to move

out of the way. Then we got up and continued our cautious
progress down the valley. Very soon we reached the stream. It was
perhaps twenty yards wide at this spot. The water reached almost
from bank to bank, which accounted for the great amount of
splashing we heard when the elephants crossed over, but it was
barely knee-deep, as we found out for ourselves when we followed
the path which cut across the stream for the first time.

The undergrowth on the farther bank was very dense. There was
less lantana here and a great deal of vellari shrubbery in its place,
while mighty trees with trunks of great girth met overhead, their
branches crowding and completely obscuring the starlight.
Bamboos in profusion grew in massive clumps on both banks of the
stream.

The darkness was stygian and a high breeze, which had just
risen, blowing down the valley from behind us, caused the
bamboos to creak and groan and their culms to bend and thrash
wildly against one another. This breeze was unfortunate; we did
not like it at all. Coming from behind, it would spread our scent
far and wide and warn the animals ahead of our approach.
Carnivora have a very poor sense of smell, so it hardly mattered as
far as they were concerned, but deer and elephant would know we
were coming long in advance of our arrival. We would not see
many of the former, while the latter, unless on mischief bent,
would give us a wide berth. At the same time, the noise made by
the breeze filled the air and prevented us from hearing anything
else.

I walked ahead, flashing my three-cell, while Eric followed

closely. I had cautioned him not to use his torch, as its beams
would fall upon myself and advertise my presence. Further, the
light of a second torch from behind is very distracting to the
person in front, for various reasons.

The elephant herd had taken itself off in some other direction,
and for the time being, at least, there was neither sight nor sound
of them, although we found ample evidence of their recent
presence in the valley in the form of broken branches, chewed
fragments of bamboo, and huge balls of dung all over the pathway.

A moment later something sticky and clammy clung to my face.

I could not see it although my torch was lit. Then I recognised
what it was: I had walked into the web of one of those enormous
spiders that live in large numbers in this valley, and for which
reason I had called it ‘Spider Valley’. These spiders are huge, often
measuring as much as ten inches from leg-tip to leg-tip across the
body. This one was not great in bulk, however; it was perhaps the
size of a large marble. The abdomen and thorax were black with
vivid stripes of yellow running around and across. The eyes were
large and blood-red and reflected torchlight as if two large rubies
were hanging side by side in midair. The legs were long, hairless,
black and powerful, as if made of wire.

I had watched these creatures spinning their webs in daylight.

They climb to a high branch and from there they let themselves
drop, emitting a thread behind them. When they judge they have
fallen far enough, they control any further fall by the simple
expedient of not emitting further thread. In this position, head
downwards, they hang till a gust of breeze blows the thread close
enough to some leaf or branch, to which they immediately cling
and attach the thread. If no breeze comes within an appreciable
time, the spider climbs up the line of web thread by which it has
descended, and tries all over again from a more advantageous
position.
 Having secured the first line of its thread as a sort of bridgehead,
it climbs to the top of this second tree and repeats the action by
dropping itself from there while adjusting the length of thread
emitted from its abdomen till it meets the first line of web, to
which it attaches this new strand. Waiting for the breeze again, it
drops lower to reach some point a few feet off the ground and a
little distance from the first tree from which it began its operation.

The spider has now spun a huge X, extending some fifteen to

twenty feet across. It now returns to the point it had started from
and begins to connect all four corners of the letter X to each other
by running up and down the arms of the letter X until it has made
a huge rectangle with the X in the centre.

The rest is simple; the spider moves around and around,

weaving strands of web in parallel lines all around, and perhaps
half-an-inch from each other. All this is mighty hard work, but the
spider I watched one morning, just starting work on its web as I
walked down this valley, had finished by the time I returned that
way late the same evening: a wonderful exhibition of precision
engineering for an insect of its size.

These creatures will devour anything that gets caught in their

webs, butterflies, moths, beetles, and even the smaller species of
birds whose blood it consumes. The strands of its webs, although
no thicker than the finest thread are very elastic and incredibly
strong. Even a single strand will not break easily under strain.
Moreover, the substance that forms this strand is very sticky.

Once the work is done, the spider takes up its position in the
centre of the web with its legs outstretched. In this position, due
to its colouring, it looks like some leaf-stem or other insignificant
object suspended in midair. It hangs motionless, but entirely alert.
As soon as some creature flies inadvertently against the web, the
sticky substance of which the strands are made adhere to it. The
creature flutters and struggles, thus fouling other sticky strands.
 Immediately, the spider in the middle of the web comes to life.
It scurries towards its prey and scampers swiftly round and round
it, emitting an endless flow of threads until the prey is entirely
encased and enmeshed.

Then comes the final sad scene. The spider approaches its
helpless victim, bites it and starts sucking out all its blood and
body-juices, growing fatter and fatter itself in the process till
frequently it more than doubles its own size. The prey, on the
other hand, collapses as an empty bag of outer skin or as an empty
shell, should the victim happen to be a beetle. When all is over,
the spider repairs the damage done to its web in the struggle; it
does this at once, without postponing the work till some future
opportunity. Then it returns to its position in the centre, pending
the arrival of its next victim. Spiders are voracious and seem to
possess an insatiable appetite.

This spider is very pugnacious and will fight to the death against
any one of its own kind who attempts to trespass into its web. I
witnessed this for myself years ago, when I deliberately placed,
one of these spiders upon the web of a companion of the same
species. A battle royal ensued, in the process of which legs were
quickly torn off each combatant. The trespasser lost in the end,
after five of its legs had been bitten off by the spider who owned
the web and who had lost two of its own legs in the battle. Those
that remained, however, were enough to enmesh the trespasser
securely in a ball of webbing, then came the coup de grace, the
blood-sucking process, at which stage I ended my observations.

I brushed the web from my face and continued on our way. The
path became narrower and the forest on both sides became dense.
My torch-beam danced from one grey tree-trunk to the next; the
moss and lichens that covered them looked like the beards of
thousands of old men hanging to the ground.
 Suddenly a stillness fell upon the jungle, a hush that could be
felt as well as heard. Eric observed it, too, and quickened his steps.
His toes kicked against my heels and he involuntarily touched my
elbow. I halted in my tracks and he bumped into me. I
extinguished the torch and sank down upon my haunches. In a
jungle, the closer one can get to the ground, the better one can
hear. For a moment Eric wondered where I was and groped with
his hands in the darkness about me. Then he whispered ‘Scotchie?’

It is a nickname by which I was known at school, though I

rarely hear it today. My old schoolpals have practically
disappeared. Many have gone abroad, while a large number have
made the last journey we all must make. The thought makes me
feel lonely at times.

I wondered what could be the cause of that hush, that almost

palpable silence that hung so heavily about us. Reason told me
there might be many explanations. The sudden cutting-off of the
breeze that was blowing all this while from behind us by some
hilly spur that we had circumvented in the darkness; an opposing
breeze, blowing northwards up the great rift yawned before us in
the night; a hush before a storm, a moment when all Nature
appears to hold her breath in preparation for the fast approaching
tempest.

The darkness was intense and there was no break in the gloom,
even when I gazed upwards the tree-tops were lost in obscurity
and the stars that until a few moment ago were visible here and
there through the canopy of leaves were now completely
obliterated. That was when I came to know the reason for the
strange silence that had fallen all around us. Indeed, a storm was
approaching!

To witness such a phenomenon in the tropics is unforgettable,

whether on land or at sea; but to have to undergo it upon the
ground in a dense forest is hardly an enviable prospect. People
sometimes run under a tree to shelter from the rain, but that is not
the kind of rain we have in India, particularly in the jungles, and
it certainly was no safe place when the tree itself might be split in
two by lightning or torn up by the roots in the wind.

A moment later came a vivid flash overhead. It seemed to rend

the canopy of the tree-tops and scatter the darkness with a single
blaze of ethereal light. The heart of the storm was so close that it
seemed but a fraction of a second before the thunderclap followed
in an outrageous, monstrous roar, as of thousand cannon firing in
unison. The earth upon which we stood shuddered and the
overhanging foliage quivered with the resonance of the thunder;
the very universe seemed to tremble.

There was nothing to do but crouch close to the ground. To

remain standing is to invite injury from falling branches. Together
we scrambled towards the trunk of a nearby tree. I made certain it
was one of medium height and not one of the greater specimens
whose top would reach to the upper trellises of the jungle, for the
loftier the tree the more it would present itself as a target for the
lightning which, in violent electrical storms of this kind, can be
expected to strike at any moment.

The hush and the darkness returned, but not for long. There was
another, more intense flash, followed by an even louder clap of
thunder. The third flash was not a flash at all. Like a great serpent
of fire from the sky, the lightning struck a giant tree somewhere in
the jungle and the thunder that followed seemed to burst our
eardrums and numb us with its intensity.

The next moment we heard a mighty, rushing uproar

approaching towards us up the valley, like a hundred breakers in
unison dashing upon a rocky beach. This was the wind and as it
came closer one gained the impression that the trees of the forest
were bracing themselves for the onslaught.
 It was almost upon us now, and together with this fearsome,
roaring sound we heard the staccato reports of hundreds of
branches as they snapped like matchwood in the irresistible
squall. Above the rushing of the wind we heard the louder
thudding and crashing of falling branches and trees, and the
creaking, tearing, and rending of timber. Here and there, trees of
outstanding height or bulk, by reason of their top-weight and
resistance to the wind, were uprooted from the earth and fell with
resounding crashes, bringing down a host of minor trees and
saplings that were unlucky enough to be sheltering below.

The gale continued for a few minutes only then passed as

suddenly as it had begun. The trees lifted themselves again, many
of them bereft of half their foliage. All was quiet for a short while
except for the diminishing roar of the wind as it receded up the
valley.

A new sound soon became audible, growing rapidly in intensity

as it drew nearer: a continuous, hissing noise like escaping steam.
The rain.

Now it was upon us. What was dry ground and foliage a
moment earlier was in the twinkling of an eye converted into a
sodden morass of mud and greenery. The best of umbrellas and
raincoats would be of no avail in a downpour of this intensity, and
we were carrying no umbrellas or raincoats anyway. Not only
were we soaked to the skin, but the little equipment and food on
our backs was equally saturated. Water poured down our bodies
and flowed down our pants, filling our shoes, including my prized
alpaca-lined boots, to the brim. This footwear was sold under a
guarantee of being waterproof. It now proved the merit of that
advertisement, but in an inverse manner. The water that had
filled it remained where it was and refused to leak out.

The rain went on and on.

 The little stream which was wont to purl and ripple over
smooth, mossy stones as it meandered hither and thither, gliding
down its course, did none of these nice things any longer. It
dashed, lashed and smashed against the rocks in its course,
accompanied by a thudding and grinding of torn branches and
tree-trunks that were swept down by the flood. The water rose
higher and covered the rocks and boulders that obstructed its path
it became a raging, unbroken flow, crested by the flotsam and
jetsam that was whirled and tossed helplessly in the mad grip of
the swirling flood.

The ground upon which we were standing was a foot deep in

mud and there was not the slightest indication of the rain abating.
But it lasted only a little more than an hour, and then it passed as
swiftly as its precursor, the wind.

There were a million noises around us now, the dripping from

the leaves, the gurgling rush of the stream, the frequent ‘plop’
from its banks as large section of earth, soaked by the rain and
undermined by the raging torrent, collapsed into the flood.

We felt very miserable indeed. Unspoken thoughts turned to

home, the comfort of bed and warm blankets, a steaming cup of
tea, a relaxing pipe and a good book. What insane idea ever
impelled us to start on a trip like this and place ourselves in such a
predicament? Then recriminations passed. We forced ourselves to
smile and begin to think what we should do next. We could only
go back or press on. And who would think seriously of going back?

One thing was certain: we could not continue in our sodden

clothing. As evaporation set in, our garments would grow colder
and colder upon our bodies. Without clothes we could feel cold,
admittedly, but at least we would not grow colder. However
logical or illogical this argument might seem, we divested
ourselves entirely, poured the water from our boots and put them
on again. Our wet clothes we. secured to pieces of bamboo, which
we shouldered in addition to our kit.

Now we were ready to continue but far from comfortable, I can

assure you. The bamboo dug itself into the flesh and the straps of
our kitbags dug in too; thorns scraped our skins and our bare feet
flopped about loosely in our boots; moreover, it was midnight and
very cold.

Soon another hazard presented itself. We found ourselves

slipping and slithering in the mud and ooze. The noise we were
making by floundering along the soaked pathway and against the
undergrowth on both sides of it would advertise our movements in
the jungle for a furlong around. In any event, few animals would
be on the move after the heavy downpour. Even the elephants
would be inclined to call it a day—or rather, a night—and huddle
together in some sheltered spot. Every creature would lie quiet;
that is, every creature but the snakes! They would be up and
about, hunting and gorging themselves upon the frogs that were
making this night an occasion for rejoicing.

All around us we could hear these creatures croaking,

particularly along the banks of the swollen stream. ‘Korr! Korr!
Korr! Quacker! Quacker! Quacker!’ came the sound from a
thousand bull-frog throats. The air droned with the noise. It
vibrated and pulsated to the chorus of joy voiced by what was
obviously the whole frog-population of the Spider Valley.

For this was mating time, and the forest floor was littered with
squashy, lovemaking couples upon which we could not avoid
treading in the darkness.

For a moment I caught a glimpse of something white in the

middle of the path. Then it was gone. Again it appeared briefly
and then disappeared once more. I could see the ground where it
vanished and got the impression of movement, although I could
not recognise what it was.

I came to a stop and directed the torch-beam steadily upon the

movement. Eric halted behind me. For a few seconds I could not
make out what lay on the pathway, then I knew what it was: a
snake!

I increased my pace, motioning to Eric to remain where he was.

Snakes have no ears, but they make up for lack of hearing by an
acute sense of feeling. Through the scale upon their bellies that
rest against the ground they are able to sense danger from
anything that moves by detecting the vibration caused by that
movement.

The boots I was wearing had soft rubber soles and I was able to
approach relatively undetected. The beam of my torch was
directed upon the reptile but it did not appear to be disturbed.
Coming from behind, the source of the torchlight was beyond the
range of the snake’s vision. Snakes’ eyes are lidless and fixed, and
cannot turn sideways or backwards. Nor did my approach register
itself upon the reptile’s brain which, at the moment, was
completely engrossed upon the work in hand, the swallowing of a
very large bull-frog in one piece.

I was close enough now to make out the details. The snake’s
jaws, not being hinged together, were distended grotesquely and
the gullet swollen out of all proportion. The head and one foreleg
of the unfortunate frog had already disappeared down this
passage, while the other three legs and the body hung limply
outside. Normally, the creature should be kicking and struggling
desperately to escape, but this frog was quite dead, and the reason
was apparent. The snake was a cobra. The venom had killed the
frog in a few seconds.
 The cobra had not raised its hood in either alarm or anger, for it
was still unaware of my approach, but the bulk of the bull-frog
already in its gullet had sufficiently expanded the skin in the
region to show up the characteristic V-mark. I was an ardent
collector of snakes at that time, and the specimen before me was
of outsize dimensions. I decided to catch it.

Unfortunately, the thick cloth bag I had brought for just such a
purpose was with the kitbag on my back. I had to lay down the
bamboo and my wet clothes before I could remove the kitbag from
my back, and in all this movement the cobra became aware of our
presence. It ejected the, frog it had half-swallowed, turned around
to face me and raised its hood, trembling with fury.

It was a magnificent specimen, but it would slither away in

another second if I failed to put it into a fighting mood, so to do
this I stamped my foot heavily upon the ground a couple of feet
away. The cobra responded by raising itself still higher and then
struck the ground at the spot where my foot had been but a
moment before.

Meanwhile I was working feverishly to get the kitbag off my

shoulders, unfasten the zip and grope with my hand amongst the
many miscellaneous items in search of that snake-bag. The
operation took a long time. The outside of the bag was soaking
wet for one thing and I was working with one hand, unable to look
for the bag as I had to keep my eyes fixed upon the cobra.

At last I found it, pulled it out quickly and advanced towards

the snake, which turned itself fully around to face me.

Catching a cobra is really very easy once you rivet its attention.
It is only when the reptile is in rapid motion that the operation
becomes difficult and entails considerable risk. In this instance, I
stretched out my right hand, holding the cloth bag by its handle
close to the snake’s head. It quivered with fury, hissed loudly, and
lunged at the bag. That is when I withdrew the bag so that the
cobra, with hood fully distended, struck its head upon the ground
for the second time.

One has to be quick at this moment, but there is really nothing

to it. The quickness of action comes with practice. The length of
bamboo on which I had slung my wet clothes was in my left hand.
It came in handy now. I quickly pressed down upon the snake’s
neck, behind its head and above the hood, with the end of this
bamboo about six inches from its tip. The ground was wet, so I
had to be careful not to allow the head to slip free. Eric was to be
of no assistance to me. I saw that he had retired a good ten yards
away. I called to him urgently to come and hold my torch. He
advanced reluctantly and took it from me.

‘Hold the light steady,’ I admonished. Then I stooped down,

dropped the cloth bag and grasped the snake behind its neck with
the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. Then I removed the
bamboo. The snake coiled itself around my hand and forearm, but
I uncoiled it with my left hand while urging Eric to pick up the
bag.

He hesitated and I repeated, ‘Hurry up; pick it up and open it.’

It seemed to me as if Eric was taking a terribly long time to do

just this, but eventually the bag was held in position and I forced
the coils of the snake into it. Lastly I thrust the head inside,
keeping the fingers of my left hand around the neck of the bag,
released the snake’s head and jerked my right hand out of the bag
very quickly. Almost in one motion, I closed the neck of the bag
with the fingers and thumb of my left hand.

That is all there is to catching a cobra. Some people have told

me that it calls for nerve. Don’t you believe that. In my opinion, it
is just the opposite. There should be ‘no nerve’, or as few as
possible. For if there are nerves, the snake-catcher may not be able
to catch his snake. Worse still, he may hesitate in the middle of
the operation, and that would be just too bad for him! The snake
would catch him then with a bite upon his finger or hand.

I took care to tie up the neck of the bag very firmly and then
thrust it back into my kitbag. A few minutes later we were on our
way again.

For the next thirty minutes or so our discomfort increased

because of the wet and cold. It would have been nice to stop and
light a fire to dry our clothing and ourselves, but the whole jungle
was sodden and such an operation was out of the question.
However we were young and ardently keen upon adventure. Mind
conquers such obstacles and we pressed on forgetful of our
physical discomfort. Except for encountering the elephants at the
head of the valley, we had had no fun and we were longing for
something to happen.

The stream began to flow rapidly now among steep rocks; the
ground became hard and the trees and bamboos were shorter and
more sparse. Larger expanses of sky were visible, and we noticed
that the clouds had cleared. Myriads of stars hung over us and
shone brightly.

The parallel ranges of mountains to the right and left of us, as

we walked southwards, corresponded respectively to the western
and eastern banks of the stream. Now we observed that they
seemed to be converging upon each other while the valley
narrowed to the proportions of a ravine. We could see the dark,
unbroken outline of ridges and mountaintops on both sides as they
towered upwards into the star-bedecked sky.

‘Ayngh! Aa-u-ung! Oo-ooo ngh! Oo-ooo-ngh! Ooo-ooo-ooongh!’

We stopped in our tracks as we recognised that awesome sound.

The canyon in which we were standing reverberated.
 It was the call of the tiger! The animal was to our left and close
ahead. It had come down the eastern range and was about to cross
the stream. We extinguished our torches and hurried forwards to
try to intercept it.

‘Ugh! Ugh! Ugha!Ugha! Oooo-h! Ooo-h! Ooo-ooo-nigh! Aungh-

ha! Ugh!Ugh’!

The call was almost continuous now. The tiger was being very
noisy. Was this a sign of impatience? I seemed to detect an
imperious note. Then remembered that this was the month of
February. Rather late in February, admittedly, but nevertheless
February still—the mating season or the tail end of it!

Here was the explanation of the prolonged semi-roars we were

hearing. The beast was no tiger but a tigress. She was calling for a
mate, and a tigress in this mood is not a very desirable creature to
meet when unarmed.

As I have mentioned on many occasions, tigers are generally

quite safe to meet, even when one is unarmed, with three
exceptions—a man-eater, a wounded tiger, or a tiger in the mood
for mating or in the act of mating. None of these conditions were
literally fulfilled at that moment, but the third condition was very
near.

The tigress continued her calling. She was but a short distance
ahead now and still on our side of the stream. We were hurrying
along that same bank. The stream was to our right. The flood
water caused by the recent storm had abated considerably, but the
stream must have been three or four feet deep at least. It the
tigress intended to cross, she would have to swim.

As a rule tigers like water. Particularly in the hotter forests of

Andhra Pradesh, I have come across them lying in shady pools to
cool themselves when the temperature had reached over 110
degrees in the shade. But it was rather doubtful if this tigress
would trust herself to cross the stream which was still foaming
and frothing with the extra water fed to it from a myriad trickles
reaching it from the forest on both sides.

At that moment my conjectures were interrupted by a fresh

sound: ‘Wrr-ung!Ar-ung! Arr-ungh! Oo-ooon!’

It was louder by far than the noise made by the tigress and the
roar of water besides.

A tiger! He had heard and answered the call of a mate. The

tigress heard it too. She answered with a loud ‘Ugh! Ahha-ha-ha-
ha!’ of delight.

We were still in darkness. To flash our torches now would make

our presence known. Most probably both tigers would disappear,
unless they actively resented our company. Things would not be so
pleasant then. But if we remained in darkness our presence would
probably not be detected, as tigers have no sense of smell, while
the noise of the stream would muffle any noise we might
inadvertently make.

Our eyes had accustomed themselves to the starlight as we came

to a halt and stood behind a tree that bordered the track. A few
feet to our right was the bank of the stream. Beyond that and to
our left, the jungle was a wall of darkness lit by a thousand
flickering, moving lights, the fireflies that dart to and fro in
ceaseless motion. The tumbling waters reflected countless stars,
and here and there we could make out the darker forms of bushes
or clumps of coarse grass on the bank. Of movement of any kind,
we could see nothing.

Both tigers had now stopped calling. For them to meet, one or
the other would have to ford the stream that lay between. The
question was, which would be the one to cross? If the tigress
crossed, we would be safe. If the tiger came over, both animals
would be very close to us and would certainly resent our presence
if they detected us.

The tigress clinched the matter by calling once more. This time
she was almost mewing, like a very gruff and hoarse cat. Like all
females in her circumstances, she was revelling in her position of
advantage and was enticing the male to come to her; she would
not condescend to go to him. Would the tiger be able to resist such
a temptation?

He roared and roared again. It was a roar of defiance and

challenge at the same time. Clearly he was warning all other
tigers to keep away from his newly-founded mate. The tigress, still
on our bank, continued her enticing mewing.

As I expected, the tiger could resist no longer. A long, dark

silhouette emerged from the black wall of forest on the other
bank, hesitated for a few seconds and then slid into the water of
the stream.

I have already said that this watercourse is neither broad nor

deep and it took him a very short time to cross. The silhouette
became a solid grey form as he waded and then walked ashore,
perhaps some fifty yards away.

All this while the tigress had not revealed herself. She now
broke cover with a bound, herself another grey shape, leaped
forward to meet the tiger with a loud growl and reared up on her
hind legs to slap him across his neck. The mock-fighting in which
mating tigers indulge was about to begin. Neither animal intends
to hurt the other, but frequently during this fighting, through
excitement or a stray bite or scratch, tempers run high and the
tigress invariably gets really rough. The tiger tolerates a lot until
she at last goes too far. Then he loses his temper and sets about her
in real earnest.
 Both animals can be badly scratched and bitten and bleed freely
by the time the repeated mating is over, but both animals appear
to revel in the routine, soon forget their differences and cling
together as a couple till the cubs are about to be born, at which
time the tigress will separate herself from her lord for a while
through fear that he might devour the cubs. Thereafter they will
rejoin for maybe a year, along with their cubs, when they will part
to seek fresh mates with the next season, approximately two years
after the last, although the cubs sometimes remain with their
mother for a few months more.

We had lost our chance of beating a retreat while the going was
good before the tiger crossed the stream. Now that he was only a
few yards away, and moreover because the tigress was with him,
the slightest movement on our part would betray our presence to
one or both the animals. If that should happen, our extinction was
more than probable as both the felines, and particularly the male
would not tolerate our eavesdropping on their lovemaking. It is
equally likely that the tigress, in the excitement of mating, would
resent our presence. It was too late now, anyway, to do anything
about it. The only course open to us was to sink down to earth
behind the tree-trunk that hid us and hope that the mating
animals would not move in our direction.

For the next hour we were compelled to listen to a

pandemonium of grunts, snarls, roars, prolonged mewing and a
medley of other noises as the two animals pursued their
lovemaking, the sounds differing in accordance with their mood
and temper at each moment. As the mating progressed to reach
climax, the loveplay became rougher and rougher, until it reached
a point when they were almost fighting each other tooth and nail.
In mating the tiger bites the female in the neck and literally holds
her down. They then separate a while and rest before starting all
over again.
 Several times, in the course of their gambols and struggles, they
dashed hither and thither, on more than one occasion coming
within ten yards of us. Occasionally, we thought we were
discovered and prepared to make a dash for it, although we knew
such a step would only hasten our destruction. The tree that hid
us was too thick to climb, and the next was twenty feet away, but
we could not climb it together. The first to reach it might possibly
escape, provided the tigers did not follow him up, but the second
man would be doomed. So we stayed where we were.

Finally the two felines tired of their efforts. The tigress curled up
to rest like a cat, while the tiger sat on his haunches beside her to
recuperate. And we wondered if they would never go away.

The placid scene was broken by a roar from the further bank.
Another tiger, a male, had heard the sounds of revel and had come
to see if there was chance to join in. The first tiger at once sprang
to his feet to give an answering roar in challenge to the newcomer.
The tigress uncurled herself, stood on her four legs twitched her
tail from side to side, and then settled down on her haunches.
Clearly she was enjoying the situation, no doubt extremely
pleased with herself at the prospect of two males about to engage
in a titanic contest on her account.

The tiger on the further bank answered the challenge with roars
of his own. Then he broke cover and stood revealed. Now the two
males faced each other, the stream between them. The tigress,
upon her haunches still, snarled mildly, mewed and almost purred
in glee. It was obvious she was enjoying herself. This provoked the
first tiger beyond endurance. Coughing a loud ‘Whoff! Whoff!
Whoff!,’ he entered the stream and rushed at his rival. The level of
the water appeared to have dropped appreciably, for this time he
was able to wade the whole distance.

The challenger awaited his coming, coughing and roaring. The

first tiger reached the other bank, crouched low for a moment, and
then hurled himself at his rival.

But something quite unexpected happened at the last moment.

All this while the newcomer had given every indication that he
was prepared to stand and do battle for the handsome female
across the stream, but as her first lover crouched for his final
spring, his courage turned to water. He whirled around and bolted
for dear life. Seeing this and gathering momentum the first tiger
charged after him with a series of victorious roars.

The female on our bank, disappointed that there was not going
to be a fight for her favours, but anxious now to endear herself to
her lord, coughed once and galloped across the stream to follow
the two males that had vanished into the blackness of the jungle.

At that Eric and I lost no time. We raced away to get out of the
vicinity of the three tigers and leave them to settle their
lovemaking problems. We stumbled along through the gloom for
the best part of half a mile before we risked switching on our
torches again, for we did not dare to attract the attention of the
three animals who had gone up the rising ground across the stream
and might return at any moment.

From the contours of the surrounding mountains as silhouetted

against the sky, I knew we were approaching the hamlet of
Kempekarai. It was here that I shot the tiger I called the ‘Novice of
Manchi’. At this point the pathway we were following crossed the
stream and we waded through the water which now reached just
above our knees. The track leads up a slope to the hamlet, and we
followed it till we reached the mud-wattle huts of Kempekarai.

A cur barked but none of the inmates bothered to stir, and it was
only after repeated calling that a very tousled and sleepy head was
thrust from a slightly-opened doorway. The half-closed eyes
blinked in the glare of my torch. The head and eyes were those of
my old friend Byra the Poojaree, of whom I have told you in other
stories. For the greater part of the year this man lived with his
wife and children almost stark naked in a burrow called ‘gavvies’
excavated in the steep banks of the Chinar river. When the rains
came and the Chinar rose and the earth of the ‘gavvies’ turned too
soft and was liable to collapse and close the burrow in which they
lived, the whole family took service as cattle-grazers under some
rich agriculturist, who sent his herd of cattle into the reserved
forests to graze upon the long grass that spring up after the rains.

The agriculturist had to pay in licence to the government for

grazing his cattle. In those days this fee was four annas (a fraction
below four pence) per head for the whole period of five months
grazing. The usual procedure was to buy a licence for about fifty
head of cattle, paying the government twelve-and-a-half rupees as
grazing fee (at the rate of sixteen annas to the rupee), but to drive
anything up to 200 head—or even more—into the forest. A small
gratuity of five rupees to the forest guard would cover the grazing
fee for the remaining 150 unlicensed animals.

To look after these 200 beasts, Byra and his family would have to
build what was called a patti, which was nothing more than a
small clearing in the jungle. A smaller circular fence of thorns was
constructed within this clearing for actually sheltering the cattle
from wild animals at night. It was in the style of the African
‘boma’, with the difference that, as there are no lions in south
India, the thorn fence would not be more than a yard in height
and not very thick either. Tigers and panthers are not given to
vaulting over thorn fences and carrying off their prey, as are the
more daring lions of Africa that hunt in groups.

The hamlet of Kempekarai was nothing more than a multiple

cattle patti, accommodating not only Byra and his family but a
number of other families as well, all of them engaged in looking
after different herds of cattle belonging to different owners. As a
result, the animals actually in residence at any of these multiple
pattis exceeded, by at least five times, the stipulated number of
cattle permitted to graze in that area under licence from the forest
department; the government got less than one-fifth of the revenue
in cattle-licences that it should have collected; the forest guard
received an amount in bribes at least equal to, if not more than,
his official salary; the owners of the herds had made a good
arrangement; the grass, shrubs and the saplings of certain varieties
of succulent trees were eaten down and destroyed over a large area
of forest; the deer suffered by losing that amount of grazing; ‘foot-
and-mouth’ disease, rife among village cattle, spread and
decimated the deer, bison and wild boar in the jungle; and
everybody was happy, including the tigers and panthers in the
area, who with easier hunting got a good deal more to eat, preying
upon the domestic herds. Happiest of all were the jackals, hyaenas
and vultures that ate the cattle that died, whether by disease or by
being killed by other wild animals.

This is indeed a true picture of the state of affairs in those good

old days till a certain deadly poison was introduced as an
insecticide by the government and made available to farmers,
almost free of charge, to protect the crops from insect pests.

Some peasant then discovered that the insecticide, intended to

kill caterpillars, beetles and other such pests, would also kill tigers
and panthers that preyed upon the domestic herds and, far more
important, unwanted mothers-in-law, brother-in-law, in fact all
‘in-laws’ of both sexes and all ages with happy impartiality, not to
mention secret lovers, rivals, elder brothers who were so
inconsiderate as to inherit the property when father died, and a
whole host of other unwanted characters into the bargain. To put
it in a nutshell, opportunity was rife for those who were
disgruntled in one way or another.

The carcasses of cattle killed by tigers and panthers were

systematically doctored with the result that the felines died in
hundreds and have been almost wiped out in southern India.
Along with them jackals, hyaenas and vultures, who shared these
kills, perished in still larger numbers. There was also a sharp rise
in the number of in-laws and other inconvenient people who
began to succumb, suddenly, mysteriously and in increasing
numbers, to violent stomachache and other alarming symptoms.
Life is cheap and nobody worried unduly, while the statisticians
were compensated slightly in the other graph they were
maintaining with regard to the vexatious problem of ‘Population
Explosion and Family Planning’ which happened to coincide with
the advent of the poison.

To this day, unlicensed still exceed the licensed cattle by many

times. The owners save that much money in license fees, the forest
guards draw more than their salary now, the government loses
much more, and everyone is still happy. The only difference from
the old days is that there are now no tigers, panthers, hyaenas,
jackals or even vultures to join in the general rejoicing. Nearly all
are dead—poisoned.

Incidentally, the villagers were not taking very kindly to the

family-planning programmes. In fact, the greater number of them
were distinctly annoyed about the whole thing. On the one hand,
they were being urged to mechanise their farming methods and
give up the old-fashioned, cattle-drawn wooden ploughs of their
forefathers. At the same time, the cost of living and the prices of
all commodities were rising day by day. The monsoon had a knack
of not arriving when it should and of coming when it should not.
Either way their crops failed. Landlords were more grasping and so
were the moneylenders. The government had tried to help all it
could by distributing land, oxen and ploughs free of cost to any
family in order to assist farmers who preferred to stick to the old
style; but money, that root of all evil, was a temptation, and the
oxen and ploughs were sold or mortgaged shortly after they were
distributed. The land would have followed suit as well, but that
was rather too great a risk to take, being immovable property.
 Finally, the price of kerosene was increasing by leaps and
bounds. One could not afford to burn the midnight oil. An early
dinner and early to bed became the golden rule.

In the midst of all these troubles, the poor ryot had but one
consolation left to him—his cherished and beloved wife. At least
she belonged to him, to do with as he wanted. What with rising
costs, no kerosene, an early dinner and early to bed, he had at
least some opportunity here. She was the one solid item that was
entirely his own. But at this stage along came these Family
Planning people with their ridiculous advice, offering strange
devices their forefathers had never heard of and begrudging the
poor farmer the one and only pleasure and recreation available to
him in these hard days.

So the statisticians were worried at the still steadily rising curve

of population, although a trifle relieved that here and there would
appear a slight kink in it, caused by the untimely demise of some
in-laws and others who had succumbed to a sudden
unaccountable and unbearable stomach pain that had come on
immediately after dinner.

All of which brings us back to Byra the poojaree, my old friend

of the jungle. Byra was very happy when he discovered that the
visitor arriving at such an unearthly hour was none other than
myself. He crawled out of the narrow doorway of his hut and
offered the accustomed greeting of the poojarees by touching his
forehead to the ground before me. Then we sat down for a chat
and I told him the reason for our presence.

The jungle man was surprised and not a little concerned at the
fact that we were unarmed. He thought that we were taking too
great a risk, especially with elephants, and gave us the
disconcerting news that there was a particularly ‘bad’ elephant
roaming that part of the valley we had yet to negotiate. Whereas
this elephant had not yet been proclaimed a ‘rogue’, inasmuch as
it had not actually killed anybody; it was an animal that charged
on sight and only the fleetness of foot and jungle-cunning of the
poojarees of Kempekarai had saved them, at least so far. Byra
doubted that we had that fleetness or cunning and advised us not
to continue our journey that night.

‘Wait for daylight,’ he advised. ‘At least, then you will be able
to see where you are running when he chases you, although I
doubt that will do you much good.’

The other reason why Byra was annoyed by the fact that we
were not carrying firearms was his hope that he might have
persuaded one or other of us to shoot a sambar or spotted deer for
his family and himself to eat. This was Byra’s only weakness, his
craving for meat. Every time we met it was the same thing. He
would pester me to shoot a deer or sambar, and just as steadfastly I
refused. Money I was ready to give him, but I had explained a
hundred times that I do not like killing deer and sambar. Although
he has never succeeded in his efforts to break me down on this
point, Byra never fails to try and try again. Possibly he thinks that
he will wear me down eventually, and so must have our
preliminary struggle every time we meet.

Eric and I decided to eat and bring out our sandwiches.

Unfortunately they contained beef, an ingredient that is forbidden
to nearly all south Indians, including the humblest forest folk. The
cow is sacred, and to eat its flesh is outrageously and unthinkably
sinful. So although we did not make the mistake of offering him
any, there was a distinct look of disapproval on Byra’s simple face.
Eating beef was one of two things that he held against me; of the
other I have just spoken. On all other matters he felt we were
buddies or, to use a slang expression, ‘as thick as thieves’.

Considering he had never been to school, this man, aborigine as

he was, was an authority on jungle medicines obtained from
flowers, fruits, leaves, roots and barks of various trees and herbs.
He was the ‘doctor’ of the surrounding poojaree community and
had been summoned in emergencies to cure all sorts of illnesses.
He had a secret remedy for snakebite, and had not lost a single
case, or so he said. I know for a fact he cured two cases of cholera
when that dreaded epidemic spread to his community, and, as I
have mentioned in one of my books, he delivered his own wife
when she was having her baby.

I have witnessed this and his method was very simple. He

prepared a shallow hollow in the sands of the nearest stream, and
into this hollow he put a thick layer of green leaves. In this hollow
his wife lay down on her back. Next he got a torn piece of saree
cloth and tied one end to the soles of her feet. This cloth was only
long enough to reach to her knees. Byra gave this end to hold with
both hands, and to do so the woman had to part her thighs and
knees, which she raised off the ground. Byra then instructed her to
pull hard upon the end, whereupon, with hardly a whisper, the
baby was born and Byra welcomed it into this world by raising it
by the heels and slapping it on the back. He had no scissors, so the
sharp end of a stone or mussel-shell (which could be found along
the banks of most steams), operating against a flat stone, served to
sever the cord.

Within half an hour of the appearance of the placenta, the wife

rose, suckled her infant and walked away. Byra then shovelled the
sand into the hollow until it was entirely filled.

Knowing my weakness for tea Byra had already made a fire, and
on this I placed my canteen filled with water from the stream. It
was very muddy and the resultant brew was rather substandard. I
told the poojaree of our encounter with the three tigers not far
upstream, and he said that these three were the only ones in
residence there at that moment. There had been another female,
but she had wandered away some months earlier and had not
returned. He went on to say that frequently one or other of the
three tigers would attack the herds while the cattle were grazing
in the forest and kill one of the cows.

The tigress had been calling quite a lot recently, he confirmed.

The poojarees in the hamlet had heard her only two nights earlier.
All three animals were cattle-lifters, but none of them had shown
any inclination to attack the graziers, who had frequently driven
them away from their kills to salvage the hides for drying and sale.
He added that there was also a pair of panthers living on the other
side of the stream that occasionally killed a stray cow if
opportunity allowed. A month earlier, one of these panthers had
pulled down a calf and was killing it when one of the tigers rushed
out of the undergrowth, put the panther to flight and carried the
calf away, slung across its back.

We stood up to leave, when Byra once again remonstrated about

the great risk we were running with the ‘bad’ elephant. However,
to remain in shelter at the patti for the rest of the night was not
jungle ‘ghooming’, and ghooming was the purpose of the trip. We
explained this to the poojaree and shouldered our loads, but not
before I checked to make certain that the cobra was still safely
secured.

‘Very well then; I will go with you’, the little man announced.
‘When the sun rises I will return. Till then, I shall remain with
you and offer what protection lies in my power. I don’t think you
realise the danger you will be in if you happen to meet the
elephant in this darkness’, he stressed, ‘for the beast will be upon
you before you know where you are and crush you to a pulp.’

With these ominous words in our ears we left Kempekarai and

headed downhill to the stream. I led, shining the torch; Byra
followed me, while Eric brought up the rear. We reached and
crossed the water and followed the narrow path before us into the
labyrinths of the jungle. It was distinctly chilly and a junglecock,
crowing among the bamboos, reminded us it was two in the
morning. Like their cousins, the domestic roosters, wild cocks
follow the same habits in the jungles that are not unduly
disturbed by men or too many wild cats. They crow at two and at
four in the morning, and just after the false dawn, usually before
six o’clock.

We might have covered a half-mile when Byra stepped up from

behind and halted me with his hand upon my arm. He reached
forward to extinguish the torch. Eric half-asleep now collided
with us before he realised we had stopped. I strained my ears, but
heard no sound. The junglecock had passed out of hearing range.

The stars cast a sheen over the forest that was quite different
from moonlight. It was a soft and ethereal light that just
succeeded in making itself felt in the darkness without breaking
its dominion. The forest that surrounded us was as black as a
bottomless pit, the starlight being enough only to see each other
and the few yards around us.

I looked at Byra inquiringly. He touched his nose with the

forefinger and thumb of his left hand, at the same time swinging
his right arm, from elbow downwards, to right and left before him.

The elephant! Byra could smell it! It must be very close indeed,
or the poojaree would have whispered his message in my ear.

I wrinkled my nose in an effort to catch the scent. At the same

time I turned my head sideways, one cheek in the direction we
were moving and the other in the direction whence we had come.
I fancied I could detect a peculiar odour which within a few
seconds I began to associate with the presence of an elephant.
These animals smell strongly when they are close. But perhaps it
was a figment of my imagination.

My cheeks told me there was hardly a breeze blowing from any

direction, a fact that was neither good nor bad. Had the breeze
been blowing from behind us, the elephant—provided there was
one ahead—would have scented us by now. Had the breeze been
blowing from him to us, we might have been able, exercising the
greatest caution, to creep past him undetected. As matters stood,
with practically no breeze in any direction, our situation was one
of stalemate. The elephant—supposing there was one ahead—had
not so far detected our presence. But he was bound to do so if we
moved any closer. Even if he did not scent us, he would certainly
hear us in that deathly silence.

Byra had come to the same conclusion much earlier. He raised

his right palm at waist level. The signal was plain as if he had
spoken: ‘Wait!’ Tensely we stood quite motionless.

The moments dragged by. We heard no sound. I could smell the

strange odour still, but I could not associate it with an elephant.
Perhaps Byra was wrong after all and there was no elephant before
us.

Then the silence was broken. We heard a rustling sound,

growing louder and heavier and moving along the pathway on
which we were standing. Byra had been right. There was an
elephant ahead, and he was moving through the undergrowth in
our direction. It was only a matter of seconds before he would
emerge upon the pathway.

Byra signalled to us to retreat and gave the lead by turning

around and walking on tiptoe down the track along which we had
just come. Eric followed, and I brought up the rear.

At that moment the breeze decided to take a hand. A gust blew

strongly down the valley, passing over us and directly towards the
elephant. The cat was now out of the bag!

The elephant scented us and in the next instant was crashing

through the rest of the undergrowth. He came out upon the track
behind me. Still retreating, all three of us turned around. We
could see his colossal black bulk now, like a great big black rock
astride the track. Two long streaks of white stood out against that
blackness. His tusks!

A moment later and we knew, indeed, that this was the ‘bad’
elephant about which Byra had warned us. For no sooner did the
beast set eyes upon us than he recognised us for his avowed
enemies—men. He trumpeted his shriek of hate and came
charging towards us, looking blacker and bigger at every instant.

To run away would be hopeless. At so short a distance no man

can escape a charging elephant. Either Eric or myself, encumbered
as we both were with our loads, would fall a prey to this monster.
He would smash to a jelly whichever one of us he caught first. To
try to dodge into the bushes either to right or left was equally
hopeless because of the darkness. It looked as if only Byra would
live to tell the tale.

I did the only thing possible in the circumstances. I took a very

flimsy chance. I stopped, turned around. At the same time I yelled
with all my might.

The bright beam fell fully upon the monster, scarcely ten feet
away. In a peculiarly detached and interested fashion, I noticed
that the animal had curled in his trunk, that his head was raised,
showing a half-opened mouth, and that the points of his tusks
were in line with his small, gleaming, wicked eyes. He lowered his
head to bring those tusks into line with me and thus let the
torchlight fully into his eyes. The next instant a cloud of dust hid
the ground and the elephant’s legs.

I was still screaming when I realised that the brute had come to
a halt. Braking suddenly, by planting his four great feet in the
ground, was the cause of the dust.

I did not know it then, but seeing the peril I was in made Byra
stop, turn around and come to my assistance. He was screaming
too, I suddenly realised; words of ludicrous, vile abuse to the
elephant, all of its kind and its ancestors. Eric had dashed past
him and was still in full flight. He did not mean to desert me but
had not realised that the elephant was so close as to compel me to
turn around and face him.

The next few moments were electric. What was going to happen
next was a matter of life or death. Would the pachyderm press his
attack home, or would Byra and I succeed in turning him?

With sinking heart I remembered Byra’s words of warning,

uttered but a short while earlier. Once it charged, nothing would
stop this elephant.

The monster shook his head from right to left and back again
several times, with the purpose of avoiding the piercing beam of
my torch that shone fully into his eyes. But I followed his
movements with my torch, still shouting lustily.

The brute stood his ground. Then I took the last chance left.
Yelling like a maniac, I stepped forward sharply, directing the
beam fully into those small, wicked eyes. Then his courage broke,
he turned half around so that his huge bulk, facing broadside on,
straddled the narrow track.

Without speaking to each other, Byra and I knew that it was

now or never. With concerted shouts, we rushed towards the
monster, my torch still shining directly upon its head. The
elephant was unnerved. Like all big bullies, he was accustomed to
attack and see his enemies scatter like chaff before the wind.
Never before had any puny creature dared to attack him.

That was exactly what was happening now. He could not get
that glaring light out of his eyes and our discordant screams were
unnerving him. So he lumbered up the pathway away from us,
Byra and I behind him, still shouting at the top of our voices. To
shake us off, he swerved sharply to the left and crashed through
the undergrowth.
 Byra and I came to a stop. We had accomplished his rout. Now
we had to get away as quickly as possible. Turning once again we
walked back the way we had come. It would not do for us to run,
for that might bring the elephant back. We could find no traces of
Eric!

It was but half-a-mile to the spot where we had to cross the

stream to return to Kempekarai, but Eric did not know the place.
Probably he had passed it and continued along the track beyond.

Byra broke into a trot to try overtake him, while I walked

rapidly on. I was not feeling so good. In fact, I was feeling awfully
sick and I noticed that I was shaking as if in fever and did not seem
to be able to stop. Also I was soaking wet—perspiration no doubt,
although I did not remember perspiring so much. I toyed with the
idea of sitting down for a few moments but the thought came to
me that the black devil might change its mind and return to the
attack. So I walked all the faster. Very soon I reached the ford
leading to Kempekarai, and there was no sign of Eric or Byra.

I splashed through the stream and climbed the winding path to

the hamlet. Reaching the huts I threw myself on the ground to get
rid of the nausea that had not yet passed away.

It was some time before Byra arrived with Eric. The poojaree
told me that my friend was a good runner. He had to follow for
almost two miles before he succeeded in overtaking Eric. Eric’s
version was that when he glanced back, but could see neither Byra
nor myself, he concluded that the elephant had got both of us.
This had made him run all the faster.

Byra seemed quite unperturbed by our recent adventure. To him

it was part of everyday forest existence. He suggested we brew
some tea. If there was one thing Byra had a weakness for, it was
tea. So have I, but for once I did not feel up to drinking any.
Throwing down my haversack, I told him and Eric to help
themselves. Then I lay down on the bare earth and fell asleep.

The sun was shining brightly when I awoke. Eric was sleeping
soundly close by, lying neatly on his groundsheet, covered with a
light blanket. Byra was coiled almost into a ball by the side of a
small fire that had long gone out. His head was touching his
knees.

My teeth were chattering with the cold. Lying on the ground

with no covering had made matters worse. In the chill of the
morning, when enthusiasm is usually at an ebb, I wondered if the
risks we had taken the previous night were justified. I remembered
reading in an article somewhere or the other, that it is at such a
time—when one first awakens—that the influence of the
subconscious mind is at its strongest, and the impressions one
receives at the moment conveyed the wisest and best advice. It
went on to say that, should the recipient follow this advice, he
would prosper and avoid the pitfalls of living. But these few
moments of good sense pass all too swiftly, the article continued,
to give place to the individual’s own individuality and way of
thinking, and he then relapses into his own fixed ideas.

I fear this is what happened to me, for those minutes of common

sense were put aside. I aroused Eric and Byra, and while the latter
relit the fire to brew our tea, Eric and I went down to the stream
for a cold bath and brush-up. It is wonderful what a bath in a
mountain stream will do for the cobwebs in one’s brain, and for
muscles that ache and eyes that are still heavy from insufficient
sleep.

By the time we returned, Byra had not only boiled the water
and made the tea, but had drunk more than half of it himself. He
offered a ready excuse for this by saying that he felt the fever
coming on, and as the dorai knew very well, plenty of tea is the
only prescription for averting fever. I replied that the dorai had
never known this but would bear it in mind by dishing out less of
the ingredients that go to make the beverage the next time. Then
Eric and I finished what was left.

A cold breakfast, followed by a smoke and some desultory chat,

led Byra to ask what we intended doing next. I replied that we
would sleep for most of that day and start again with nightfall to
finish our journey at the point where the stream joins the Chinar
river. This we expected to reach about midnight. After another
short rest, we would start to return, accomplishing the trip this
time by daylight. We hoped to get to Aiyur by dusk the following
evening, when ‘Sudden Death’ ought to get us back to Bangalore
in time for dinner.

The poojaree was not happy to learn our plans. He implied, by

indirect comparison with a donkey which, in spite of being
repeatedly beaten yet refuses to go forward, that we had failed to
learn our lesson at the hands of the elephant, by wanting to pass
through his domain once again after darkness. He suggested we
start about two in the afternoon instead, when all pachyderms
take, or should take, their siestas by standing asleep in the shelter
of some thick clump of tress, so that by nightfall we should be well
away from the places where pisachee (devil) usually hung out. Of
course, if our luck was bad, he might have gone further afield, in
which case we might still run into him, but at least that risk was
not as great as would be the case by starting after dark. Byra also
insisted upon accompanying us as far as the Chinar River and back
again, saying he would not leave us till we were at least five miles
on the return journey between Kempekarai and Aiyur, where we
had left the car.

We discussed the matter and wiser, if less adventurous, counsel

prevailed. We decided to follow Byra’s plan and, as there was
nothing better to do, we fell asleep. Soon after midday we ate a
cold lunch, followed by more tea, and at exactly two o’clock were
on our way again, retracing our steps on the narrow pathway
along which we had so precipitously bolted the night before. But
this time we could look about us and take all possible precautions
by testing the wind and keeping a sharp lookout for signs of the
elephant.

We were unlucky from the start. A strong wind was blowing

from north to south, that is, down the stream from behind us and
in the direction we were going. It would inform the rogue of our
approach should he be anywhere ahead.

Plainly, on the damp earth of the narrow pathway, we could see

our own footmarks: the blurred impressions of Eric’s rubber shoes,
the larger marks made by my own alpaca-lined boots, Byra’s bare
footsteps, and imposed upon them all the ponderous, almost dish-
sized tracks left by the elephant that had chased us the night
before.

Byra was in front. Every now and then he stopped to test the
wind by plucking a few blades of grass from the ground and
dropping them from shoulder-height. Imperceptibly, they fell to
earth at a slight angle ahead of us. The wind was still blowing
from behind.

Byra stopped to listen. We halted and listened too. The forest

was athrob with life. Birds twittered all round. We could hear
their more distant calls from the hillsides to right and left. Cicadas
and crickets of all varieties chirped in different cadences. The
single, shrill resonance of the plains-cicada is here mixed with the
rising and falling sonority of the hill variety, smaller in size than
its cousin of lower-lying areas but capable of emitting a far louder
sound. Then a myriad crickets of all sizes, ensconced beneath
leaves or hidden under rotting logs of wood, joined in the general
vibration of insect vociferation, filling the air with the sound of
throbbing, omnipresent life.
 Far ahead of us a barking-deer learned of our approach. The
wind blowing down the valley told him. ‘Kharr!’ he cried, and
again and again ‘Kharr! Kharr!’

The langur monkeys, high up on both hillsides, heard him.

‘Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!’ they shouted in sheer glee, leaping
from branch to branch and rock to rock. But the little barking-deer
continued his alarm-cry.

This worried the langurs. Their whoomps of joy died down. Now
they were silent. I could picture the langur-watchman, seated on
tree-top, peering hard into the valley below, trying to discover the
nature of the danger that had alarmed the little deer. The shaggy
brows in his round black face must be beetled with worry and
uncertainty; his large, round, black eyes must be searching the
streambed far below and such game-paths as were visible to him
from that height, in an effort to see the foe. He was responsible for
the safety and lives of the numerous she-monkeys and babies of
the tribe gambolling in innocence around him. Should he fail in
his duty, by failing to give the alarm, one of them would die. No
doubt he thought that at any moment he would see the stripes of a
tiger or the spotted coat of a panther slinking from bush to bush.

He saw nothing, for we were yet too far away.

Nevertheless the little deer, whose keen sense of smell had told
him of something the langur could not see, announced our
approach by continuing to bark and bark, ‘Kharr! Kharr! Kharr!’

The langur-watchman became increasingly uneasy. What kind

of foe was this, approaching but invisible?

At last he could stand the tension of uncertainty no longer. He

had to warn the tribe. ‘Harr! Ha!’ he shouted gutturally, and again
in quick succession, ‘Harr! Ha! Harr! Ha!’
 The alarm had its effect at once. Although we could not see or
hear them, there followed a hundred thuds as langur-mothers
clutched their babies to their breasts and leapt prodigious
distances to safety in the loftiest tree-tops. Others scampered up
rocks or ran up the hillside. A hundred black faces turned in
anxiety to their watchman. What enemy had he seen? His next
action would tell them.

If a tiger or panther were approaching, the watchman would,

surely leap from his tree-top to another. He would stand on his
two feet, with long tail erect to keep his balance, look downwards
and abuse the enemy in langur-language.

The watchman did none of these things. He still had not seen
us. So he continued his alarm, ‘Harr! Ha!’ and again ‘Harr! Ha!’ A
sambar stag, resting on a bed of high grasses somewhere up the
mountainside to our left, heard the commotion. He sprang to his
feet and cried ‘Dhank! Dhank! Honk!’ These signals of alarm from
the different denizens of the forest had not sounded in vain. They
were heard by listening and understanding ears. Ponderous ears,
indeed. For at that precise moment the elephant struck again.

Decades old, and wise in the ways of the jungle, he had been
hearkening and hiding in motionless silence. He had heard the
alarm-cry of the barking-deer, the calls of the langur-watchman
and the belling of the disturbed sambar stag. Undoubtedly he had
smelt us, too, for he was standing much nearer and knew that it
was the hated human foe who had come again.

He made up his mind quickly. This time he was not going to fail
in his purpose. His purpose was t6 destroy one of the hated, two-
legged foes. He would wait in silence till we walked right up to
him. Then and then only would he charge. By this means he was
sure to catch one of us.
 We knew nothing of his presence or what was passing in his evil
mind. Despite his size, he remained hidden by a rock to our left
behind which he had taken up his position. For once Byra, man of
the forests as he was and versed in jungle-lore from childhood, and
with unnumbered generations of jungle-ancestors before him, was
deceived. Walking warily in the lead, with Eric and myself
following light-footed behind, he moved forward step by step.

Byra saw the big rock to his left and halted to study it carefully.
We saw it, too, and stopped to look. It was a large, high, loaf-
shaped rock, almost black in colour except for two large patches of
grey lichen growing upon its surface. A fig tree clung to one side of
it. We noticed that some of the roots of this tree had run over the
rock. One root strayed down the side, resembling a long, thick,
light-coloured snake going into the ground.

All this we saw. But we did not see the elephant hiding behind
that rock, because he made neither sound nor movement.

Byra was satisfied that there was no danger and that it was safe
to proceed. He walked forwards slowly. We followed.

Now we stood abreast to the rock. Now we began to pass it. The
elephant knew then that in another second we would see him. He
also knew that now we were so close that he must be able to catch
at least one of us. He made up his mind.

An ear-splitting scream rent the silence: ‘Tri-aa-aa-ank!’

Then he was upon us. He meant business this time for he did not
utter another sound. From behind the rock his black form
emerged. The great trunk was coiled inwards like a giant snake,
behind high-thrown head and flattened ear. His mouth was half-
open.

Eric, in front of me, turned and ran. So did I. Instinctively, Byra

knew that if he followed he would be caught, as he would be a
third man running behind two others, who would baulk him. He
decided to swerve and try to escape by running downhill and
across the stream which flowed parallel to the pathway we were
following.

He had no chance. The elephant was upon him. It uttered a

short and muffled half-scream, above which I heard Byra’s shriek
of despair. There was ‘whoosh’ followed by a thud.

The elephant then gave vent to his rage by trumpeting

repeatedly: ‘Tri-aaa-ank! Tri-aaa-ank! Tri-aa-ank!’

I was running as fast as my clumsy boots would let me. Eric

younger in years, lighter in build, and wearing soft shoes,
overtook me and disappeared ahead. I am ashamed to say that I
continued to run. I know I should have stopped and gone to Byra’s
aid. Of small consolation was the thought that unarmed as I was,
there was nothing I could do, and as the elephant was thoroughly
enraged my shouts would not deter him. The night before, my
torch beam in the darkness had confused him. Now he would
finish me off as well.

The elephant had stopped. I could hear him screaming still. He

was probably trampling poor Byra to pulp.

I reached the crossing. Eric was on the other side of the stream.
A short distance higher lay Kempekarai and safety. As hurriedly as
possible we recruited all the poojarees in the hamlet. Torches of
wood and grasses were made. Embers to light them were carried in
broken pots. Two dozen in number, we recrossed the stream, set
the torches alight, and with the whole party shouting at the top of
their voices, we set forth to gather what remained of my poor
friend.

The elephant was silent, although we expected him to show at

any moment. Would he charge our party?
 I did not think so. We were two dozen strong and we were
making a terrific noise.

The next moment we saw him. He was standing squarely upon

the pathway. Irritably, he was shaking his head from side to side,
his great trunk wagging along with the motion. His ears were
flapping forwards. We could see his bloodshot little eyes staring at
us. Clearly he was undecided as to whether to charge or beat a
retreat.

Each member of our party excelled himself that day. Every one
was shouting louder still, if that were possible. The elephant
continued to hesitate. Then his nerve failed. He turned about;
then he faced around again. Unexpectedly, he made off up the hill
to our left. We advanced cautiously, continuing to yell.

At each moment we expected to come across the remains of the

luckless Byra, squashed to a pulp. I could picture the little man
before me, his grin spreading from ear to ear, and two jet-black
little eyes gleaming with laughter. The vision choked me. I could
join in the shouting no longer. The little man had sacrificed his
life to save us. Had he escaped, the elephant would have followed
and got one of us. Eric, walking beside me, looked grim, although
he continued to yell with the rest.

But we could not find the remains of what had once been Byra,
although we searched everywhere. Could he have escaped?

We spread out to search in an ever-widening circle, but still

there was no sign. Hope began to dawn in each of us. Just then, I
heard what sounded like a faint groan. A couple of the poojarees
near me had heard it too. We stopped to listen, but there was no
other sound.

My companions, always superstitious, began to grow afraid.

Three of us had clearly heard that groan. Some spirit must have
made the sound. Maybe Byra’s spirit. The two who heard cast
fearful glances at me. A few moments more and perhaps they
would take off.

Then I clearly heard the word ‘Dorai’. It came very faintly, but
there was no doubt about it. But from where? There was nothing
in sight but grass and trees—and the big black rock.

The solution came in a flash. Byra was alive, and he was on top
of that rock. How did he get there? Why, the elephant threw him
there, of course!

I told my two companions the good news. In a trice they had

clambered up the steep sides of the rock, and then we heard their
joyful shouts: ‘He’s alive! Byra is alive!’

All of us grouped around the rock while the two men on top
called out that Byra had said the elephant had thrown him up in
the air. Luckily, he had fallen on top of the rock, where the beast
could not get at him again. Had he fallen back to the ground, he
would certainly have been crushed.

Then came bad news: ‘His leg is broken, Dorai. Broken at the
thigh.’

Removing my clumsy boots, I managed to get up the rock aided

by my two companions pulling from above and others pushing
from below. I found Byra with his thigh broken, but he was still
smiling!

Possibly the elephant had seized him by the leg and broken the
bone when it threw him. Perhaps falling on the hard rock was the
cause. However, the all-important fact was that Byra was still
alive. We made a stretcher out of branches, jungle-vines and soft,
green leaves. As tenderly as we could, we moved him on to this.
Meanwhile I sent for ropes from Kempekarai. Fastening these to
the ends of the rough stretcher, we lowered him off the rock as
gently as possible. Then we carried him back to the hamlet.
 I had a difficult task to persuade Byra to let me take him to a
hospital in Bangalore. He wanted to remain at Kempekarai until
the ends of his broken thighbone joined.

Many jungle medicines and leaves possess marvellous healing

properties. No doubt the end of the broken bone would unite. But
would they join straight? Would Byra be able to walk normally
again? I stressed these things and urged him to let me take him to
hospital, but it was nightfall before I got his consent. The people
of the forest are very afraid of our hospitals.

We set forth for Aiyur at break of day, willing hands bearing the
stretcher, but it was very difficult to fasten the stretcher across the
open box-machan that formed the body of ‘Sudden Death,’ my
Model T Ford. At last it was done and by slow driving, avoiding
the many potholes, it still took us a long time to reach the hospital
at Bangalore.

There we created a sensation. Every doctor, nurse and ward-boy

present, and every patient who could hobble and was not at
death’s door turned out to see the strange sight. It is not often that
one comes across a car without a body, with no mudguards or
driving seat, but with only an open box tied to it behind, and
balancing precariously upon that open box a fragile stretcher of
jungle wood, vines and leaves holding a small man, practically
naked, with a broken thigh.

In four months Byra could walk as well as ever. The broken

thighbone joined perfectly. The doctor said he had been a good
patient. I know that the only thoughts that had sustained him
throughout this period of pain and adversity were visions of his
beloved jungles, and their mountains and streams.

It was a glad day when I took him back by car to Aiyur and
walked with him to Kempekarai. We had to do it in slow stages.
This time you may be sure I did not take Eric. For one I did not
want to tempt the jinx that seemed to accompany this friend of
my schooldays.

I almost forgot to relate that I was compelled to release the

cobra I had caught two nights earlier when we were carrying Byra
to the car. It would have been an added burden and a nuisance on
the journey.

_____________

* See: Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue.

* See: The Tiger Roars.
** See: Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers.
 2

The Medical Lore of India

HE poorer people of southern India cannot afford to go to a

T doctor to find cures for their ailments, for the very good reason
that a single visit would take a large bite out of a week’s earnings.

To give you an example: suppose a man has a sore or is suffering

from a recent injury to a finger or leg, what would be the doctor’s
charges? Well, an injection of some sort would be indicated,
probably antitetanus or penicillin in some form. Then there might
be a dressing to be applied, together with tablets of some sulpha
drug. The injection would cost at least, 1.50 rupees. The dressing
and tablets another rupee. The doctor’s professional fees would be
around 3.50 rupees, so that the bill would be in the region of six
rupees, a figure that represents three day’s earnings at two rupees
a day, if the patient is an unskilled labourer or a farmhand, and a
full day’s earning if he happens to be ‘skilled’. So the ordinary man
will think many times before going to a doctor.

So what does he do? He simply walks out on to the roadside

where, within a few yards and in a minute or two he will
undoubtedly come across a nice, warm flat mass of dung recently
deposited by one of the many cattle that wander at will all over
the streets and countryside. Our patient dips one or two of his
fingers into the mess and comes up with a wet, sticky lump of
dung which he applies to wound, tapping the same in smartly till
it covers the whole surface of the injury in the shape of a small
saucer.

That is all there is to it. Does it work? Incredibly it does in the

great majority of cases. If, perchance, the treatment should fail
and the wound not get better, or even gets worse, the reason (to
the patient) is as plain as the nose on his face, and simple too.
There was something wrong with the cow that passed the dung,
and so sets out to repeat the treatment with another sample of
excreta.

‘But tetanus germs live in a cow dung’ you exclaim. ‘The

medical books say so.’ Undoubtedly they do, but you would have
a real hard time getting that idea across to the patient. He would
not believe a word of what you said, for one thing. For another, he
would not believe there were such things as germs. When you tell
him they are so small that he cannot see them with his eyes, he
concludes the tale is a figment of your imagination or ignorance,
deliberately told in order to frighten him into seeing a doctor. Very
likely you are a doctor yourself.

Cobwebs of the species of spider that lives in holes in the

ground, and those of the variety that spins its webs between the
branches of small bushes, where they scintillate with multi-
coloured light-like clusters of jewels when the rising sun falls upon
the dew that has gathered upon them, are sterling remedies when
gathered freshly and plugged into freely bleeding wounds.

Juice from freshly broken pods of garlic is said to allay the

irritation caused by mosquito bites, while for any form of eye
trouble, the patient should stand facing the rising sun and squeeze
orange-peel into his eyes. Equal quantities by weight of finely
powdered indigo seeds and finely powdered tobacco leaf, put into
the eyes at night, is reputed to cure cataract, although the patient
is cautioned to expect some sensation of burning.

The bottle-bird or Indian tree sparrow performs a wonderful feat

of architecture and tailoring when she builds her long, bottle-like
nest of closely woven fibres and suspends it by a single strand from
a tall date palm. After laying her eggs, the mother bottle-bird
searches the landscape later in the evening, at an hour when she
would otherwise be safely in her nest, for an early firefly or more
than one firefly if she is lucky. Injuring the firefly sufficiently to
prevent it from escaping but not seriously enough to kill outright,
the wise little bird now introduces the insect into the nest through
the cleverly constructed entrance that, strangely enough, is at its
lower end.

What does our villager do when hurrying home unduly late of

an evening and happens to notice the glow of the firefly through
the interstices of a nest? He does not stop and climb the tree right
away to break down the nest and procure the elfin within. That
would take too long. He is already late and soon it will be quite
dark. Moreover, he is alone. This is the hour when devils begin to
emerge from their lairs beneath tombstones, from the trunks of
neem and banyan trees, and from holes in the ground. In fact, the
variety known as minnispurams are known to live in tall trees. Or,
if he is near a jungle, there is the possibility of encountering a wild
beast. So he makes note of the position of the tree in which the
nest swings with its tiny lantern inside, and he hastens on his way.

The following morning he is back. Date palms are notoriously

difficult to climb because of their thorny trunks and spiked leaf-
tips. Our yokel therefore brings with him from the village a long
bamboo pole, or if any grow nearby he proceeds to lop one of
suitable length.

With this he brings down the nest by beating the single strand
that secures it to a frond, and then he loses no time in extracting
the firefly. That tiny glimmer is invisible now in the dazzling
sunshine, but the villager knows it will shine again once the sun
goes down and darkness covers the land.

He may keep it for good luck! Or he may eat it, for he reasons
that the light will shine inside him, just as it shone in the nest,
and will illuminate all the nooks and corners of his intestines so
that the good spirit that looks after his welfare may be able to see
and cure anything that is not quite right.
 If young birds or eggs happen to be in the nest, he will throw
them away with the rest of the nest, or if he is of a lower caste he
might even eat the fledgelings.

Some of the wild creatures of this land are in great demand as

medicine and are killed as soon as they are seen, if they are not
lucky enough to get away. The black-faced grey langur monkey
perhaps heads this list. Once common throughout the country, in
southern India he has been slain mercilessly till the few of his kind
that remain have moved into the innermost recesses of the forest.
Even there they are shot by marauding bands of poachers,
although their slaying is prohibited by the government. All this is
being done in the belief that the flesh of a langur monkey is one of
the most effective aphrodisiacs any failing male can hope to find.

Another unfortunate creature that is sacrificed to make

medicine for the same purpose is the elegant Indian slender lorris,
mistakenly called a ‘sloth’. It is a pretty little monkey, delicately
made, with no tail and two large, limpid brown eyes that reflect
the rays of a torch as if they were made of pools of crimson fire. As
it moves rather slowly, this poor creature is easily captured. Then
its two eyes are torn out of their sockets while it is still alive to
make a marvellous aphrodisiac for some man who has spent a
lifetime in womanising and has reached a stage when he can
womanise no more. The lorris, still alive but bereft of its two eyes
and totally blind, is thrown aside to fend for itself. Unhappily,
these little beasts possess a good deal of vitality and linger for
days, till they eventually die of starvation.

Once I happened to find one in this state. I took it home,

attended to its torn eye-sockets as best as I could, and fed it with
milk. Despite its ghastly wounds the little monkey recovered.

For a long time it would not trust me, nor allow me to touch it,
and bit viciously. But could anybody blame the tiny creature for
being distrustful of human beings after the terrible ordeal it had
suffered at their hands? Eventually, however, this little animal
understood that I meant it no harm and was trying to befriend it.
From that moment it changed its attitude towards me. No more
affectionate and gentle little creature have I kept as a pet at any
time.

A third mammal that suffers greatly in southern India because

of a belief that may or may not have any foundation is the large
Indian fruit bat commonly referred to as the ‘flying fox’. The flesh
of this mammal is reputed to be a very effective remedy for
asthma, and as this complaint is widespread in the land despite its
tropical climate, the flying fox is diligently shot, or netted,
whenever the opportunity offers. However, in this instance the
mammal is killed outright and the flesh cooked, as in the case of
the langur monkey, and so it escapes the awful fate that befalls
the slender lorris.

Snakes that are nonpoisonous also suffer a hard fate. The

poisonous ones are killed and then burned (to prevent them from
coming back to life), but the large and harmless snakes, as the
dhaman or ‘rat-snake’ are skinned alive and then thrown aside. It
is terrible to see the poor reptile, white without its outer skin,
writhing and twisting in its agony. The outer skin is roughly cured
with salt and copper sulphate and then sold for a couple of rupees
to make a belt or purse, being unsuitable for making shoes unless
it is fully tanned.

Doctors of another school specialise in what they proudly call

‘gem therapy’. This is the art of curing sicknesses by the use of
semiprecious stones. It is performed in three ways:

1. Certain stones are burned to ashes and these ashes taken on

the tongue or in water. The Ayurvedic System employs this
method, but it is a practice of only the very rich.
2. A single stone—or perhaps a number of them—is soaked in
water for a week, and this water is distributed, in half-ounce
 doses, as the medicine. Eleven jewels in particular are
employed, namely the diamond, ruby, emerald, sapphire
(both blue and white), moonstone, coral, cat’s-eyes, gomed,
pearl, amethyst and topaz. A twelfth, the opal, is made use of
only in the case of eye ailments. A combination consisting of
a number of these gems is allowed to ‘cook’ in water for a
week. This water is then administered in small doses in cases
of a more obstinate nature.
3. What is considered the highest form of gem treatment
employs the principle of radiation and vibration. When a
complaint is diagnosed and the gems that form the remedy are
decided upon, the patient is seated directly in front of an
electric fan, to the blades of which the required gem, or
number of gems in little bags of netting are attached. The
current is then switched on and the blades made to rotate at
high speed for fifteen or twenty minutes. The idea is that
radiations of cosmic colour-force are thrown off from the gem
or gems attached to the fan-blades directly upon the patient.
This form of therapy is claimed to cure a sufferer from most
long-standing complaints within a few weeks.

This therapy can also be used upon a patient residing miles

away or in another country, even at the opposite end of the world.
In such a case an object, intimate with person, is employed, it
may be a photograph, a smear of blood upon blotting paper, a lock
of hair, a fingernail or even handkerchief. This object, called ‘the
sample’, is attached to a wooden frame which in turn is positioned
six inches in front of the electric fan, to the blades of which the
gems have been previously attached in small bags of netting. The
current is switched on and the blades allowed to rotate at high
speed for several hours, instead of just fifteen to twenty minutes,
as when the patient is present in person. Astonishing cures have
been reported.

But we have all heard of the Tibetan prayer-wheel which is used

to rotate continuously with a prayer or a wish that has been
enclosed within, while the petitioner concentrates upon it. He
believes his wish will thus be granted, and very often it comes to
pass. There could be connection between the crude revolving
prayer-wheel and the revolving blades of the electric fan, of
course, and the gems in their net-bags might simply be factors to
aid the concentration of thought.

While the blades of the electric fan employ the principle of

radiation, ‘vibration’ is used in employing an electric ‘vibrator’ or
even a radio loudspeaker. The patient is seated directly in front of
such a vibrator, upon which the selected gem or gems are placed
and the current switched on, when the cosmic rays are said to be
vibrated from the gems to the patient. Distant treatments are also
undertaken in the same manner as with the electric fan. The
patient’s ‘sample’ is attached to a frame placed six inches in front
of the vibrator. In some cases a variation is achieved by vibrating
the ‘sample’ along with the gems in their net-bags, placing them
all together upon the vibrator or at the centre of the loudspeaker’s
cones and switching on the current. For distant treatments, as in
the case of the electric fan, the vibrator is made to work for some
hours. The trembling vibration is said to impart the cosmic colour-
force of the gems from the vibrator to the patient or his ‘sample’.

These ‘samples’ as are said to represent the patient and to

identify with him in all respects, no matter how far away he may
be, and the radiations or vibrations falling upon them amount to
those radiations or vibrations falling upon the patient directly.

Sometimes prayers or urgent wishes are written down upon a

piece of paper and made to rotate on the blades of a fast-working
fan for some hours or are placed upon a vibrator. Invariably these
prayers or wishes become reality. In all instances the ‘sample’ or
the piece of paper with the prayer or wish written upon it, absorb
the cosmic rays thrown upon it or vibrated to it, and as these
articles represent the actual person or the actual wish, patient
gets cured even if he lives at the far end of the world, or the prayer
becomes as actuality and is granted.

Space does not permit me to go into details, but I would like to

give you a very brief résumé of this system:

Diamond. For energy. Prescribed in case of sterility, venereal

disease, leucorrhoea, drunkenness, old age and all rundown
conditions.

Ruby. Prescribed for cases of heart disease, headache,

indigestion, sprue, eye diseases, loss of appetite and mental
troubles.

Emerald. Prescribed in case of stammering, childishness,

stomach disorders, the habit of telling lies, want of intelligence,
mania, thieving, dumbness and deafness.

Pearl. Prescribed in cases of diabetes, tuberculosis, dropsy,

diarrhoea, bladder diseases, jaundice, restlessness, vices of all sorts
and a weak mind.

Coral. Prescribed for liver and blood diseases, measles, high

blood pressure, piles, toothache, orchitis, diseases of the joints and
urine troubles.

Topaz. Prescribed mainly for mental and personal lapses such as

spendthriftness, hypocrisy, talkativeness, fondness for law suits,
insanity, paralysis, rheumatism, diseases of the throat or palate
and liver, obesity and tumours.

Sapphire. For cases of neuralgia, deformity, enlarged spleen,

dropsy, hysteria, epilepsy and all forms of nervousness.

Gomed. For mental fears, suicidal tendencies, uterine troubles,

constipation, diseases of the brain and glands, tumours and liver
abscess.
 Cat’s-Eye. For boils, skin diseases, cancer fissure, itching,
smallpox.

Opal. Mainly for all troubles involving the eyes.

The reader will undoubtedly be amused by the idea that gems

might be able to effect any cure whatever, especially by the theory
that ‘radiation’ or ‘vibration’ could be used on behalf of any
patient thousands of miles away. But the proof of the pudding is in
the eating, and there appears to be some justification.

From the beginning the government of India has not imposed a

ban upon any of the many systems of medicine practised in this
country, nor has any preference been shown officially for any
particular practice. This policy was followed because of the
numerous castes and creeds, some of whom have a marked liking
for a particular system. The western systems are allopathy and
homeopathy, from which we have the offshoots of elctro-
homeopathy and Dr. Schusscler’s biochemical system of the
‘twelve tissue remedies’.

The standard Hindu system is Ayurveda, in which the medicines

are prepared from the leaves, bark, roots, seeds or flowers of herbs,
plants and trees, with its sister system of Siddha, which is
practically identical but practised chiefly in southern India. I can
vouch for the efficacy of both these systems, which have claimed
numerous successes where all other systems have failed.

Unani medicine is preferred by the Muslim community and

depends for its ingredients not only upon plants, but upon
minerals and precious stones as well. Chromopathy is followed by
many, particularly in Hyderabad state (now Andhra Pradesh). A
simple system, it employs the main colour of red, dark blue, sky
blue, green, yellow and their intermediary blendings, to effect its
cures. These colours are used in two ways. Glass bottles of
different colours are filled to three-quarters of their capacity with
plain water and allowed to ‘cook’ in brilliant sunlight for two
days. An ounce of this water forms each dose of medicine. Along
with this internal dose, the affected part of the human anatomy is
exposed to coloured sunlight for twenty to thirty minutes at a
time, the rays of the sun being allowed to shine upon the part
through a sheet of glass of the required colour.

It is difficult nowadays to procure glass bottle, and even sheets

or fragments of glass of the required colours or of their blends, so
this snag is generally surmounted by purchasing transparent
material like cellophane of the different hues, such as employed
for making decorations. This coloured paper is wrapped once,
twice or thrice around a white glass bottle, according to the depth
of colour required. Blends of colours are obtained by wrapping
paper of first one colour and then another around the bottle; for
example red paper, and then blue, to make purple. In place of
coloured glass sheets, paper of the required hue is placed directly
over the affected part, which is then exposed to strong sunlight.

You will probably think that chromopathy is a lot of nonsense,

but I can assure you it is not.

We have all heard of diabetic carbuncles and of how difficult

they are to cure, invariably requiring to be lanced. But let the sun
shine on your carbuncle through blue glass or paper for thirty
minutes twice a day, and at the same time drink four ounces of
‘blue’ water (water exposed to sunlight in a blue glass bottle or a
bottle wrapped in transparent blue paper). Exposure to the sun
must be done at noon and 3 p.m. when the days are at their
hottest.

If you are anaemic, procure three large white glass bottles, wrap
bright red, transparent cellophane twice around each, and tie the
paper in position with red thread. Fill each bottle to three-fourths
capacity with pure water and place the bottle in brilliant
sunshine for two days. Mark the letters A, B and C on the corks of
the respective bottles.

On the third day, finish the contents of bottle A in four or five

doses. Refill the bottle immediately and place it back in the
sunlight next day, while you drink the contents of the second
bottle, marked B. Refill that and finish the third bottle, marked C,
on the third day, refill it and put it back in the sun. On the fourth
day, use the first bottle, marked A, once again, and so on. Your
anaemia will begin to disappear in a week to ten days and the cost
of treatment will have been the price of three sheets of transparent
material.

To cure a wart or group of warts, procure a magnifying glass,

wrap transparent yellow cellophane around it, and allow the
sunlight to pass through the glass upon the wart, focussing the
same to a point insufficiently concentrated to burn the skin.
Expose the part from ten to fifteen minutes twice daily and the
wart will shrivel up.

What is known as the ‘urine system’ is practised largely in the

state of Gujarat. The basis of treatment is that the patient is kept
on a low diet, amounting almost to complete fasting in some
cases, and is given only his own urine to drink. No water, milk or
other liquid is permitted. The system is prescribed for all
complaints and is highly recommended in certain cases where
allopathy and other methods have failed. Mr. Morarji Desai, a
former Indian statesman, is a strong advocate of this system.

The ‘de Chane system’, originating in Hyderabad, is the skilful

combination, by a very clever doctor, of the maxims of allopathy,
homeopathy and Ayurveda. It has some astounding cure to its
credit.

Diagnosis of complaints by the use of electro- or permanent

magnets and a pendulum, or by plain intuition, is widely
practised. Samples from the distant patient in the form of a
bloodstain, a strand of hair, a silver or fingernail, a photograph or
a bit of personal clothing act as substitute for the patient in his
absence, and the operator not only correctly diagnoses the
complaint from these substitutes without setting eyes upon the
patient, but also indicates, according to whichever system of
medicine the patient himself may prefer.

Healing by Yogic exercises, pranic breathing, relaxation and

meditation are prevalent, while we have our quota of magnetic
healers employing passes and the laying on of hands, or using
autosuggestion and the direct spoken command to the genes and
body cells of the patient.

I have witnessed a practitioner of the last-mentioned system in

action when treating a patient with severe dysentery. Laying one
hand upon the patient’s abdomen and the other on the small of his
back, this practitioner almost shouted at the cells of the
recalcitrant bowels to do their work properly, while at the same
time addressing the genes in a cajoling, persuasive manner, telling
them to instruct the wayward cells to do their duties properly. The
dysentery stopped within twenty-four hours.

The reciting of mantrams, the performance of magical rites, the

taking of oaths to give money or other gifts to some saint when a
cure has been effected, are all forms of autosuggestion that
amount to self-hypnotism, a very important, and efficacious
branch of the science of hypnotism, which again is a method of
contact with the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is the
real centre of each one of us. It can accomplish any reasonable
wish.

Black art is employed in India mostly for destructive ends but is

also occasionally used for healing. It has always proved effective
upon those who believe in it.
 Cases of ‘miracle’ healing, under which heading I include
religious healing, are often heard of, and the four great Indian
religions—Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism—claim
successes in about equal numbers.

In giving this brief review of the general system of healing in use

in India I have by no means covered all. Others remain that claim
many cures. For instance we have the humble village soothsayer
who corresponds to the medicine man of an African hamlet. This
individual is the confidant of everyone, from headman and patel
to the lowest mochee or cobbler, ‘sweeper’ and scavenger. He is
called upon to heal any one of them when they are sick, to cure
their cattle when bitten by snakes or rabid dogs, or their poultry
when they get the Ranikhet disease. He foretells periods of
drought and when the monsoon rains will break, and even when
floods are likely. He gives advice when crops fail. He helps in
arranging marriages, settling disputes and quarrels over land,
locates runaway wives and settles domestic problems. This nosey
parker knows the business of everyone in the village. To what can
we ascribe his general success? Are there hidden sciences and arts
in which he is really a master? Or is he just exceptionally astute, a
skilled psychologist, mind and character reader, a hypnotist to a
degree and a smooth talker to a much greater degree? Or is he
simply one who has a great deal of common sense and knows how
to use it? But every villager will acclaim him his ‘guru’ (teacher).

Are there such things as ‘secret potions’ that can bestow good
health, freedom from general sickness, perhaps from particular
complaints? May be something that can bestow long life? Most
people today will find this hard to believe, and about ‘long life’ I
am not prepared to argue, having my own ideas on the subject.
But I can tell you this much, and the information is culled from
very ancient documents. There are three herbs that grow in India,
and one in China, that are said to do just this. What’s more, I have
all three Indian varieties growing in my garden, while the Chinese
plant, or rather an extract made from it, is available in Calcutta.
But I can tell you for certain that there are herbs that keep away
sickness, sustain the human heart, lower (or raise) the blood
pressure, ensure against arteriosclerosis, cure asthma, diabetes,
leprosy, leucoderma, rheumatism and many other complaints,
and protect you totally against colds and ‘flu.

I have a circular tin box filled with small blue glass bottles.
Each contains one of these ‘secret’ herbs in powder form: I take a
pinch from each of these bottles early in the morning and last
thing at night and as far as possible carry this tin box with me
wherever I go. People who have caught me in the act of
swallowing these ‘medicines’ have been astounded at the number
of them. And they have scoffed, but I am not perturbed. Touch
wood (or my tin box), I just cannot catch a cold. The ‘flu’ lays out
all the members of my household except myself at least twice each
year. They get fever and various aches and pains, particularly
when they are caught in the monsoon rains. I get soaked, too, and
like it. I am sixty-three years old (1972) and can still walk a score
of miles a day, especially in the jungle with the animals around
me, and be fit for a few more.

For all of which, including the tin box and its contents, I thank
God.
 3

Occult Lore and Other Matters

ATTERS occult and pertaining to the unseen are taken as

M much for granted by the folk of southern India as are any of
the material objects that they can see. Illness of any kind, a
calamity, material losses or a spot of ill luck, whether of great
consequence or small, are all ascribed to one of two causes. The
first is the ‘bad time’ of the day (rahukalam as it is called), or
maybe the ‘bad time’ of the recipient himself; the second is the
deliberate machination of some evilly disposed enemy employing
a black magician to cast a spell. In these circumstances, black
magicians, spell removers (and those who cast spells), soothsayers
and fortune-tellers of all descriptions are in great demand, and
there never seems to be enough to go around.

In the larger towns, of an evening you will find these people

seated cheek by jowl in long lines on the pavements. All kinds of
fortune-tellers. Some employ a parrot or a lovebird which upon
command from the owner, picks out certain playing cards from a
pack or simply cards with fortunes inscribed in close lettering
upon them.

Then there are fortune-tellers who ply their trade by consulting

the cards directly or by throwing dice. The brotherhood of
palmists is strongly represented. A few specialists tell fortunes by
reading in the sand, or by charcoal marks on the pavement, or by
studying the shadow thrown by the client at midday. Whatever
their methods, none of them appear to want for clients, and as the
fees range from one rupee to three for a consultation, the
soothsayers seem to earn a very lucrative living.
 It would be futile if you were to try to dissuade any of these
clients from wasting their money. They would consider you a fool
or an ignoramus. The Indian mind inclines strongly to the
disposition of Fate, and the parrot or the lovebird, the playing
cards, shadows and the rest are all agents that can be made to
foretell one’s future when handled by a skilled guru.

Most illnesses are ascribed to demon visitation, and for every

patient who consults a qualified doctor, there is at least another—
probably many more—who seek out ‘medicine-man’. I have been
a direct witness to many of these cases and the modus operandi is
almost always the same. I will quote the case of young Niklas
(Nicholas actually, but nobody appeared to be able to pronounce
that word properly).

He was perhaps nineteen years old, rather short, very black with
a handsome cheerful face, long wavy black hair and two rows of
perfect teeth that showed prominently when he grinned, which
was quite often. A pleasant, hard-working lad, he was popular
with everybody up to the day his father was killed suddenly.

‘Titch’, the father, was what is known in India as a ‘lineman’.

He was employed by the Electricity Department, and his duty was
to be on hand at certain hours to answer emergency calls
regarding electrical installations that went out of order suddenly.
It was Titch’s job to answer such calls and set the trouble right.

A call came through rather later one Thursday night, and Titch
responded. Unfortunately, that Thursday happened to be the first
of the month and Titch had drawn his salary earlier in the day.
More unfortunately, Titch had been drinking. Not too much, but a
little more than he should have, for Titch always celebrated
payday with four or five shots of arrack. It did not cost much—
about a shilling for two drams.
 There had been a strong wind-storm about an hour earlier and
the branch of a tree had fallen across the overhead cables, causing
a short-circuit and some damage. It was pitch dark when Titch
climbed the pole, and the miserably dim ray from the two-cell
torch with its almost exhausted batteries supplied by the
Department hardly showed up the tangled wires. Just then it
began to rain heavily and a sudden gust of wind set free the
tangled wires from where they had been hanging, while the
rainwater aided conduction. One wire fell across Titch’s neck and
the other almost missed his bare feet. Almost—but not quite!
Seven thousand volts of electricity flashed through his body and
Titch fell from the pole, bringing the wires with him. He was a
ghastly sight two hours later after the storm had abated and they
picked him up. The wire across his neck had burned its way into
his flesh and he was a very dead man.

This event upset Niklas, but not nearly as much as his mother’s
conduct within the same month. She went to live with a
neighbour, a young bachelor, for a week, and then the neighbour
brazenly moved into the house that had belonged to Niklas’s
father, Titch, to live openly with the widow, Anthonyamma. All
this shocked young Niklas, who spoke to his mother about it at the
first opportunity. Was this how she respected the name and
memory of her late husband, his father? Anthonyamma
complained to her paramour, who threw Niklas out of the house
that should have by rights been his and threatened to kill him
should he dare to return.

Poor Niklas ran to his uncle, Arokiaswamy, for shelter, and the
very next night had his encounter with a person who could have
been none other than the Devil himself; or so the neighbours said.
When I asked him about it, Niklas assured me he saw and spoke to
this person as clearly as he was seeing and speaking to me at that
moment.
 There being no latrine in his home, Niklas had gone behind the
nearest bush, as was the custom with all the members of the
family, both male and female, in answer to the calls of nature.
This had been at about nine o’clock at night, when it was quite
dark. Ordinarily he would have been asleep by this time, but that
night, for some reason, he did not feel sleepy. Niklas said he had
been particularly careful, as it had rained an hour earlier and
everyone knew that cobras came out of their holes in the ground
to hunt for frogs after the rain.

He was down on his haunches when a tall man, dressed entirely

in white, appeared before him. The man called him by name and
bade him follow. Despite the position he was in at that moment,
young Niklas had been impelled to obey and had followed behind
the white figure, which maintained a distance of a dozen paces
ahead despite Niklas’ attempt to catch up. Another thing he had
noticed was that the figure appeared to grow taller and taller but
not to touch the ground.

They reached the great banyan tree that was growing half-a-
furlong away, the figure in white still leading, before it finally
halted. This enabled Niklas to catch up at last. He was not clear
what happened next. At one moment the figure appeared to rise
up vertically into the hanging roots of the old banyan. Then he
could see it no longer. What he did recollect was a tremendous
slap across the back of his neck, after which he remembered no
more.

When Niklas failed to return, his cousin brought the fact to the
notice of her mother and his uncle. Thinking nothing unusual,
they had paid no attention till some time had passed. Then all
three set out to look for the missing boy. The white shirt and pants
Niklas had been wearing were what caught his aunt’s eye, and
they found him lying under the old banyan tree and carried him
home. That tree was hundreds of years old and reputed to be
haunted; therefore they reasoned that the lad’s condition was
clearly the outcome of some evil spiritual agency or agencies.

From that time on Niklas suffered from mysterious fits, at least

once each day, and sometimes as many as three or four. These fits
were not epileptic, as Niklas was never unconscious in their
throes. In fact he spoke clearly, but in a language nobody could
comprehend, though it appeared to concern his mother and her
lover. He seemed, moreover, to be in towering rage during these
attacks, for his eyes flashed and his teeth gnashed. He would
become so violent that the combined efforts of all three persons in
the household quite failed to control him. At times he would
strike them or try to bite. At other times he would roll upon the
ground, froth at the mouth and rave at everyone around him.
Each attack lasted from ten to fifteen minutes. Then Niklas would
return to normal slowly. It took about half-an-hour before he
regained his composure. In a few days these attacks increased in
intensity, becoming more frequent and of longer duration, while
Niklas grew more and more violent.

It was quite late one night when my servants announced that he

had just been summoned to come to Niklas, who had become
unusually violent. The lad was some very distant relative of his,
but in India nearly everybody is a relative, even if the relationship
be removed seventy times seven. Besides, nobody ever misses the
opportunity to delve into somebody else’s affairs, particularly
when such a good excuse as being a relative offers itself.

‘Master would like to come?’ invited my retainer. Tonight

Debbil Man come all the way from city Market to drive away this
Pey (evil-spirit). My mother’s sisters’ husband’s brother’s
daughter’s son pay him fifty rupees to drive debbil out of poor
Niklas, who is son by second marriage to eldest brother of father-
in-law of my cousin-brother, and therefore a close relative of
mine.’
 My senses reeled at the prospect of attempting to unravel
Niklas’ real relationship to my servant, but I supposed it could be
done if sufficient tenacity was applied to the problem. But I am
always interested in the occult and here was a chance of
witnessing something special. Not that I thought this to be a
genuine case of spirit obsession. There could be many other
explanations, all of them mundane in character. Niklas could be
putting on an act. I knew he hated his mother’s new boyfriend.
Perhaps he was afraid of this man when he had lived under the
same roof with him. He might influence his mother to poison the
man, or he might poison the man himself or poison the uncle who
had befriended him. As likely as not, this was just a case of
hysteria. Yet there might be something more to it.

‘I’ll come along,’ I announced and soon we were both standing

at the door of the tiny house occupied by Arokiaswamy, the uncle,
and his family.

The place thronged with people and reeked with tobacco-smoke

from numerous beedies (small native cigarettes wrapped in the
leaves of the peepul-tree). Men and women were seated in a tight
circle around Niklas, gaping to see what was going to happen
next. Just then the boy appeared to be completely in his senses. He
saw me enter the room, called a respectful greeting and invited me
to come and sit next to him. With difficulty I climbed on the
ground beside Niklas, opening the conversation by inquiring how
he was.

Niklas answered that he was quite all right. Further

conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the ‘Devil Man’
who was to exorcise the evil spirit.

He was a tall, cadaverous, very black individual, with

unusually large eyes set in sunken sockets and great mop of black
hair that surrounded his head like a woolly cap. He was dressed in
a flowing black robe that reached to the ground. From looking at
Niklas, his eyes fell upon me and he halted in his tracks. There
was hostility in his looks and in the words that fell from his lips.

‘What does the Dorai want here?’ he asked arrogantly. ‘If he is a

preacher and wishes to pray, let him do so. If he is a doctor and
has brought medicine, let him give it. I shall go.’ With these words
he turned back to the door, when many voices were raised to
dissuade him from departing.

I got to my feet and called out: ‘Let the driver-away-of-evil-

spirits do his work in peace. I came but to see the lad, and having
seen I shall return.’

The black magician (for such he was and as such I shall allude
to him in the rest of this story) appeared mollified: ‘Let the Dorai
remain and watch me drive out the spirit, if he so wishes. I know
all white men are consumed with curiosity regarding such things.
Only he must not interrupt me by word or deed.’

‘I shall not,’ I promised, and sat down in my former place by the

side of Niklas.

The black magician advanced, seated himself directly before

Niklas and summoned his uncle Arokiaswamy, a lanky middle-
aged individual, to bring the black cock and the bottle of arrack
that had already been procured for the ceremony.

When the liquor and the trussed fowl were handed to him, the
magician drew a dirty-looking pocketknife from the recesses of his
clothing, unfolded the blade and began to saw the throat of the
unfortunate bird with its blunt edge. The cock began to flap its
wings but the magician continued till he had completely severed
the head from the body. The thick red blood that gushed from the
stump contrasted strongly with the cock’s black feathers. The
magician allowed a small quantity of this blood to run into a
diminutive aluminium drinking mug, while the rest of it dripped
on to the dry earthern floor of the hut and was absorbed.
 From his pocket he brought out some dry resinous powder
wrapped in paper and allowed it to spill on to the floor. The
magician borrowed a match from me and set fire to the powder
after several attempts. It burned with a greenish flame. Then he
picked up the aluminium mug and held it over this flame for a few
seconds while he closed his eyes and started muttering
incantations in a singsong voice. I noticed that the green flame
burnt itself out pretty soon but the magician continued with his
mantras.

At last he finished, opened his eyes and, lifting the mug, ordered
Niklas to drink. The lad appeared to be in some kind of a trance.
His eyes were open but turned upwards, so that I could see the
whites. His lower jaw was slack and partly open, and he was
rocking himself backwards and forwards to the rhythm of the
magician’s droning voice. He stretched out his hand obediently
and the magician placed that mug in his grasp, closing the boy’s
fingers firmly around the vessel so that he would not drop it.

Once again he commanded ‘drink’, and at one gulp Niklas

swallowed the hot red blood.

The magician now seized the boy's right wrist in his left hand,
and left wrist in his right hand, and raising his voice, commenced
shouting the vilest obscenities at the evil spirit said to be within
the lad, calling it strings of unmentionably bad names and
commanding it to be gone forthwith.

Niklas started to twist and to turn and then to struggle violently

with the man who was holding him down, but the magician clung
to his wrists and shouted further abuse upon the demon within,
commanding it to come forth at once.

Niklas became more violent; then he started to scream aloud.

But his shouts were coherent: ‘Go away from here. Why do you
torment us? We have no place to live and you are ordering us out
of the only shelter we have been able to find for so long.’

The words almost turned into a plea. The magician released

Niklas’ wrists to enable himself to fill the aluminium mug to the
brim with raw liquor from the bottle, and tossed the contents
down his own throat. He quickly repeated this action, then laid
the mug down, grasped the boy’s wrists once more and
recommenced ordering the demon to leave Niklas.

The lad started to struggle violently, so much so that the

magician was compelled to call upon some members of the
assembly to help. While this was being done, he did not lose the
opportunity to fortify himself still further with yet more arrack.
Things came to a head a moment later when Niklas gave vent to a
piercing screech, jumped to his feet in spite of the many pairs of
hands that were holding him, and then fell to the ground as if
poleaxed. He kicked spasmodically a few times, stretched his body
tautly while grinding his teeth (which sound we all could hear),
then threw his arms above his head and ceased to move.

A low wail came from the audience. Clearly most of them

thought the boy was dead, but as I watched his chest I could
detect rise and fall of his breathing.

The magician was now pointing dramatically to the corner of

the room where the light from an oil-lamp hanging from a nail on
the wall could barely reach. ‘Do you see them?’ he quavered. ‘Not
one spirit, but two. A man and a woman.’

Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing. Of course,

nothing could be seen, but the people seated nearest to that corner
scrambled hastily to their feet and backed away.

Sensing he was master of the situation, the magician then

started to engage in a garbled argument with the spirits that only
he could see and hear.
 ‘No, you shall not come back,’ he yelled. ‘No, not even if you
pay me a thousand rupees. These are poor folk. The miserable
advance they have paid me for my services is but a pittance. I
know they will pay me much more before I leave, so I won’t take
any part of the one thousand rupees you are offering me.’

‘Stand aside,’ he ordered. ‘Stand away from the doorway. The

two spirits are leaving now. Can’t you see them? A man and a
woman; both completely naked. The woman is very beautiful. She
is bedecked with jewels. She has a very pretty face and a lovely
figure, but she is evil—very, very evil. For the woman is a devil,
you must know.’

‘Stand aside,’ he continued while the crowd, and particularly

the menfolk, began to gape in the hope of a glimpse of this lovely,
naked girl. ‘Stand, I say. For if she gets within reach of you she
may change her mind about leaving and enter into you instead,
then you will know all about it.’

There was a general stampede to the opposite side of the room,

which being filled with people already, caused considerable
pushing and shoving. At that moment my eye caught the
magician’s. I could swear there was a twinkle of laughter in his.
He seemed to be saying to me: ‘If people want to be fooled so
easily, let me fool them. Don’t spoil things.’ So I remained a silent
spectator.

‘Ah, now they are leaving’ went on the magician. Then, after a
moment, They have left. Now nobody should go outside for at
least half an hour to allow the spirits to get clear away.’ As a
result, I was obliged to remain another thirty minutes in that
congested room. It would not have been fair to leave earlier and
let the magician down.

This may well have been a farce from start to finish; I agree.
Niklas was either an accomplice and played his part well, or this
was a simple case of hysteria, since his mother’s conduct had upset
him greatly. And as Niklas had gained nothing by acting, so we
must conclude that Niklas’ subconscious mind, in a tremendous
state of frustration at being turned out of his own home, wanted
to draw attention to his own unenviable position in the new
household that his mother had set up with her boyfriend. The fact
remains, however, that from that time Niklas was completely
cured. He never again suffered from fits and all the credit went to
the black magician, the driver-out-of-evil-spirits, for his wonderful
performance. We may regard the whole performance as a smart bit
of work, but no other person living in these regions will agree: it
was to them clearly and simply a case of possession by evil spirit.

Now let me relate the story of Maria, which is far more difficult
to explain. Of course, I cannot give you the lady’s real name, but
Maria will serve the purpose. She was an Anglo-Indian of slightly
less than middle age, respectably married, with four children. A
good housewife and a hard worker, she did not care for servants
whom she maintained were more a hindrance than a help. And
she abhorred mendicants.

Now if there is anything for which India is notorious, it is its

beggars ; they swarm everywhere. They throng the roads and
accost you in the market-place, and as if that is not enough, they
call at your front door and will not go away till you give them
alms.

Many such mendicants were in the habit of visiting the house

where Maria lived, and among them was one in particular who
annoyed her immensely. He was a tall, very black man with long
hair and a great black beard that streamed down over his chest.
He had the most piercing black eyes she had ever seen. This fellow
generally wore the accepted costume of a yogi; a long saffron robe
reaching to the ground. It was far from clean, as was also the
saffron cloth he wore loosely around his head as an untidy turban.
Caste marks of white and red on his forehead, a necklace of large
amber beads and a stout staff completed his dress. He was always
barefooted.

Maria detested the fellow for two reasons. The first, his arrogant
manner of demanding alms. Here was no beggar, he made one feel,
but someone whose demand had better be met or … The second
reason was more subtle. The man’s piercing black eyes seemed to
Maria to undress her each time he looked at her. It made her feel
as if the clothes she wore—she was invariably a chic dresser—
might just as well be dispensed with for all the good they did in
hiding her nakedness.

One day Maria was particularly busy and the beggar

particularly demanding, with the result that she ordered him to
get out. Resenting this, the mendicant argued back, when, true to
the habits of almost all Anglo-Indians in this hot country, Maria
started to abuse him in no uncertain manner.

The response to this was quite unexpected. The visitor said not
a word but just glared at her, and those terrible eyes of his seemed
to grow larger and to come closer and closer. Now they appeared
but a few inches away, and as Maria stood rooted to the spot, they
came yet nearer and the next instant were inside her. Or so it
seemed.

A still small voice now spoke to her. It was not that of the
magician’s which was deep and sonorous. This was a high-
pitched, treble voice, the sort of voice one would associate with a
boy of eight years or so. And it always laughed before it said
anything. Maria was to come to know of this to her cost very soon.
Always that high-pitched, cackling, treble laughter before the
words came.

‘At last,’ chortled the childlike voice, ‘I have managed to get

back into a human body. It has been so many years, so many long
years. But at last I have succeeded. You are mine, Maria, and I
will never let you go.’ The words rose to a crescendo. ‘Never will I
leave you, nor will I let you leave me, Maria. From this day forth
we two shall be one. Husband and wife, my dear. It has been such
a long, long time.’

Maria told me this story afterwards and said that from that
moment all sense of privacy was lost to her. Never, at any
moment, did she feel alone. ‘The Voice,’ as she called it, was
always with her day and night and it was particularly the nights
that she dreaded.

As time passed, this demon within her began to make itself more
and more felt. It would always be talking to her in its high-
pitched, treble voice, making the most obscene suggestions. Worse
still it was always laughing. When she undressed or took her bath,
it would scream with glee and shout, ‘I can see you! I can see you!’
When she lay down to sleep at night it would say the filthiest
things to her and make the most vulgar suggestions, ending with ‘I
want you. I must have you.’

Matters grew worse as the Voice began to make its demands

more and more pressing. Maria would awaken with a start, a sense
of a heavy weight upon her as if somebody was lying on top of her.
At other times she would feel herself clasped tightly in a pair of
strong invisible arms.

Gradually Maria began to change in her own conduct and

nature. She had always been an upright person of good character,
but I expect the continuous flow of lewd suggestions and the
actions that these suggestions awakened wore Maria down till she
herself started to welcome, and finally follow, those continuous
promptings. By this time the people who had known her and
noticed the change began to talk about it, and in our town
rumours spread rapidly.
 Thus it was that I came to hear of Maria, and being always
interested in such matters, lost no time in contacting her through
the friend who had told me.

Maria did have short respite now and again from the prompting
of the Voice, although this was not very often or for long. Luckily,
it was on one of those occasions that I first met her and I had time
to gain her confidence and hear her story before the Voice
suddenly came back and took hold of her. There was no mistaking
this, for Maria abruptly stopped speaking to me in mid-sentence
and her voice changed to an almost childlike treble lisp: ‘How
nice of you to visit me. Do come and sit closer, it will be so cosy
for both of us.’

Maria was handsome in appearance and of pleasing build and it

was easy to understand how her change in habits and her newly
acquired intimate and sexy behaviour was going to get her into a
lot of trouble. The friends who had told me about her and
probably nearly all those who had heard the story were convinced
hers was a clear case of possession. The mendicant whom Maria
had ordered away so abruptly had laid a curse upon her, one of the
worst curses that can be put upon anybody in the East: the curse
of obsession by an evil entity or spirit. Millions of people believe in
this sort of thing. The events clearly pointed to it. There could be
no other possible explanation, they would say.

I have travelled a lot in India in my time, during which period I

have never lost an opportunity to investigate, as far as possible,
every case of occult happening that has come my way. I have read
a lot about these things, met and spoken to a number of black
magicians and delved into the matter as deeply as I could. Indeed,
I have gone as far as to become initiated into the cult of black
magician by preforming certain rites that, under the oath of
secrecy, I cannot reveal.
 Anyone who has delved into these matters deeply enough and
gained sufficient experience develops a sort of uncanny sense for
knowing whether a case he may encounter is actually the result of
a black magician’s spell or not. As I have said already, nearly
everything of an abnormal kind that happens in India is attributed
to the occult and to black magic, but to those who, like myself,
have studied the subject, this is far from being so. A fair
percentage of people who suddenly begin to act queerly do so for
quite natural reasons. Hysteria plays a very large part in the lives
of people in the East, both men and women, but more particularly
among women at the time of menstruation and menopause.

Then again, people in the East are far more emotional then
those in the West. Little injuries done to them assume gargantuan
proportions, and they brood and brood over their wrong till, quite
frequently, their minds give way. At best, there is but a narrow
margin in the minds of us all between sanity and insanity, and it
does not take very much or very long for that small barrier to
break down and the same to become insane, at least to some
degree or in certain ways. So before attributing anything to occult
influence, we should not fail to consider whether suggestion and
autosuggestion may have played a part in influencing the person
concerned to act in a given manner. Repeated and powerful
suggestions upon the subconscious mind of practically any
ordinary individual will soon cause that person to act in the way
intended while hypnotism, which is after all but a well-harnessed
form of suggestion, undoubtedly acts as a most powerful factor.

Hypnotism, powerful and almost instantaneous, is an art well-

known and widely practised in India by some pseudo-yogis and
other interested persons, and I felt certain Maria’s case fell
entirely into this category. She had repeatedly stressed that the
mendicant’s piercing black eyes seemed to bore right through her,
to undress her, as she said, to the point that she felt it was useless
for her to wear any clothing. His gaze and his concentrated silence
had brought her under his hypnotic influence undoubtedly, and
she was but carrying out in practice the suggestions he had forced
upon her.

The only solution was to break that hypnotic spell, but to do so

successfully would require an indirect approach. I knew it would
be useless for me to tell her that she had been hypnotised and that
I would try to remove the hypnotic influence that had been
brought to bear upon her. Without doubt, one of the first
commands her visitor had given her under his spell was to resist
any suggestion that he was influencing her. I would have to
hypnotise her myself without her knowing what was happening,
and then put the counter-suggestions required to nullify the orders
of the mendicant.

Luckily I was wearing my heavy silver ring, set with a blue

stone, a gift to me from a close friend from Ghana, so I decided to
play upon Maria’s clear belief that she had been bewitched by
using this belief to hypnotise her.

‘Maria,’ I began, ‘I am wearing a ring that has come all the way
from Ghana in Africa. It belongs to a very powerful witch-doctor
who gave it to me. Now, if you will stare at the blue stone on this
ring without closing your eyes, I will invoke the magic that is in
the ring to free you of your trouble for all time.’

Maria was a simple sort of woman, obviously not well read, and
the mendicant’s suggestion in the form of the Voice continued its
cackling, followed with a lewd suggestion each time, for many
minutes, while I persisted with my magic ring. But at last she
quietened down and agreed to look at the ring. Removing it from
my finger, I laid the ring upon a small table that I placed close
before her.

I asked her to stare at it without blinking her eyes. Maria then

started to do as I had asked.
 At first her gaze would wander, but I brought it back each time
till I finally succeeded in rivetting her attention upon the blue
stone. Slowly I made the sleep suggestion and in a surprisingly
short while Maria was sound asleep under my hypnotic influence.

The rest was easy. I made the counter suggestions required to

nullify the mendicant’s earlier commands and continued for some
time, till I felt my orders had supplanted the mendicant’s earlier
evil commands. I told her that never again would she be troubled
by the Voice. That had been only her own imagination. She had
never heard any such voice. There never had been a voice. It had
been a nasty dream. Entirely her own imagination. No such thing
as a Voice! I then woke her up.

The lady, as I have told you, was basically a good woman and I
am glad to be able to record that she was quite cured from that
moment. No longer did she hear the high-pitched treble voice
(which, incidentally, was her own voice pitched to a treble key
under hypnotic instruction), urging her to do and speak obscene
things. No longer did it speak to her night and day. Maria had
been freed and neither the devil nor any evil spirits had played
any part in entering into her.

Nevertheless, I have come across some well-authenticated cases

of spirit-possession and I will now tell you about one of these. I
have already mentioned the case of Ossie Brown in some detail in
my earlier book, The Call of the Man-Eater. The story begins in
much the same way as Maria’s. A fakir in a yellow robe was wont
to present himself on the first day of every month at the pay-
counter of the premises where Ossie was working and demand
alms from him and the other members of staff as they received
their salaries.

In time, Ossie resented this peremptory attitude and threatened

to hand the man over to the police. Hot words followed, ending
with the fakir cursing Ossie and a statement that he would put
‘someone’ into my friend who would take up his abode there and
remain till death.

That very night Ossie awoke with the curious sensation that he
was not alone. He opened his eyes to see a dark figure outside his
mosquito net. The figure came closer and closer and appeared to
merge with him by actually getting inside him. Thereafter, Ossie
started exhibiting strange mannerisms at work. His voice and
behaviour would change. Apparently he did not know where he
was, or who he was. He would ask gruffly how he came to be
there. Then he would walk out of the room. Sometimes he would
return after a lapse of thirty minutes or an hour quite oblivious of
his behaviour or of how he left his work spot. Occasionally he
would collapse, as if in a fit. When he recovered, he was quite
normal and was very surprised at being told of his behaviour.

Just about this time, rather foolishly, I invited Ossie on a trip to

the jungle. We camped that night on the banks of a great river, far
from human habitation. A herd of wild elephants was grazing
close by. We could hear them trumpeting and breaking the
branches off trees, and we lit a large camp fire to keep away any
stray elephants that might come our way. Suddenly, a strange
gruff voice addressed me, demanding to know who I was. It came
from Ossie, but as I looked at him I saw quite another person
looking back at me. The eyes, the face, everything was different.
This entity repeated his demand. Who was I? Where were we?

I tried to pacify Ossie by saying we had come out shooting,

whereupon he demanded that I should give him my gun.
Fortunately, he did not notice that my rifle was against a tree
directly behind him. I knew that if he got hold of it he might shoot
me. So distracting his attention to the elephant, I pounced upon
the weapon and threatened to shoot him if he came any closer.

Regardless of my threat, he advanced upon me. I knew only too

well that in a physical struggle I would be no match for this
person, evil spirit or not. I would be compelled to shoot and at
least wound my friend and that would not be an easy thing to do
with a heavy calibre .405 rifle.

When he was only five feet away the solution came to me. I
fired the rifle so that the bullet just whizzed over his head. Ossie
halted abruptly, shuddered and passed a hand over his forehead
wearily. The next second the possessing entity had gone and my
friend spoke to me in his normal voice.

The sequel to this story is that Ossie went to Calcutta where,

one day, he threw himself from the second floor of a building and
was killed. To me this case was a clear example of spirit-
possession. You will notice it differed from Maria’s in one very
important fact. Maria fancied she heard a voice in her own head
telling her to do things. She did not change or act differently
herself. By that I mean her personality remained the same. In
Ossie’s case the change was in himself, physically as well as
outwardly. His manner, appearance and voice all changed in the
twinkling of an eye. Secondly, Maria could always remember
what the inner voice, prompting her, had said. In Ossie’s case he
was quite ignorant of all that had happened to him and could
remember nothing.

The reason for the difference appears obvious. Maria’s conscious

and subconscious minds were overshadowed by the orders of the
mendicant, delivered while she was under hypnosis and in his
control. Nevertheless it was Maria’s own conscious and
subconscious minds that were functioning under the orders of an
outsider disguised under an assumed identity of a childlike, treble
voice. With Ossie, both his conscious and subconscious minds
were not only dominated, but temporarily taken possession of by
quite another identity, this time a discarnate entity under the
orders of the fakir, who must have been a powerful medium as
well as master of black magic. As a result, Ossie’s conscious and
subconscious minds were not functioning at all at the time and so
he remembered nothing of what had taken place.

There are quite a number of persons living in India today who

perform each day, and sometimes several times in the course of
each day, the miracle of what are known in spiritualistic parlance
as ‘the phenomenon of apports’.

In the darkness, or the dim red illumination in the seance room,

spiritualists claim that small objects such as flowers or other
trivial articles are brought to them by the spirits and laid upon
their laps even though all doors and windows have been closed.
The mystics of India go much farther than this. To begin with,
they operate in broad daylight, in an open space, sometimes with
hundreds of people looking on.

Sai Baba the reincarnated, generally referred to as Sathya Sai,

who is a personal friend whom I have known as a lad and who
claims to be the reincarnation of the original Sai Baba the great
who died many years ago, once stretched out his hand in front of
me and closed it over a little metal image which appeared to
materialise and his fingers were closing upon it! Baba, as he is
affectionately referred to by his personal acquaintances, gave it to
me as a keepsake and I put the little figure in my purse.

Years later a pickpocket relieved me of this purse, with my

money and the figurine inside, as I was boarding the last night-bus
from Bangalore to Whitefield, twelve miles away, where I was
living at the time. I knew nothing of the theft at the time, but
about halfway to my destination the conductor came round
collecting tickets. I put my hand into my pocket for my purse.

It was gone! Worse still, I did not have another coin on my

person.

Yet there was something small and hard in the corner of that
pocket. I felt again and drew out the small figurine that Baba had
given me. It had been inside one of the compartments of the
missing purse. The purse itself had been taken. How had the little
image come back into the pocket?

The conductor was looking hard at me. Suspicion came into his
face when I withdrew my hand, empty except for the tiny figure
between my fingers. The conductor pulled the cord to stop the bus.
We were about seven miles from Whitefield and it was five
minutes to midnight. Moreover, it was raining. I had the prospect
of a long walk before me.

I explained that my pocked had been picked. The conductor

grinned sardonically; ‘Tell that to the Marines,’ he said in the
local dialect. Only, having never heard of the Marines, he used
another name in its place, a very rude word with a very, very dirty
meaning that I cannot possibly repeat. Then his eyes fell upon the
figurine. His manner changed. He pulled the cord twice, which
was the signal for the driver to proceed.

‘We’ll risk it,’ he said. ‘No inspector is likely to check at this

time of night.’

I thanked that conductor when I alighted from the bus. He

confided that he was a devotee of Baba’s. I have often wondered
whether Baba, when he produced the figurine out of the air that
day and gave it to me, knew what good purpose it was to serve in
saving me from a long, wet, midnight walk.

The second time I went to Baba was when I was in a spot of real
trouble. Before I could ask him, he told me my trouble. He also
told me what were to be the consequences. He gave me that
answer nearly thirteen years ago and everything he said came to
pass exactly. Before parting, he stretched out his hand for me to
shake. As he did so, I noticed that he closed his fingers over
something. Then he handed me a small piece of ash.
 ‘Keep it in a small box, carefully,’ he advised. ‘Should you have
any trouble at any time, or a problem, open the box and look upon
the ashes. Picture my face in the ashes. I think your trouble, or
problem, whatever it is, will disappear very soon after that.’

I did exactly as Baba had told me. I cannot say I have been
trouble-free. But whatever my trouble, they have since turned out
to be but little ones. And I still have that box with the ashes in it.

However, this is a digression. The question is, how do people

like Baba get these apports? There seem to be only two solutions.
The first is obvious. Trickery, in the form of sleight-of-hand.
Something that our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers
have seen on the stage for years. The second solution defies
explanation.

Let us consider trickery first. Did Baba successfully ‘palm’ the

figurine and the ashes upon me, right under my nose, without my
noticing how he did it? I deny it, but what is the use of arguing? So
let me tell you some of the other occurrences which he brought to
pass. You will then be in a better position to judge whether
‘palming’ could have been possible.

A sick girl was brought to him. She had been suffering from a
permanent headache for months. By apport, Baba produced a
small bottle of very strongly scented balm. The first application of
this balm upon her forehead cured that headache for good.

Baba was once invited to an alfresco tea-party. The tables were

spread beneath a grove of large and beautiful mango trees. The
month was November. No fruit grows on mango trees in
November. April to June are the months for mangoes in India.

Somebody remarked, ‘What a pity there are no mangoes now.’

To which Baba replied, ‘But there are.’ In his hand was a stalk, to
which three ripe mangoes and a couple of leaves were attached.
 One more incident. Baba was travelling by car from Bangalore
to his permanent abode in Puttaparthi. Short of his destination by
about fifty miles, the car stopped. The driver had not put
sufficient petrol into the tank. They would either have to beg
some passing lorry for petrol, or Baba must go by bus for the rest of
the journey.

Baba stepped out of the car, walked to the rear and stretched the
palm of his hand over the petrol tank. Then he reseated himself.
‘Drive on,’ he instructed. ‘We now have enough petrol to
complete the journey.’ And they had.

So, if these things are not done by sleight-of-hand, how are they
done? At least, how do people in India say they are done?

There are two current explanations. Basically, they amount to

the same thing, although in modus operandi they are quite
dissimilar. The general opinion is that the apports are brought to
the master desiring them through the agency of what are known
as ‘Kutti shaitans’, diminutive little sprites generally invisible,
but which at times take on the appearance of tiny, naked, very
black people, no more than six inches in height and of both sexes.
The number of Kutti-shaitans in the band that serves him or her
depend on the degree of occult power possessed by the master and
it may vary from a single one to two dozen.

Elaborate methods are prescribed as to how a person may gain

control over one or more of these little elfs, but they are said to be
quite dangerous people once you have anything to do with them.
The trouble is that when you set yourself to acquire one or more of
them, they in turn acquire you and the contract is for life; you
cannot revoke it at any period, and if you try to do so the direst of
repercussions await you in the form of great misfortune, sickness
and eventual death. Moreover, the sprites do not serve you for
nothing: they will obey you and get you what you want, provided
you in turn agree to their terms and give them what they want.
And their terms and wants are always of a horrid nature.

Once a week, mostly on Fridays, but with some magicians on

Thursdays, time must be set apart at midnight on which these
payments are to be made to the little sprites in a room specially
appointed for the purpose. Blood is frequently demanded: pig’s
blood, the blood of a black cock, human blood from a vein in your
own or somebody else’s arm, or menstrual blood. Sprites of a lower
order demand that you commit the greatest sacrilege against the
dictates of your own religion, whatever it may be, by saying
things, doing things and submitting religious objects to deeds that
are the most blasphemous possible.

Nor is that all. No master may marry. If he wants to cohabit

with a woman he must first get permission from his Kutti shaitans
to do so. This is only bestowed after incurring a heavy penalty.
Financially, the master can never be in abundant circumstances.
He will receive only enough money to live in moderate comfort.
Never may he become rich.

To acquire one of these sprites, he must first become a black

magician of which there are many orders. Actually to capture the
sprite he is required to visit a buffalo-kraal at midnight on the
night of the Amavasa, which is the darkest night of the month,
exactly halfway between full moon and the succeeding new
moon. He should hide himself in a corner of the kraal along with
the buffaloes, arriving at least an hour before midnight. When the
time comes and the hour strikes, if he looks earnestly enough he
will generally notice something rather like a big moth or a small
bat flitting about on the back of one of the buffaloes. The seeker
should approach it quietly and make snatching motions with his
arms and hands, as if trying to seize this flitting creature.

Of course he would never really be able to seize a sprite. His

motions are only symbolical and signify his earnest desire and
intention to succeed.

The sprite, or Kutti shaitan, will then speak to him, normally by

means of mental rather than spoken conversation.

‘What are you trying to do?’ it will ask.

‘I mean to capture you,’ the seeker will reply.

‘Why? What do you want of me?’ the sprite will ask.

‘I mean to catch and conquer you. I want you for my servant; to

do my bidding and get me whatever I may desire.’ The seeker is
required to be very firm and positive in this assertion.

The sprite may remonstrate at first, or begin to bargain

straightaway. Often it may lay down extremely difficult, if not
quite impossible, conditions in return for its services. The seeker is
strongly advised to refuse straightaway and then to try to drive as
hard a bargain as possible, for he must remember that, once it is
made, the pact is sealed for the rest of his lifetime. It may never be
broken, renounced or cancelled. Many instances are on record of
black magicians who, for one reason or another, but principally
for the sake of contracting a marriage, have tried to nullify their
agreements with their Kutti-shaitans, either by straightforward
renunciation or trickery. The direst penalties have befallen them
in the way of misfortune, sickness, loss of sight or limbs, or even
death. So you should really think twice before you enter into an
agreement of this sort, even if it is your own self that is able to
bring you so many nice things.

The other common belief, and this is more prevalent in northern

India than in the south, is that the familiar who brings the
apports, and is known by the name of the hamzad, is merely your
own astral self, resembling you in every way, including
appearance, mannerisms and even clothing. The hamzad is
believed to be capable of travelling to the ends of the earth in the
twinkling of an eye, of carrying enormous weights and of being
able to do anything for you and get you whatever you want. It is
understood of course that everything the hamzad brings is made
invisible in course of transit and is made to resume its substantial
appearance when the hamzad presents it to his master.

You are required to work hard before you can capture the
services of your hamzad. This is done by following certain very
secret formulae. As in the case of the Kutti-shaitan, a two-way
bargain must be entered into between the seeker and his hamzad
for service to be rendered and this bargain is mandatory for life.
Penalties of the most frightful character, including the violent
termination of the seeker’s life, follow the breaking of this pact by
the human partner.

It may be interesting to note certain fundamental differences as

well as some basic similarities, between western black magic and
the Indian brand of black magic.

The main difference seems to lie in the fact that, European

black magicians, generally known as wizards and witches, more
or less make undisguised covenants with Lucifer, the spirit of the
morning, and other terms synonymous with Satan, or more
commonly, the devil; the Indian black magician will very stoutly
deny that the devil (‘shaitan’ being the name in Hindi and ‘pey’
or ‘pisachee’ in Tamil) plays any part in the bargain. Kutti-
shaitans, or the hamzad or, on some occasions a particular spirit
variously known as a ‘minnispuram’ in the south and in western
India as a ‘raksha’, are the entities invoked for this purpose and
they are by no means considered to be devils, nor do they bear any
resemblance to one. The Indian seer firmly believes that he is
dealing with one or more very powerful spirits who are definitely
not of an evil disposition, although they may at times be tempted
or driven to outbursts of the most severe anger or revengefulness,
or plain malevolence. He will very strongly deny that he is having
any truck with the devil and will become most indignant if you
insist that this is so.

At the same time, considering that the aims of the two schools
are about the same, while the result attained are more or less
equal, one cannot but wonder whether the devil or any other
spirit, has really anything to do with it. Of course, the westerner
will claim that the devil and the minnispuram or spirit are one
and the same. The Indian will stoutly deny it: his minnispuram is
far from being a devil.

Maybe, however, the much maligned devil and the greatly

feared minnispuram have nothing whatever to do with it, and
that it is the black magician’s, or the witch’s own subconscious
mind that is at the bottom of the whole affair, assuming and
playing the part of the devil or the minnispuram, just to satisfy its
owner?

It will be noticed that in all cases a bargain is mandatory.

Without this pledge on the part of the black magician on the one
hand and the entity on the other, no deal can transpire, no pact
may be made. Why is this so? The religious-minded person will
claim that by striking a pact of this kind, the devil will win over
the witch’s soul to himself, with eventual damnation and hell.
The black magician of India will say that his minnispuram must
naturally require, and receive, some sort of reward and
satisfaction for his labours on his master’s behalf.

May it not also be a fact that the existence of a pact serves to

remind the magician always of his contacts with the other side,
the devil or spirit who is under an obligation to him and to whom
he is equally beholden every moment of the day and night? The
pact serves to rivet the attention of conscious and subconscious
minds at all times.
 Therein lie the essential ingredients that make black magic
work: the strong awareness on the part of both the conscious and
subconscious minds of the magician, western or eastern, that he
has struck a bargain with some supernatural power possessing the
attributes of ability and willingness to work for him with assured
success, and get him what he wants, in return for the possession of
his very self. The magician and this power thus become welded
into one force, as it were, and this thought is with him at all
times, giving him a boost of selfconscious assertiveness and
confidence in himself that he would not normally possess.

Conversely, all self-assertiveness and self-confidence completely

disappear in a victim in India, even if he should by nature have
these attributes, when he finds himself pitted against a black
magician. Generations of upbringing together with the frightening
tales drilled into him from childhood, make him quite certain that
he is absolutely helpless before the man of magic and is entirely in
his power.

Thus we have a person all filled with confidence in a

supernatural power that is helping him day and night, opposed to
another who has known from childhood that he is helpless against
a foe who has supernatural assistance. The result is a foregone
conclusion and the man of magic always wins.

Latent hypnotism plays a major part in both the casting and

removal of ‘spells’ in India. Everyone has heard of ‘mantras’ and
‘mantrams’, words used in relation to magical formulae of one
kind or another. The words are identical in meaning and apply to
everything from coherent sentences, uttered either in ancient
Sanskrit or in the local vernacular (it should be remembered that
there are about three hundred vernaculars in use throughout India
and Pakistan) in either prose or poetry, to incoherent and
meaningless phrases. Mantras are employed to bring good luck,
employment, a suitable partner in marriage, a male child,
protection against sickness or danger, a cure for any sickness and
for a host of other purposes. In fact, their employment is
practically synonymous with the use of talismans, but with a
rather wider range.

It is the repetition of such a mantra, over and over again, that

serves to focus the attention upon a particular purpose or
objective. It serves to keep the mind from straying away from that
purpose or objective. Thus one attains a determination, together
with a large degree of autosuggestion, which in itself is nothing
but auto- or self-hypnotism.

A third factor is also present ; a great impelling desire, coupled

with great personal emotion. The person is all worked up, in all
his being, to achieve and to acquire what he wants. So we have
here the ingredients necessary for attaining success in any field.
Firstly determination, the great driving factor; secondly, a great
desire to attain it, a sort of burning need for it; thirdly, belief or
faith that what is being striven for will be achieved; and fourthly,
great emotion to keep the mind and nerves stretched.

The mantrams of the East are, therefore, a very clever way to

apply in practice all the four great rules of ‘How to Get What You
Want in Life’, and would appear in any normal person as nothing
more.

But, does this explanation apply to every case? Let me relate a

true story to which thousands now living in India will testify.

Shri Narsiah was a humble stationmaster of the very

unimportant railway station at Polreddipalayam on the Southern
Railway in the state of Andhra Pradesh. But this humble and self-
effacing man was the means of saving the lives of hundreds of
persons bitten by poisonous snakes, including cobras, vipers and
the deadly kraits. Should anyone be bitten by a poisonous snake
anywhere in India, it was only necessary to send a telegram to Shri
Narsiah at his station mentioning the name and address of the
afflicted person. People in those parts are extremely poor and most
can hardly afford to pay the cost of an express telegram. With this
in mind, there is an unspoken understanding in the minds of the
telegraphists throughout the region. When such a message is
handed in, everyone handling the message, as well as the
telegraphists receiving it, gives the message priority over every
other telegram, even ‘express’ messages, however important they
maybe. So we could expect Shri Narsiah to receive the telegram in
a reasonably short time. Nevertheless, so terribly fast does the bite
of a cobra work that the patient would be near to death anyway.

Growing to one side of the single platform at Polreddipalayam

railway station is quite a short tree. It is a very peculiar tree
indeed, different from all others. For it is a sacred tree and is the
means by which the cobra’s victim, perhaps a thousand miles
away, can be saved from death. This little tree is festooned with
small pieces of white rag, tied to every conceivable part of it
within reach. Those little pieces of white cloth are torn from
corners of Shri Narsiah’s dhoties, or ankle-length loinclothes, for
the stationmaster does not wear trousers of the ordinary western
style. He is a high-caste Brahmin and bears caste-marks upon his
forehead. The climate is hot and he is barebodied invariably but
his loincloth, wound tightly around his waist and extending to his
ankles is his stock-in-trade for curing snakebites wherever they
may occur.

Each time Shri Narsiah receives a snakebite telegram, he

hastens to the little sacred tree, tears a strip of about six to eight
inches from the bottom corner of his dhoti, ties it to a branch of
the tree and mutters a secret mantra half aloud. The snake,
provided it has not already been killed, is said to die at this
instant. Narsiah then goes back to his work as stationmaster in the
little cabin which is his office as if nothing untoward has
happened. Maybe a thousand miles away the patient, lying on the
ground in a coma with saliva dripping from the corners of his
mouth, and with only a few moments more to live, suddenly
opens his eyes, sits up and then stands erect. He has been
completely cured!

Bear in mind that the victim was unconscious, at death’s door.

He certainly could not practise hypnotism not could he be
hypnotised. Nor could he indulge in autosuggestion, not even in
prayer. He could not do anything, for that matter, to help himself.

In distant Polreddipalayam, Shri Narsiah, interrupted in his

duties, certainly did not waste time on any such practices. He had
simply hurried to the tree, torn a strip from the lower end of his
dhoti and uttered a mantra while he tied that strip to the tree.
Then he returned to his duties. And the patient recovered!

If you were to ask Shri Narsiah how it was done, I do not think
he will tell you.

At one time of my life I worked in the Telegraph Department for

nearly thirteen years, and I transmitted many such messages to
Shri Narsiah. To satisfy my curiosity, I have subsequently
telegraphed the snake’s victim at the address given on the distress
message. In every single case the man had been cured! What is
more to the point, I was bitten by a cobra myself and a telegram
was sent to Shri Narsiah on my behalf.

I had just returned from duty. The time was about 3 p.m. A hue
and cry was suddenly raised by one of our tenants. ‘Snake!’ She
screamed. Then, as she saw the spectacled hood, ‘Cobra! Cobra!’

I had been catching snakes since I was eight years old and so
thought nothing of it. Without difficulty I secured the cobra by
grabbing its tail, while I put a stick across the back of its head.
Quickly releasing the tail, I transferred my grip to the back of the
cobra’s neck. Then I lifted it up. The snake was completely
helpless. I carried it to the box I generally keep ready for such
eventualities and was in the act of throwing it in when the snake
wound the free end of its tail around my other arm. It was quite a
long specimen for a cobra. A female, if I remember correctly.

As the snake restricted my movements I was unable to open the

lid of the box, so I called my servant-boy (known as a ‘chokra’) to
remove the tail that was coiled around my arm.

The chokra started to do so timidly when the cobra transferred

its tail-coils to the boy’s wrist. He panicked, he gave a violent jerk
to free his wrist and in doing so wrenched the head of the cobra
from between my fingers. That reptile was fast, and before I could
act, it had buried its fangs in the ball of my thumb.

I threw the wretched cobra into the box, closed the lid, and as I
did not have too much faith in mantrams and stationmasters,
hastened in my car to the local hospital for an antivenine
injection.

But my people at home had firm faith in Shri Narsiah, and as

the telegraph office was but two furlongs distant, the telegram to
him was on its way before I reached the hospital.

There was considerable confusion when I told the nurse at the

emergency section what had happened. She said I must see the
duty doctor and went in search of him. The doctor came back with
her and asked what had happened. I told him. He asked whether I
was certain it was a snake. Finally, he went in search of the
serum.

He came back looking rather bothered. Apparently the hospital

had run out of stock. He told me to hurry to another hospital
which was over two miles away. I was feeling giddy by now with a
pain in my thumb and hand. I got into the car and made for the
other hospital, where I was given 10 cc of antivenine serum
intravenously.
 But my people had sent a reply-paid telegram to Shri Narsiah
and to this he had replied, ‘Don’t worry. Patient cured. Snake
dead.’ The hospital detained me for about four hours to see how I
fared. Except for severe urticaria set up through serum reaction, I
felt more or less none the worse for my experience. The giddiness
had passed and there was no pain in the region of the bite.

Finally I returned home and was handed Narsiah’s reply. I read

it and went directly for the box where I had put the cobra. I
opened the box. The snake inside was quite dead. Not only dead,
coiled up inside as rigid and stiff as if it had been made of metal.

How and why did that cobra die? It had not been injured by me
or by anyone else. Also, it takes at least twenty-four hours for a
dead snake to become so rigid. In this case only four hours had
passed, yet the cobra had become so rigid that I could not uncoil it
again, although I tried.

Not a very good case, it may be said, because I had been given
the injection after the telegram had been sent. I should have
waited for the stationmaster to act. But who would have done so
in the circumstances? In any case, why did the cobra die? Why did
it stiffen so soon?

Almost everyone who has lived in India for any length of time
will be able to tell you instances of black magic. They abound in
every corner of the land.

Sammy Soanes was a friend of mine. He had originally come

from Goa then a Portuguese possession, and had bought a small
property and settled down in Bangalore. A gentleman from
Malabar bought the neighbouring house and moved in with quite
a large household. Quarrels started between Sammy’s people and
the neighbours. My friend was of a quiet, non-interfering
disposition, but these quarrels reached a pitch when he was
compelled to make a police report as well as take legal
proceedings.

Now his neighbour, the man from Malabar, although a recent-

comer, had already become notorious as a black magician. He
called Sammy to the stone wall that separated their respective
properties and told him flatly that if he did not withdraw both
cases against him forthwith, he (the neighbour) would make
Sammy bedridden for life.

Sammy laughed at him. The man from Malabar turned on his

heels and walked away.

As I have said, Sammy was a good-tempered soul. He forgot

about the incident in a couple of hours and that night went to bed
at his usual early hour. But he could not rise early the following
morning. He could not get out of bed at all, for he was unable to
raise himself. He was paralysed from the waist downwards.

Panic seized him as he remembered the happenings of the

previous day. Mrs Soanes, who had overheard the neighbour’s
threats, pleaded with her husband to allow her to carry his abject
apologies to the man from Malabar. Perhaps he would be merciful
and forgive. Then Sammy would be able to get out of bed once
more.

There is a strange quality that docile persons possess. You can

drive them just so far, but suddenly they will reach a point when
they can be driven no further. The neighbour’s threats had reached
that point. Sammy refused to apologise. Instead, he urgently
summoned a Nambodripad, also from the West Coast of India,
who was a personal friend and had settled down in Bangalore a
couple of years earlier.

Krishnan, Sammy’s friend, duly answered the summons and

declared at once that the neighbour was responsible for Sammy’s
paralysis. He said, after some further consideration, that the
magic used to bring about Sammy’s incapacity was the work of a
powerful ‘yaksha’. So powerful, indeed, that his own familiar was
not strong enough to undo it and put Sammy upon his feet again.
What he could do, however, was to bring a similar spell to bear
upon the neighbour, so that he would become paralysed himself
and confined to his bed in turn.

Sammy gave the green signal to this and by the same evening
the man next door suddenly lost his power to stand upright and
within the hour found that he, in turn, could not move from the
waist downwards. This led to a sort of contest in casting spells
between this nasty neighbour and Sammy’s Nambodripad friend,
working on behalf of Sammy, in which the latter very definitely
came off much the worse. Sammy was stricken with high fever,
was unable to eat or drink, and the paralytic stroke that had
afflicted him showed no signs of abating. He had to be fed
intravenously. The neighbour, on the other hand, had managed to
overcome the Nambodripad’s spell and was back on his feet again.

It was at this stage that Mrs Soanes, unknown to her husband,

visited the black magician next door to beg his pardon. When he
opened the door to let her in, he remarked ‘I knew you would
come. It was just a matter of time.’

This man was a haughty fellow and spurned her apologies for a
long time. Finally he agreed to remove the spell and restore
Sammy to health in return for a sum of five hundred rupees, the
full amount be paid in cash and in advance.

Mrs Soanes never doubted for a moment that he would keep to

his terms. But where was she to lay hands on five hundred rupees
without her husband’s knowledge? Then she remembered the
heavy gold chain lying at the bottom of her steel trunk. That and
two gold bracelets she had bought after years and years of hard
labour and saving.
 She took the article to Borilal, the local moneylender. They
were worth over two thousand rupees, but after much pleading
and begging, that skinflint agreed to give her six hundred rupees in
loan, although he did not actually present her with this amount in
cash. Rather, he deducted the full interest for one month which he
claimed came to just one hundred rupees, in advance, and gave
the balance of five hundred rupees to his client.

Mrs Soanes hastened to her neighbour’s house and timidly

knocked at his door. After a while the black magician answered
her summons. He nodded perfunctorily and allowed her to enter.
Gruffly he commanded, ‘Give me the money.’

Meekly, Mrs Soanes handed over five hundred rupees in notes.

The man counted the money. Then he rudely dismissed her,
saying, ‘You may go. Your husband will be able to stand by this
evening.’

Mrs Soanes did not dare to ask any questions, but almost fled
from that awful presence. As the sun set that evening, Sammy
suddenly told his wife that he felt well again, and to substantiate
his words he scrambled to his feet. Mrs Soanes never told him
about her chain and bracelets. She was too poor to redeem the
articles, so she had to fake a burglary and say they had been
stolen. Sammy believed her.

This story is true. I knew Sammy Soanes personally for years and
visited him when he was paralysed. At that time he told me about
the spell cast by his neighbour, and his own friend’s (the
Nambodripad’s) unsuccessful efforts to free him. Mrs Soanes told
me the rest in confidence, later on.

I do not wish to repeat myself, but there is a case of my own

which I have related in an earlier book. A person who knew this
art took a dislike for me. As a result I was awakened around 3 a.m.
for several days with a feeling of being choked by a heavy weight
upon my chest. I also heard measured footsteps outside my
window, but there was never anybody there. Upon a whim, I
consulted a local magician, who is very famous in my home town.
Before I could speak, he told me the exact purpose of my visit. He
also told me to go home, measure a certain distance from my
window and dig down into the earth a certain depth. I was to
destroy what I found there, whereupon I would be left in peace.

I measured out the stated distance, dug down the required

depth, and found a small effigy with hair fastened to it. That hair
looked remarkably like my own. I destroyed the effigy and was
never troubled again.

I could relate many more tales of this sort, but they would
become boring. It is sufficient to impress the fact that the people of
India and especially those in the south of this peninsula, are
brought up with black magic as an acknowledged fact from their
earliest days. Nobody would ever think to question or doubt the
reality; black magic is so involved in everyday life in this land
that hardly any adult male of any community, other than
westerners—who are considered not to believe in anything
anyway—will go out alone after nine or ten o’ clock at night until
about five o’clock in the morning, by which hour evil spirits are
considered to have gone to rest.

To carry pork, raw or cooked, after sunset is to invite being

struck down by an evil entity. This is more so if you happen to be
walking barefoot. It is safe, however, to carry pork provided you
also carry a piece of charcoal. The devil will then leave you alone.

Members of certain tribes and communities are accredited with

being steeped in magic from their childhood and the average
Indian will avoid having anything to do with such a person, as if
he had the plague. Three of these communities (actually they are
part of particular tribes of aborigines who have been in the land
from the beginning of time so to speak) come to my mind. They all
speak the Telugu dialect and belong to what is now the state of
Andhra Pradesh, located in the centre of southern India. These
tribes are the Theyli Marajas, who speak Urdu as well, the Koya
Mamas, and the Dawa-Lokey (Dawa means medicine and ‘Lokey’
means people. Hence ‘people who give medicine’, literally
‘medicine men’).

All three of these tribes have woven a strong superstition around

themselves in the course of generations. When they walk down a
village street, children run inside and adults close and fasten their
doors. All of them live as mendicants, but they are mendicants
with a difference. These people do not beg humbly for food,
clothing and money. They demand these things and present their
demands under open threat of reprisals if they are not met, so that
few dare to deny them.

The Theyli Marajas dress in loose jabbars (kneelength shirts),

covering dhoties wrapped around each leg individually, and wear
turbans ending in a decorative fan above their heads, with the
other end hanging down their backs. Falling over the shirt, both
back and front, is a sort of apron reaching from shoulder to ankles.
They carry small, two-stringed violins, consisting of a tin or box
body with a bamboo extension, the tin or box employed being
gaily decorated with cowrie shells. There is no bow to this
instrument and no attempt is made to play it. Apparently it is not
intended to produce music, but rather to announce the arrival of
its owner, who plucks the strings with his fingernails. The
resultant ‘ting-ting’ announces that a Theyli Maraja has come,
and people hastily get something ready to give him in the way of
grain or money to induce him to depart as quickly as possible.

These people are professional palmists, and in return for the

gifts they receive will tell fortunes with surprising accuracy. So
clever are they, in fact, that most people would rather not have
their fortunes told for fear of hearing of coming sickness or early
death. Rather they present their gifts hastily and invite the
wandering Maraja to be on his way.

The Koya Mamas are a tall, very dark tribe of mostly lean men
with coal-black, piercing eyes. They wear long hair, rolled up in a
coil upon their heads and decorated with peacocks’ feathers or a
long-toothed comb. Invariably bare-bodied, with strings of gaily-
coloured glass beads, they wear a long, tightly-fitting dhoti in the
manner of a skirt. Another division of this tribe hails from the
wilder parts of the country. Its representatives wear little or no
clothing, except for a short loincloth. These people decorate their
arms with amulets and bracelets made from the roots of trees or
carved from bone, wear necklaces made from the coloured seeds of
wild plants and trees. As beggars they are very demanding and
have the knack of rubbing the base of the palms of both hands
together when soliciting alms, while rapidly announcing: ‘Look,
it’s coming soon … See, it’s on its way … Soon, now. Very very
soon it will be here … Ah, I can see it now; there just there. Oh
there, come, come this way.’

The people from whom they are begging, when they hear these
words, attach great significance to what, or whom, the ‘It’
mentioned by the Koya Mama might be, and hastily force a gift
upon him, inviting him to go and visit the neighbour next door.

The Koya Mamas have a further knack of introducing a strand

of horse hair between the heels of their palms when they rub them
together. A tiny charm is attached to this hair; after vigorous
rubbing the strand seeks to unravel itself, thus causing the little
charm literally to dance on the Koya Mama’s palm. If you give
him a rupee, he will present you with this charm (minus the
horsehair of course) as a very lucky keepsake.

The Dawa Lokey generally send their womenfolk out to beg,

even this task being considered beneath their menfolk, apart from
being too strenuous. These women wear no jackets, but move from
house to house barebreasted and dressed in single-coloured cotton
sarees. Their ‘doctor’s bag’ consists of a quilted cloth with the four
corners meeting together over a short stick, which they carry
across their shoulders in the manner of a gun. Inside the cloth is
an assortment of roots, herbs and powders in small boxes. This
forms their pharmacopoeia. There is no illness for which they
have no cure, and they will try to impress one by answering in a
different language from the one by which they are addressed.
Should one happen to be conversant with this second language
and answer in that dialect, the medicine-woman will then try
third.

These itinerant doctresses announce their arrival at your front

door in peculiar singsong voices with the words ‘Dawa Lokey’
repeated over and over again. Strictly speaking they are not
beggars, as they earn their living by dispensing their herbal
medicines. Depending upon the sagacity of the individual
concerned, some of the roots and leave and powders they sell are
singularly efficacious.

Every married couple in India desires to have children. This for

two reasons. The first and most important because to be childless
carries a great stigma on the wife as barren and incapable of
bearing offspring. Very few people stop to consider that it might be
the man who is to blame, and not the woman, for it is at once
taken for granted that the woman is barren, and barrenness in
India is a terrible affliction. It is thought that the gods are
unfavourably disposed to such a woman; maybe she is immoral
and has lost the capacity to bear offspring, or maybe she is
diseased. But whatever the reason the poor woman gets all the
blame and she, not her husband, is looked down upon with a
mixture of pity and contempt, and suffers too, from the attitude of
superiority among her fertile neighbours.

The other reason for this fear of childlessness is, of course, the
desire for the continuation of the family, and for this reason it is a
son who is desired and not a daughter.

There is in India a vast difference between having a son and

having a daughter, and if a man is lucky enough to be the father of
a number of sons he is considered to be on top of the world. For
each of the sons, at the time of marriage, brings in a dowry. This
dowry generally takes the form of a couple of thousand rupees or
more, jewellery, land, a house or lower down the scale a car, a
radio-set or transistor, or maybe a pair of gold rings or an
automatic gold watch.

If, on the other hand, the man is unfortunate enough to have a

daughter for whom he has to find a husband, that man is at the
other end of the stick. For it is he who will have to do all dowry-
giving to the bridegroom, who gives nothing in return, and if that
man is unfortunate enough to be the father of several daughters he
is indeed undone, as he will have to part with as many dowries as
he has daughters. Nor will he be able to dodge the issue by keeping
his daughters unmarried. To have even one daughter unmarried
carries with it a fearful disgrace, for everyone will say that she is a
bad girl and not a virgin; hence nobody will marry her. To have a
number of unmarried daughters is to reach the bottom in public
esteem. No girl is allowed to marry until her elder sister is married
before her. Hence, if the father is poor and cannot afford to pay
the required dowries, none of his daughters can marry and they
are all dubbed as prostitutes, for to the person in the street there is
only one reason for any girl to remain unmarried. Otherwise,
surely someone or the other would have come forward to marry
her. The reason why nobody has done so must surely be that the
girl, and very likely her whole family, are immoral. The question
that the father might be too poor to pay the dowries is
conveniently overlooked.

As a consequence of this custom, the parents of every boy try to

get a wife for him who brings the highest dowry. Conversely, the
parents of a girl must look for a boy whose parents, in their turn,
are prepared to accept a dowry of as little as the girl’s parents can
afford. And it is all left to the parents of both sides to bargain and
barter. The boy and girl have no say in the matter, or in the
choosing of their mates.

Money, having become paramount in India, as indeed it has

throughout the world, the outcome is that it is comparatively easy
to get your boy married and correspondingly difficult to get your
girl married. As in most other countries, the birthrate, or survival
rate of female children in India exceeds that of males, so the
situation grows more difficult as the years pass for those
unfortunate people who consider themselves to be cursed with a
family of daughters.

In the overall picture, as people do not want to be childless for

the reason I have already mentioned, the work of the government
and of family planning organisations is extremely difficult. The
significance of the threatened ‘population explosion’ is entirely
lost on the average Indian ryot and poor person.

Poverty today is so great, and the cost of living so high, that a

married couple can never think of having any form of hobby or
recreation, however simple. Nor can they furnish their houses or
buy any of the good things of life, not to mention food. This hand-
to-mouth existence creates a deadly routine. Both husband and
wile can afford to partake only of a very frugal nasta (breakfast),
consisting of a small rice cake and a sip of coffee. Then both go out
to work. The midday meal is equally frugal, and when they return
in the evening the wife has to cook dinner, which again is frugal
enough and consists of only a little curry and rice. After that, the
couple retire for the night. They do not read, as they are illiterate.
Even if they could read, they are too poor to afford the electricity
or the kerosene required to illuminate their tiny rooms, many of
which are hardly better than hovels.
 What is there, anyway, for them to lie and discuss? The scarcity
of food? The rising cost of living? Life’s problems, and more
problems and yet more? The only recreation that remains to these
poor people is sex. It costs nothing. Further it does bring with it a
measure of forgetfulness, of satisfaction, and a certain joy.
Thirdly, when both are bullied at work by grasping employers,
who drive them all day for what they can get out of them in the
form of labour all day in return for a miserable pay, the realm of
sex is something in which the man, and more rarely the woman,
can at least dare to boost their frustrated egos. They can really let
themselves go without fear.

Now, into the midst of this picture, admittedly dismal, comes a

group of people who preach that even this one remaining pleasure
should be eschewed. They are the members of the Family Planning
Centre, introduced by the government at the behest of the UNO
(who are all foreigners anyway), and they say that a married
couple should have no children, or at most two children, and not
more. These people say that the world is too full of children, and
soon will be too full of men and women, and there will not be
enough food to go around. As if there was enough food even now!
The way to avoid all this, say the Family Planning people, is for
each man and woman to undergo an operation. Alternatively, the
woman may wear a loop, or swallow a pill now and then, or use
some other sort of device.

So the villagers ask themselves: what in the world is life coming

to? Our fathers, our grandfathers, our great-grandfathers, all
enjoyed sex! We enjoy sex! Now these people tell us these things.
They are trying to take away from us the only pleasure that
remains to us. We have nothing else to enjoy but the act of sex.
Must we give that up, too? Because one day some years hence, the
world will be too full of men and women and there will be no food
to eat! Where will we be then? We are starving now anyway, and
we may not live another five years. Maybe not even another one.
Certainly not for twenty or thirty years? So leave us in peace to
enjoy the one and only pleasure left. Mind your own business and
leave us to mind ours. Why, only the other day when we went to
the coffee shop for a sip, we heard all the people there laughing
heartily. ‘What is so funny?’ Some of us asked, ‘Let’s share the
joke.’

It was sometime before anyone could stop even to speak. At last

one said, ‘Remember the Family Planning doctor who used to
lecture to us daily? And remember the nurse who fitted our
women with loops, and distributed pills among them? Well, he has
made her pregnant and now she is on maternity leave.’

‘Ho! Ho! Ho! Ha! Ha! Ha! Her own loop must have fallen off!’

On the other hand, my friend ‘Samiar’ (a term of religious

respect), who lives on a little hillock not far from my land near
Pennagram, in Salem district, plies a more popular and a far more
lucrative trade.

Just over five feet tall, little Samiar (who is getting on in years
now) enhances his stature by wearing several coils of very dirty
black false hair upon his head. He has brilliant, piercing black
eyes and wears huge earrings. On ceremonial occasions he
decorates his forehead with white and red caste marks. For the
forty years or more that I have known him, Samiar’s reputation as
a medicine man who can make barren women bear children has
not ceased to soar. Hundreds of women have been brought to him,
and as many have come of their own accord.

Samiar charges a very low professional fee for this service; just
ten rupees for a poor woman and a fifty for a very rich one. The
other condition is that the woman must be left alone with him in
his hut during the hours of daylight. (To make such a condition
extend into the hours of darkness would be scandalous, would it
not? But surely nothing could possibly happen while the sun was
shining, and after all, he is a ‘Samiar’, is he not?) Not so strangely,
about half of the women become pregnant, but what is more
strange is that most of those who do become pregnant have
husbands who are sickly or otherwise wanting.

As I have hinted, I know Samiar extremely well. What very few

others know is that he is a powerful hypnotist; also a rascal of the
first degree, although an extremely jolly and likeable rascal. What
is strangest of all is that many of these children, as they grew
older, become rascals too, but jolly and likeable ones, and all of
them have brilliant piercing, black eyes.

I have wandered in this country all my life, in its jungles, in its

villages. I have mixed with hundreds of its poorest folk and talked
to them. What I have written is only what they have told me in
their own words. Of course, I understand the threat of ‘population
explosion’. I know, and can and do appreciate what the Family
Planning Units are trying to do. But I greatly fear it will not work.
The poor Indian, like everybody else, is human even if he is poor.
He wants something concrete for himself, here and now, and is
scarcely interested in what happens in the future, even only
twenty or thirty years hence. He does not expect to live that long
himself. And he could not care less what happens to those alive at
that time.

Since there is no alternative recreation for him, since the

conditions of living will continue to be as hard and difficult, and
will grow harder and more difficult from day to day, he (and she)
are not going to give up or even curtail in any way the one and
only recreation they have left to them—the pastime of ‘sex’.

India is being flooded by young people of all nationalities who

come to the country in the thousands every month. Except for
Russians, we meet folk from the Americas and from western
Europe, even from Japan, wandering about the streets of our cities
and towns. Some are ‘hippies’ but the majority are not, although
it will be difficult for you to find any in normal western dress. On
the contrary, some adopt the saffron gown and heavy head
necklaces of the Yogi, the short loincloth and bare body of the
Indian labourer, the loose pants with outside shirt of the northern
Indian, with hairstyles varying from long hair and heavy beard
through all the intermediary stages to no hair at all on either head
or face. Mostly they are to be seen with hair flowing wildly in the
breeze and in other cases wound around the head in elaborate
hairstyles. The women of these groups appear equally odd: a few
wear sarees draped around themselves rather clumsily and not in
the graceful manner of an Indian woman, while others wear the
‘kameez’ and ‘calva’ (the shirt and tight trousers) of the northern
Indian ladies. Some come in ultra-mini skirts, while a number are
at the opposite extreme, wearing dresses of ankle-length that defy
definition.

Curiosity has urged me to talk to a number of these visitors in

an effort to understand them, and this much I have gleaned, that
almost everyone has confessed that he or she has found no place in
the world like India. Some of them have travelled widely, and all
of them hope to spend the rest of their lives in India. I have then
inquired what it is they have found so attractive, but to this
question I found a great variety of answers. Some say this country
is very peaceful, the people very nice, the climate excellently
warm, the sunshine superb, food and living very cheap. Others say
they have a great urge for matters spiritual which they cannot
satisfy in their own country, where the rush and bustle is too
great. All are agreed on one thing. Time counts for nothing in
India; there is no hurry about anything and there is always a
tomorrow.

A large number of these people have attached themselves to

ashrams or to individual Yogis in different parts of this peninsula.
One of the main centres is at Pondicherry where men and women
of different races have joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram with
hopes of settling down in the interracial township of Auroville,
already planned and now under construction. This township
promises to be Utopian in character, where people of all nations,
colours and religions may live together in peace and harmony—
the only township of its kind in Asia. Many others have joined the
following of the reincarnated Sai Baba at Whitefield. They are
happy in their search for peace of soul, peace of mind and peace of
living.

But all of these visitors are apt to forget a very important factor;
actually, the most important factor of the lot. They have money
sent out to them from their home countries, and if it were not for
these remittances they would not be able to live in India at all,
whether in an ashram or elsewhere, for as visitors and foreigners
they are not allowed to take up work and be paid for it. It would
be well for them to bear this fact in mind always, and not to speak
so bitterly against their own lands as some of them do. For I
repeat, it is their own country that gives them the money on
which they find they can live so happily in India. Should these
remittances for any reason cease, these visitors would have to go
back to their countries and the ‘rat-race’ from which they have
fled. And they will have to go back in a terribly great hurry, for
each day they delay would make them that much more hungry.

But we have another type of foreign visitor, one who appears to

want to break all the laws of the host country and escape the
consequences by virtue of the fact that he is a citizen of another
land. I am certain these people would never think of behaving in
their own lands as some of them do in India. No doubt the
comparatively easy living, the lack of the time factor, the
probability that they will get away with it nine times out of ten, if
not ninety-nine times out of a hundred, tempts them to act in this
way, not realising (or caring) that their action boomerangs upon
themselves, and upon their own countrymen wanting to visit
India, and lastly on unfortunate people like myself who have
chosen to remain in India and make it our home. Because of such
wayward behaviour, we are classed with them as undesirable, as
pestilential white folk who have no business to remain in India,
who should go back without further delay to wherever we, or our
ancestors, come from. In the stress of situations created by
thoughtless visitors, it is only natural for Indians to forget that
some of us settlers whose families have been in this land for
generations by virtue of our living and experience are as much
Indian, if not more than they are themselves. We have helped to
build India into what it is.

But let me return to matters more strictly Indian, from which I

appear to have strayed. Rarely will an Indian of the working
classes, man or woman, know his or her own age or date of birth.
Little attention is paid to this event, although the anniversary of a
death is always remembered. This is because a whole set of
ceremonies has to be performed for the dead person, year after
year on the anniversary of a death. No importance, however, rests
on a birthday. This is not true, however, of the upper classes. Not
only is the day of birth recorded but the exact time to the very
minute. The reason is that each individual man and woman of the
middle classes or above is required to have his or her horoscope
cast. It is incumbent upon the parents to do this for their children,
and astrologers, who earn a very comfortable living in India
casting horoscopes, require to know exact details of time and
place of birth to be able to cast the horoscope correctly.

The one thing that may be regarded as the curse of our country,
and which the government from the time of Independence has
tried, and is still trying hard to stamp out, albeit with little
success, is the caste system. This system concerns only Hindus and
not the other communities inhabiting this vast land. In simple
words it means that every living Hindu, man, woman or child,
must belong to one or other of the numerous castes that go to form
the Hindu community. They belong to a caste, whichever it may
be, by virtue of being born into it through parents of that same
caste.
 No person can change his or her caste under any circumstances.
He can never promote himself to a higher caste whatever his
merits or achievements. He is of that caste because his parents
belonged to it and his grand parents before them, and his great-
grandparents before that, and so on. His caste is as unalterable as
the laws of the universe. Some of these caste classifications are
governed by the trade the individual follows. It goes without
saying that his father, grandfather and so on, followed the same
trade before him.

For example, scavengers or sweepers, as they are called, are at

the lowest rung of the caste ladder. Cobblers, or ‘clucklers’ as
these are termed, are a slight step higher, and so on till we come to
the warrior caste and the highest of all, the priests or Brahmins.

To give you an idea of how the caste system operates, let me

show you a true-to-life example. About fourteen miles south of my
home-town of Bangalore is a wild and hilly area known as
Bannerghatta, where I own a farmstead consisting of a furnished
house, a stone-lined well, and five acres of land, which I
purchased for less than Rs. 10,000 (about £556). Half a mile from
this farmstead are two hamlets. The name of one is Sampigehalli,
and the name of the other is Byrappanahalli. Each consists of less
than 200 homes. About two-thirds of these buildings are brick-and-
mud structures, and the remaining one-third are wattle-and-
thatch huts. The population of each settlement is well within
1,000 souls. Nevertheless in each of these hamlets there are no less
than seven castes. Among these, the Brahmins and Lingayats are
the highest in status; then come the Vakalgiries, working down to
Karumbas, Maloles, Waddars and Madigols.

The government has built wells in both places for the use of all
the inhabitants. But do you think that anyone or everyone is
allowed to draw water? Not a bit of it. The lower castes are strictly
debarred. Incidentally, I myself am debarred from drawing water
although I am not a Hindu and do not belong to any caste. The
reason is that I eat beef. As a beefeater, I am considered as
belonging to the lowest category of human being, lower even than
a Madigol, if that were possible. Is not the cow a sacred animal?
And I dare to eat it.

Then men, of course, never draw water. In a home such a task is

considered to be beneath the status of a husband as master of the
household. Only the women go to the village well. Yet, should a
woman of one of the lower castes require water, she may go to the
well with her pitcher, but that is all she can do. She must wait till
a woman of a higher caste comes along; then she may ask this
woman to be kind enough to draw a pot of water for her use. If the
woman obliges, well and good. Should the woman be in too great
a hurry and unable to spare the time, the low-caste woman must
wait till some high-caste housewife, who can spare the time and is
kind enough to oblige, draws the water for her.

One of the servants at my farmstead is named Ramiah. He is an

old man and a Madigol. He lives with his son and daughter-in-law
and two grandchildren in a wattle-and-thatch hut in
Byrappanahalli hamlet. One night we had a great storm, with
high winds and torrential rain. Ramiah’s hut fell down about
midnight. Do you think the family could shelter in one of their
neighbour’s huts or house? No! They were Madigols, that is of the
lowest caste! So Ramiah, his son, daughter-in-law and
grandchildren sat in the pouring rain all night amidst the remains
of their fallen hut and continued to sit there till noon the
following day, by which time the sun had partly dried both them
and the thatch scattered upon the ground. Then they got together
to rebuild what they could of their hut before nightfall. There was
no alternative if they were to avoid sitting in the open for another
night.

The hamlets of Sampigehalli and Byrappanahalli are still there

and these customs continue to this day. The government has tried
hard to eradicate them. But the customs are centuries old and, as
everyone knows, old habits die hard, particularly does the caste
habit, because everyone of a higher caste has such a glorious
opportunity to exploit all the castes below him.

The government has also tried to help the tillers of the soil. It
has given many of them a couple of acres of land per head, a
plough and two head of cattle, along with a loan to build a hut for
themselves. As often as not the recipients of these gifts sell the
plough and the oxen within a month of receiving them, and try to
sell or mortgage the land as well. That is going rather far,
however, and nobody has sufficient nerve to conclude this last
transaction by buying the land.

Ryots have been invited to take generous loans from banks on

security of the title-deeds of their lands. The money is intended to
develop the land for agricultural purposes by digging wells,
fertilising fields and so on. The loans carry very low interest, are
for ten years, and may be repaid in easy instalments. But the ten
years come and go, and no instalments, easy or otherwise, are
paid, nor interest. The lands are not fertilised or developed, nor
are wells dug. The ryot has spent the money on his daughter’s
dowry and wedding or on himself, in having a good time. The
lockers of the banks are filled with people’s title-deeds and the
banks are wondering what they are going to do with them.

Major organised crime is rare in India. Murders are frequent, but

they are generally motivated by infidelity, jealousy or disputes
over land. Suicides are common and people kill themselves for
every conceivable reason. The folk are emotional and
temperamental, and suicide follows in the wake of a normally
simple everyday problem which might have been easily solved.

Far down in the crime scale are pocket-picking, petty cheating

and pilfering. To the last two groups there is no limit; it is taken
for granted that your neighbour will cheat you should he get half
a chance to do so and if you have not been clever enough to cheat
him first.

By and large, the rich classes are very rich and the poor very
poor. Between these two extremes is a vast middle class of people
forming perhaps a third of the population. The very poor make up
the remaining two-thirds, the rich people being but a tiny fraction
of the whole population. These rich people—landlords, business
tycoons, cinema stars and so forth—have little to do with the very
poor and as a rule are not in the least considerate to them. The
poor, comprising the bulk of the population, have been poor all
their lives and for generations before, having descended from a
long line of ancestors who have always been poor. Prior to
independence in 1947, for hundreds of years they had been ruled
and oppressed by foreigners as well as their own kith and kin in
the form of maharajahs, chieftain, princes, zamindars, landlords
and money-lenders. They think in terms of having had no past, a
present that is extremely bad, and a future that is without hope.

With all this background of poverty, misery and general

hopelessness, we should not be too hard on those petty faults and
weaknesses which are but the natural outcome of generations of
exploitation and overpowering sense of inferiority. It is to be
hoped that the time will come when the races of India realise at
last that they are an independent people and not just talk about
it.

India is a beautiful land, inhabited by a nice, friendly people,

more appreciated by foreigners than by themselves. The majority
of Indians think in narrow terms of caste, religion and community
rather than nationality. The rulers are doing what they can to
correct them and create a sense of national unity, but they have
an uphill task, with many ancient customs and prejudices to
overcome—the chief of which is the caste system—and a host of
self-interested people to beat. Old habits die hard, and in this
instance it is particularly difficult to kill the old caste bogey for
the very cogent reason that millions of persons classed as of high
caste, live and benefit by it, as their ancestors did before them for
untold generations. It is only natural that they are disinclined to
relinquish a way of living that has been and still is of daily gain to
themselves in every sphere—in their employment, their official,
social and financial and domestic status—merely in order to
satisfy an ideal of improving the country, when they know quite
well they will not be nearly so well off should the caste system
disappear.
 4

Some Indian Game Sanctuaries

HAVE had the privilege of visiting five of the game sanctuaries

I of northern India. These five, and a number of others, have been
created by the government in a last minute attempt to save some
of the noblest animals of the subcontinent from extinction.
Among these creatures are the Asian lion that is found only in the
Gir forest of Gujarat state, the one-horned rhinoceros that lives in
the northeastern extremity of the country in the state of Assam
and in Nepal, the Indian wild buffalo found roughly in the same
localities as the one-horned rhino, and the swamp deer, sometimes
called the barasingha (meaning ‘twelve-horned deer’), because of
the twelve tines that adorn this magnificent animal, six upon
either antler.

I began a tour of five sanctuaries in the company of two

American friends and a Canadian, and as I maintained a day-to-
day record of all that happened, I had better present the facts as
they occurred. As far as I was concerned, the journey started when
I left the airport of Bangalore for Bombay on the morning of March
3, 1970. It was a smooth fast flight, with nothing much of interest
to see. We flew over Belgaum and soon saw smoke rising from
several forest fires that were raging on the ghats between Poona
and Bombay.

In exactly one and a half hours we touched down at the Santa

Cruz airport at Bombay, whence I went by taxi to the Nataraj
Hotel, which was the arranged rendezvous with the other
members of the party, whose plane, however, arrived only after a
fifteen-hour delay.
 Eventually we started one morning for the small airport of
Keshod in Gujarat state, from which point air-passengers are
conveyed to the heart of the Gir forest, where we had booked
rooms in the spacious forest lodge, where travellers are generally
accommodated. The plane—a Dakota magnificently dolled up and
in excellent flying condition—carried us across the small strip of
the Arabian Sea which separates the city of Bombay from the
peninsula of Saurashtra, which forms the western portion of
Gujarat state. We flew over several steamers and noticed shoals of
dolphins leaping from the waves.

The airport of Keshod is a few miles inland. There we were met

by the van that was to convey us to the settlement of Sasan Gir,
fifty-five miles distant, in the heart of the forest of the lions. En
route we passed the port of Veraval with its ancient Somnath
temple. There is a legend here that when the Mohammedan
invader, Mohammed of Ghazni, planned to destroy this edifice in
1026, two thousand Brahmins poured holy water, brought all the
way from the Ganges river, upon the idols, and strewed flowers
over them night and day, to win the grace of the Gods and avert
disaster. Mohammed of Ghazni never destroyed the temple.

The road was dry and dusty and the forest, when we reached it,
was equally dry, rather open, sprinkled with babul trees and
interspersed with dwarf teak and not too many thorns. Except for
the teak, the scenery was reminiscent of Africa.

The ‘Guest House’, which is the grandiloquent name given to

the forest lodge, was comfortably furnished and the khansama
(cook-butler-tableboy) laid out a welcoming meal. We found the
officials of the Forestry department most obliging and cooperative.

What is popularly called the ‘lion show’ had been arranged for
five o’clock that evening. A live buffalo-bait had been tied up
about eight miles away and the pride of lions that had been
located in the vicinity actually ‘called’ to the spot by the junior
forest officials, corresponding in rank to the forest guards of
southern India, but known in Gir as shikarees or chowkidars.
Many of them are quite old, and have been in the employment of
the Forestry department when the Gir forest belonged to Junagadh
state and ruled by a Muslim prince. This prince flew to Pakistan
when India annexed his territories, and that was how the Gir
forest became part of the province of Saurashtra in the Indian
state of Gujarat. The shikarees and chowkidars were transferred to
service in the government of Gujarat, but many of them still
proudly display the letters J. F. (for Junagadh Forests) in polished
brass on their tunics.

Incidentally, no visitor is allowed to watch the actual killing of

the buffalo-bait by lions. The authorities consider that this might
encourage the taking of life. But there is no objection to watching
the lions feeding once that bait has been killed by them. The bait
costs the visitor Rs. 150, and there is also a fee for using still or
cine cameras.

It is interesting to watch the shikarees and chowkidars actually

calling the wild lions. There are generally two of these men
present, and they make a ‘Khik! Khik! Khik!’ sound with their
mouths, followed by a ‘Kroo! Kroo! Kroo!’ noise with their lips.
The wild lions appear to respond to these calls, if they do not
recognize the persons who are making them and actually
approach quite close to the caller.

To be on the safe side, the guards are armed with single-

barrelled guns of .12 bore, loaded with buckshot. I examined the
weapons carried by the men who had called the lions and found
them to be as ancient as the men themselves assuredly hailing
from the days of the old Junagadh forests. I then questioned the
men as to why they carried these weapons, and the older of the
two replied that sometimes, although very rarely, a young lion in
his prime would resent the presence of onlookers in numbers,
armed with cameras big and small, who keep moving around
while he and the other members of the pride are eating. This
animal then becomes aggressive, begins to growl and excites the
rest of the pride. Then anything might happen.

‘I have been dealing with lions since I was a boy, sahib,’ he

confided in Hindustani, ‘and my father before me, and his father,
and his father before that. Always watch the tail, sahib, then the
eyes. And listen to any noise the animal might make. When the
tail begins to twitch and rise above his back, when those large
green eyes lose their roundness and start to half-close, when the
whining sound he is making—or perhaps he is making no sound at
all, or maybe he is just grunting—changes to a rumbling growl, he
is about to charge you. Run for your life then, if you think you
can. Actually it will be useless, for you won’t run very far. Should
none of these things happen, you are safe, although it might only
be for the moment. Never can you tell when these shaitan log
(devil people) suddenly become angry. You should always watch,
watch, watch. The tail sahib, and those big green eyes!’

Apparently the purpose of the ancient gun and its load of

buckshot was to fire in the air if necessity arose, rather than at the
offending animal should it begin to evince signs of rising
excitement. My informer said that the noise of the shot invariably
had the effect of calming it down. Personally, I think the main
purpose of the old guns was to boost the courage of those who
carried them.

There was a pride of six lions on the kill when we arrived

shortly after five o’clock. It consisted of two full-grown lionesses
and four half-grown cubs, two cubs belonging apparently to each
lioness. Unlike tigers and most other animals, all the lions seemed
to be on friendly terms with each other and there were no signs of
quarrelling.

As we grew bolder, we went closer and closer, till we were

within thirty feet of the feasting animals. My friends, who were
equipped with cameras, were taking photographs as fast as they
were able. At one stage one of the lionesses, possibly disgusted at
our close presence, seized the kill by a hind leg and pulled so hard
at it as to break the tethering rope. She started to drag the dead
buffalo away.

Then an amazing thing happened. The two chowkidars ran

forward, caught hold of the dead animal by a foreleg, and started
to pull in the opposite direction. It was an incredible spectacle. A
tug of war between two human beings and a wild lioness, with
five other lions looking on and a crowd of human spectators. I
would never have believed it had anyone told me. The foresters
were no match for the lioness, who started dragging them along
with the kill. Then, amazingly, they let go of the leg they were
pulling and ran forward towards the lioness, shouting in unison at
the pitch of their lungs. The lioness released her hold, leaped
backwards, and stood erect to look at the two men wistfully.

The other five lions were watching the scene with interest. We
continued to regard it with amazement. Hastily, and not without
considerable effort, the two men dragged the bait back to the tree
to which it had been secured, and re-tethered it. I then lost my
regard for the ferocity of the lions of Gir. As if nothing whatsoever
had happened, all the lions returned to their meal, and in less
than an hour there was not much left of the buffalo but bones.

The cubs, now replete with meat, began to take an interest in

us. Their mothers, also full, rolled on to their sides and went to
sleep. The sun was low in the western horizon.

Seeing themselves free of parental interference for once, two of

the youngsters bounded playfully towards us, making guttural,
mewing noises. Clearly they were purring as lion cubs usually do.

‘Get back, sahib! Get back!’ cautioned the elder chowkidar in a

low voice, at the same time motioning urgently with his hand for
us to retreat. Rather surprised at his unexpected concern at the
approach of the cubs we nevertheless obeyed.

‘If the mother wakes up and sees them near you,’ he said by way
of explanation, ‘she will think you are going to harm them. Then
all hell will break loose. You will come to know what the shaitan
log are really like.’

Very soon the two lionesses awoke and returned to the remains
of the kill which, as I have said, now consisted mainly of bones.
One of the spectators, a professional photographer from Austria,
got the chowkidars to drive the lionesses back for a moment while
he hung a microphone from a branch of the tree beneath which
the bones lay. Then he photographed the lionesses teasing the
bones while he tape recorded the sounds.

Just about this time one of the lionesses had a small fracas with
a cub that was worrying her. The Austrian recorded this too. Then
he played the tape back. It was amusing to observe the expressions
on the lion’s faces when they heard their own growl and snarls.

Suddenly the pride stopped feeding. With one accord all heads,
including those of the cubs, were turned away towards a nullah a
few yards distant. We could see nothing. We heard nothing. The
next moment, silently, from between the stems of teak and babul,
a magnificent lion in his prime stepped forth, his mane was only
slightly less heavy than that of his African cousin. Even at this
distance and in the fading light, we could see the tufts of hair
protruding from the elbows of his forelegs.

Our chowkidars became perturbed. They backed away from the

pride and motioned to us to follow. We did so, retreating the fifty
yards to where the van awaited us. We got inside.

‘It is the bad lion, sahib,’ said the older forester. ‘When he turns
up, the lion show must come to an end at once. For he brooks no
spectators and is no respector of cars or persons. See even the other
lions fear him.’

We turned to see the pride of six scatter in all directions. There

came a thundering growl as the newcomer walked up to the
bones, sniffed at them, and raised his head to regard us balefully.

The light was bad, but the photographers in the party wanted to
stay to photograph the lion. The two chowkidars, however, were
obdurate. To remain would be to court trouble, if not tragedy.
They urged the driver to start the vehicle and drive away. When
we complained the older man replied, ‘Sahib, we are responsible
for the safety of all of you. That animal is a shaitan personified. If
he had made up his mind to charge, these ancient weapons we
carry would not stop him. Allah himself knows whether the
cartridges would go off, for they are very old. We give him a wide
berth when he appears. So also do the other lions, as you can see
for yourself.’

It was dusk when we left the bad lion in undisputed control of

the situation and began the return journey. We passed a few
spotted deer, some late peafowl and a four-horned antelope a mile
or so further and then, just as it was getting too dark to see, we
heard a lion roaring a few paces from the track.

The elder chowkidar motioned to the driver of the van to stop,

then banged the metal door with his hand while making the
‘Khik-Khik!’ sound with his mouth and the ‘Kroo-Kroo!’ noise
with his lips. Within a few minutes a half-grown lion stepped out
of the gloom, halted and gazed at the van expectantly. Clearly, he
was hoping for something to eat in the way of live bait. We
watched him for some minutes, then stepped out of the vehicle,
whereupon the lion melted away into the shadows.

More excitement awaited us upon our return to the Guest

House. Not content with the lion show, the enterprising Range
Officer in charge had laid on a panther show as well. After dinner
we were invited to attend this exhibition by following a pathway
which led from the bungalow through scrub-jungle to a spot
scarcely 300 yards away. A goat had been tied up to a post earlier
in the evening and killed by a panther which was, apparently, a
regular visitor to the spot, as he got an easy meal almost every
second day in order to allow visitors to watch him eat. As with the
buffalo-bait and the lions, spectators were not permitted to see the
actual killing but there was apparently no harm in watching the
panther eat once it had killed the goat. Incidentally, that goat
cost us about Rs. 60.

All was ready. The panther had killed the goat—a black one—
earlier, and then been driven off, being held at bay by a chowkidar
with a big stick, squatting beside the dead goat. As darkness had
fallen already, the scene was faintly illumined by concealed
floodlights. The path we followed led into a big, circular iron-
barred cage similar to what one sees at a circus but with this
difference. At the circus the animals are in the cage and the
spectators outside. Here, we were in the cage and the panther,
outside.

Once we had assembled, the chowkidar with the big stick who
had been keeping the panther off the kill, left his post, bringing his
stick with him, and entered the iron cage with us. Then he
secured the door behind him.

The panther had been watching and waiting for this moment.
Obviously he was well practised in the procedure and may often
have wondered to himself what it was all about. Perhaps he was
wiser and wondered how stupid human beings were to go to all
this trouble just to watch him eat.

Up he trotted within a few moments and fell with gusto upon

the goat. The floodlights were gradually increased in intensity
until, in about ten minutes, the scene was brightly lit. The
panther became aware of this and must have felt uncomfortable,
for he made one or two attempts to drag the goat away. But the
tethering rope held fast, and the panther eventually resigned
himself to tucking-in to meal under brilliant floodlight.

What might have been a rather unexciting exhibition was

fortunately ended by the unexpected arrival of a hyaena. Perhaps
this animal thought that he should also be given an opportunity to
show himself. He sneaked up from behind, but the panther
discovered him. With a snarl the panther left the kill to chase the
hyaena away. The hyaena bolted, with the panther behind him,
and the lights were dimmed.

Soon the panther returned, and a little later the hyaena too.
Another loud snarl and another chase. Back came the panther
followed by the hyaena who, growing bolder, showed himself.
This time there was much snarling and growling on the part of the
panther, and shrieking by the hyaena, but they never came to
actual grips. Clearly the panther was not going to have everything
his own way.

In the meantime the chowkidar, a young man this time, who

had been through it all many times before and was manifestly
bored, remembered that he had a young wife at home and felt that
she would be in need of him. He coughed vigorously and clapped
his hands. At the same time the floodlights were put out.

The panther show had come to its end. In the darkness we could
scarcely find the exit from the iron cage, but eventually we got
back to the luxurious forest lodge and the foam-rubber mattresses
and pillows on its beds.

At midnight I went out on the verandah. My companions were

sound asleep. In the distance a lion roared. From the low hills on
the opposite side came a chorus of roars in answer: ‘Aaauuungh!
Aaauuungh! Aauungh! Aauungh! Aungh! Aungh! Aungh! Aung!
Aung!’ The bewitching sounds died away into silence. I wondered
if the ‘bad’ lion was calling to the frightened pride.

Before six o’clock the following morning we were on our way in

the van to a jungle lake half-a-dozen miles away and reached it in
time to glimpse a lovely sunrise over the jungle-clad hills to the
east. The morning was pleasantly chilly in spite of the fact that
we were in midsummer and in one of the arid areas of India.

A spotted stag brayed his challenge by the lakeside and in a few

moments we saw him break cover and approach the water to
drink, a dark silhouette against the golden path laid by the rays of
the risen sun across the limpid water. A bevy of peafowl, quite
twenty birds in all, followed one another to within a hundred
yards of where the spotted stag was still drinking, and at that
moment a magical sound rent the air. A lion roared in a low
valley beyond the roadside and another answered from a short
distance further off.

A sambar-stag, hearing those roars, belled his alarm from a

distant hill-top. I was excited, perhaps even more than my three
friends from overseas. For I am familiar with the habits of tigers
which are quite different from those of lions, and the calls of the
lions enthralled me. I tore down the hill in the direction of the
sounds and my friends followed closely behind.

Soon we arrived at a sandy stream. Impressed freshly upon the

soft earth of the further bank were huge pug-marks. And they had
not been made by a tiger—for there are no tigers in the Gir forest.
They were the pug-marks of a lion.

We hastened onwards and were in time to catch a glimpse of the

animal leap into the undergrowth and vanish. Clearly it had
known that we were strangers and not the chowkidars to whom it
was undoubtedly accustomed. We could not see much of his mane
in the few moments the lion gave us. It was probably a young
animal; certainly not the ‘bad’ lion, which was just as well.

The sun had risen by the time we got back to the car. The road
circumvented a hillside and we were able to look down upon a
vast sheet of water. Floating upon it in several places were what
appeared to be logs of wood, but which I recognised as crocodiles.
Then we began the return journey, passing more spotted deer and
peafowl on the way. Also a small sounder of wild pigs.

The jungle-track passed several hamlets occupied by Maldharis,

the name given to a pastoral sect of people who live in this area
and bring their cattle into the Gir forest for grazing. They are a
colourful race. The men wear loosely-gathered jackets and
voluminous trousers, a turban or headband of coloured cloth, a
metal necklace with large ornaments, sometimes bangles of bone,
and inevitably carry wooden staves. The women dress rather like
the Indian gypsies, with ample brightly-hued sarees, tight-fitting
jackets that reveal wonderful figures no Western woman could
hope to approach, necklaces, bangles, ear-rings of silver, beads and
imitation ivory. They are most handsome. The children look like
miniatures of their elders but are even more brightly clothed.

In days past there was an abundance of water and grass in the

Gir jungle. Animals were plentiful too. The lions had their natural
prey and were not much interested in eating the livestock owned
by the Maldharis, a species of buffalo, large and with curved,
looping horns, which the peasants were mostly able to protect
successfully.

The Maldharis were poor but happy in the forest with their
buffaloes, whose milk and milk products they sold to the local
sahukars or moneylenders to whom they were in debt. But with
the passing of the old Junagadh state came unexpected problems.
More and more cattle from all over Saurashtra and Kutch were
driven into the forest, their numbers estimated at about 48,000 a
year, in addition to the 21,000 stock owned by the resident
Maldharis, who inhabit 129 nesses, or hamlets, corresponding to
the cattle pattis in the jungles of southern India. The Gir forest
then became a vast cattle camp, which created an acute shortage
of water and grazing, for which the Maldhari now has to travel a
long distance. With the continuous increase in cattle came cattle
diseases that spread to the wild fauna. The shortage of grazing also
cut the wild fauna down in numbers, and so did the increase in
promiscuous poaching.

All these changes affected the lions; they began to kill the cattle
and buffaloes of the Maldharis in greater numbers. The Maldharis
became poorer with the rising cost of living; they could not afford
to purchase cottonseed and groundnut cake to feed their herds.
Municipal taxes made the sale of their milk products difficult and
they were denied the benefits extended by welfare schemes in the
towns for the sale of butter and ghee for the reason that they were
not urban folk.

In desperation the Maldharis, who were generally not able to

procure firearms, began to poison the lions that killed their stock
by poisoning the flesh of the cattle that had been killed. When the
lions returned for a second meal, they ate the poison and died in
agony.

This is the same sort of thing that has led to the almost complete
extinction of tiger, panthers and even hyaenas in southern India.
But the position is even worse in the Gir; for whereas tigers and
panthers almost always hunt alone and are therefore poisoned one
at a time, the Gir lions, like their African cousins, hunt and feed
in prides and are thus poisoned in numbers. We were told that
nine lions had been poisoned in this manner very recently. This
was shocking news, considering the fact that the lions of Gir are
the only representatives of their species in the whole of Asia.
 The Gir itself has also been intruded upon by cultivation around
its perimeter, so that the area now comprising this forest is but
1,300 square kilometers or 576 square miles in extent. A census of
the lions remaining in this jungle, conducted in 1955 by measuring
and counting footprints, indicated about 247 animals. The next
census in 1968 showed only 177 lions, a decrease of about forty per
cent. The fate of the Gir lion is, indeed, hanging by a thread.

A century ago, the forests of Gir covered three times the present
area. Recent statistics reveal that sixty-three per cent of the land
surrounding the Sanctuary is under cultivation. With the felling of
the forest and advent of more and more cattle, together with the
presence of poachers and the poisoning of kills, the noble lion of
Gir seems doomed to extinction.

The Sanctuary is now estimated to support a wildlife population

of less than twenty-five per cent of its original strength,
compelling the lions to rely almost solely on the buffaloes of the
Maldharis for food. Their ability to get enough to eat is severely
taxed. Although this animal is by nature a nocturnal hunter,
existing conditions compel it to hunt by day because the
Maldharis corral their stock at sundown.

The Maldhari settlements past which we drove in the van that

morning proved to be small mud huts, thatched with sticks and
leaves. Allowing a vacant space for the cattle, the whole area of
each ness is enclosed by a strong, tall thorn fence, very
reminiscent of the thorn bomas of African herdsmen, or in some
instance by rock-and-mud walls. Indeed, the whole scenery in the
forest is much like that of the thorny scrub-jungles of Africa
except for the occasional stunted teak tree growing in between.

Should a lion succeed in jumping one of these fences or walls

and killing a buffalo, his effort is vain, since he cannot get his kill
over the obstruction to freedom. Should a lion succeed in killing
one of the herd in the jungle, he generally loses most of the meat
when the Maldhari herdsmen combine to drive him away to
salvage the hide.

Incidentally, this also happens in southern India when the

herdsmen drive a tiger or panther off the cow it has just killed.
Occasionally the feline resents this intrusion and attacks a
herdsman, mauling him, even occasionally killing him. That, in
turn, has often led to the tiger or panther becoming a man-eater. I
was told that the same thing has happened in Gir, although
infrequently. Now and then a lion has taken to killing men and
eating them; it has then had to be shot.

It is estimated that of the domestic stock killed within the

Sanctuary fifty per cent are taken by lions and outside the
Sanctuary, up to eighty per cent. Panthers account for the
remaining kills. As I have said before, there are no tigers in the
area.

Because he is mostly deprived of his victim, either as soon as he

kills or when he returns to the carcass to find the hide removed by
the owners, the lion is of necessity compelled to kill more often
than would be the case if he were allowed to gorge his fill.
Statistics show that twenty-three per cent of the kills are not
eaten at all, while the lions are barely able to consume ten
kilograms of meat from a further twenty per cent of kills.

This cycle of unfortunate circumstances has brought the lions of

Gir forest into conflict with the Maldharis who occupy the 129
nesses they have established all over the Sanctuary, as well as the
owners of thousands of visiting cattle. Enraged herdsmen do not
hesitate to shoot or poison such lions as they are able to if they
will not be detected.

The government pays compensation to the owner whose animal

has been killed by a lion outside the Sanctuary, but not when it
has been killed within. This is not good enough. The Sanctuary,
which was primarily created for the protection of these Asiatic
lions, is not being allowed to function as it should and fulfil the
purpose for which it was instituted.

Of the natural wild fauna three-quarters have disappeared.

Most of the fertile valleys in the Sanctuary have been cultivated
and a continuous strip of cultivation has already cut the
Sanctuary almost in two. The felling of trees—mainly teak—
continues, while the hordes of domestic livestock prevent saplings
from replacing them. Nearly two million kilograms of grass fodder
are removed from the Sanctuary every year. The Sanctuary has
been reduced to an impoverished, artificial and heavily-exploited
zone. The presence of the few remaining Asiatic lions alone has
aroused worldwide interest, but only the government of India can
save the situation at this last-minute stage.

I am glad to be able to record that the Central government has

risen to the occasion and has entrusted the state government of
Gujarat with a scheme called The Gir Lion Sanctuary Project,
which started in January 1972. The Governor of Gujarat, Shri
Shriman Narayan, envisaged a twofold target, the first object of
which was to protect the lions of Gir in particular, as well as other
wildlife, from poaching, poisoning and dangerous diseases. The
second object is the socioeconomic improvement of the Maldharis’
condition.

Many meetings were held and resolutions passed, resulting in

formal orders being issued by the government of Gujarat to: (1)
Close the Sanctuary permanently to grazing by migrant cattle. (2)
Enclose the whole area with an effective physical barrier. (3)
Allot land outside the Sanctuary to the Maldharis at present
inhabiting 129 nesses inside it, and to shift them, with their
families and livestock, out of the Sanctuary in a phased
programme. It remains to be seen how far these aims are carried
out. One fact is certain. Should the programme fail to be
executed, the Gir lion is doomed to extinction within the next
decade. Any number of meetings and resolutions, stacks of orders
that exist on paper, speeches by the highest officials, drawings,
plans and schemes supported by statistical data will not save the
lion. What is required is action, and that quickly.

It is discouraging to learn that, after the passage of a whole year,

the Maldharis were still where they have always been, in their
nesses within the Sanctuary.

After breakfast, at about ten o’clock, we left the forest lodge in

the van to motor the dusty roads to the capital of the old Muslim
ruler, a town named Junagadh, which is filled with ancient
Muslim tombs and mosques. A quick lunch at the Circuit House
and we were away again, this time bound for the royal palace of
Wankaner, where we were to spend a night and day as guests of
His Highness the Maharajah and the Prince Yuvaraj of Wankaner.
The distance from Sasan Gir to the palace is 105 miles by road.

Petrol trouble delayed us, but we were more or less on schedule

when we reached the palace at 5.30 p.m. where the Maharajah
and the Prince greeted us with old-world courtesy, garlanding us
to the particular delight of my friends.

Next morning the Prince took us out in a tourist cart to his

father’s private jungle of some 3,800 acres, situated about six miles
away. The country consisted of low, rolling hills; the soil was very
dry and clothed with dwarf babul. The Yuvarajah complained
that the townspeople from Wankaner made inroads into his
father’s forest, cutting the sparse timber for firewood and
poaching, if they got the chance.

We came to a palisaded house where the private salaried range

officer and two forest guards in the employment of the Maharajah
resided. These turned out and gave the Yuvarajah—and ourselves
—a big salute.
 Picking up one of the guards, we motored along the rough tracks
winding around the hills and sometimes across them, if the ground
permitted, meeting sixteen blue bulls, the colloquial name for
Nilgai, in small batches, the largest consisting of five members, all
male. We also disturbed two chinkara, a species of antelope
smaller in size than blackbuck, a lone fox, and numerous sand
grouse. The Yuvarajah told us that black partridge and sand
grouse visited the area in large numbers during the monsoons, but
went away with the approach of summer. The estate was covered
with porcupine diggings and burrows.

The Yuvarajah invited us to stop over another day and motor

with him to see the famous ‘wild asses of Kutch.’ These animals,
of the donkey family but standing almost as high as mules, live in
an area of this dry land somewhat over a hundred miles to the
north of Wankaner. Unfortunately we were bound to a tight
programme and just could not spare the time. Returning to the
palace, we were struck by the large numbers of wild peafowl that
strutted about and called to each other. Even the extensive
grounds of the palace were full of them. Nobody shoots these
beautiful birds in Gujarat. ‘Pea-or! Pea-or!’, their cries echoed
from all around.

The Yuvarajah, who had appointed himself as our guide, took us

next to his private farm, situated on the outskirts of the township
of Wankaner, where we were shown around a lovely guest house
that he was remodelling, with excellent furniture and, of all
things, an up-to-date swimming pool, something unheard of in
this arid land.

Close by was an ancient well, with steps of pure marble leading

down to two terraces built into the sides of the well. From the
centre of the well spouted a fountain of water that reached up to
the higher terrace and then splashed down to cover everything,
including part of the lower terrace, with a fine mist. We felt
delightfully cool, as if we were standing on an air-conditioned
verandah.

After lunch we left to motor to the capital city of Ahmedabad,

140 miles distant. I felt as if I were in another world, the
countryside being totally different from that of southern India. It
was a parched area, semi-desert, and this fact was emphasised by
the strings of camels we passed on the road, their numbers
sometimes assuming the proportions of a caravan. Seated on these
animals were wild-looking men and women in curious array.
Other camels carried their household effects, string-cots, all sizes
of pots and pans, immense heaps of clothing tied into bundles, and
miscellaneous other articles that could scarcely be identified. The
afternoon was exceedingly hot. As we approached Ahmedabad,
the country became slightly greener. It was evening when we
reached our destination.

Part of our programme the following morning was to visit the

Nal Sarovar lake, a bird sanctuary and a bird-watchers’ paradise,
but this had to be dropped. Due to two very severe summers in
succession when the monsoons had failed, the lake had dried up
completely. So we visited the local zoo instead, where we saw a
large variety of animals and a collection of birds from all over the
world that is really excellent. I was particularly interested in the
snake-pit with its jet black cobras. No doubt owing to the colour
of the local soil, which is very dark and known in these regions as
‘black cotton-soil’, nature has arranged that the creatures that
live upon it should also be dark in colour to prevent them from
being conspicuous, which would otherwise be the case.

Amidst a collection of tigers and panthers, and a pair of lions

from Africa, were a Gir lion and two lionesses. This lion we
discovered to be far fiercer than any of the wild lions we had met
at Gir, even putting the ‘bad lion’ to shame. He repeatedly
charged at his keeper and us, stopping only at the bars of his cage.
Even the African lion was unfriendly. Assuredly, the big felines
are far more docile in their wild condition.

That afternoon we took off by plane for the city of Udaipur,

where we landed after a very bumpy flight of fifty-five minutes,
due perhaps to flying over heated, almost desert land, barren,
rocky and unfriendly to look down upon. From the airport we
motored to the edge of a large and magnificent lake, boarded a
motor-launch and chugged across to one of a series of islands that
dotted the water. But this island was different from the rest, for
upon it has been built a beautiful hotel, known as the Lake Palace
Hotel, with sixty-five rooms that, for the most part, directly
overlook the water. The building encloses an open-air garden,
abounding with trees and flowering shrubs. It is the private
property of the Maharana of Udaipur, till recently one of the
important ruling princes of India. He has converted it into a
tourist hotel and is running it himself.

In the evening we went by launch to visit one of the

neighbouring islands, where the Maharana has a palace which is
also being converted into a twenty-room guest house with a
magnificent swimming pool. Some of the carving we saw in this
palace were wonderful, being old Moghul and Rajput work of
ancient origin. The Maharana has a huge palace on the mainland,
too, and yet another on the top of a neighbouring hill. From where
we stood, the hill-top palace seemed almost inaccessible, perched
like an eagle’s nest upon rocks at summit, it gleamed a pale pink
in the rays of the setting sun.

The Prince also owns a number of shooting boxes scattered

about the low scrub jungle of rolling hills that surrounds the lake.
Around the city of Udaipur itself are the remains of a continuous
wall, once built to protect it against the invading Muslim hordes
of the great Moghul conquerors.
 When the sun began to set behind the western hills and cast a
rippling red-gold pathway across the waters of the lake, we heard
raucous voices and saw a strange sight. Thousands upon
thousands of green parakeets flocked across the lake from every
direction to roost upon the huge trees that grew on the island. It is
estimated that over 10,000 birds fly here to roost each evening,
coming from areas over fifty miles distant. Each morning they fly
back again to feed, but return punctually once more the following
evening. This has been going on for centuries, as on the orders of
successive Maharanas no one may molest the parakeets; this
protection makes it possible for them to increase in numbers every
year.

Packs of jackals could be heard that night, howling on the

mainland: familiar and welcome sound, it brought back a hundred
memories of nights spent in jungles, now far away in the south.
The packs called and answered each other from shore to shore:
‘Here! Here! Here! Heee-hah! Hee-yah! Hee-yah! Hee-yah! Yah!
Yah!’

Then the following morning we took the launch for the shore,
where a car conveyed us to the Maharana’s main palace, a
wonderful structure of white and black marble, with coloured
glass windows, amazing carvings, and a rare collection of old
armour and swords. Nearby was an ancient temple. And in the
afternoon we set out for Jaisamal lake and game sanctuary, thirty-
five miles away, passing through dry jungle in hilly country
enroute.

In a little over an hour we arrived at the lake, an immense

expanse of water. The Maharana has yet another two palaces
here, on opposite shores. The lake appeared to be well-stocked
with fish, and we could see them leaping out of the water and
falling back again. The evening was bright and sunny.
 We motored five miles into the heart of the adjacent, Jaisamal
game Sanctuary to view a ‘Panther show’ of a different sort. The
jungle was fairly heavy, but very dry. We passed two herds of
spotted deer by the wayside, some of the stags carrying
exceptionally fine heads. Our destination was an abandoned
watchtower, constructed by a bygone Maharana and converted by
his descendant into a shooting box. It was built of stone and was
three floors high, and the walls were filled with loopholes
presumably for firing through. It looked like a miniature fort, and
overlooked a narrow, shelving valley, through the middle of which
passed a dry streambed. On the further side of this valley was a
gentle, sloping hillside. There were small glades clearly visible to
us between the trees and low bushes.

About fifty yards beyond the shooting box a wooden platform,

roughly five feet high, had been erected. It stood upon four legs
and was a more or less permanent structure. The unfortunate
goat, this time a brown one, was tethered on top of it and beneath
was a trough, filled with water.

We were invited to enter the stone tower, where four cars were
already parked, through a low doorway at its foot and to climb a
narrow stairway to the third floor. There we found a full house of
people assembled; they were seated in chairs before all the
available loopholes that overlooked the platform and its goat. In
this gathering were a film star and her friends. All of them were
chattering, smoking, moving about and hailing each other in very
audible voices.

It soon became clear that, so great was the audience, if we

wanted to see anything we would have to go down to the floor
below. This we did and chose four loopholes before any more
people came along.

I could not resist the temptation of asking the agreeable Forest

Range Officer (F.R.O.) in charge of the operations whether the
authorities felt any harm was being done by allowing us to watch
the panther kill the goat, telling him that in the Gir we had not
been allowed to see either the lions kill the buffalo or the panther
kill the goat prior to the ‘show’, as that was considered as
encouraging the taking of life. The F. R. O. smiled disdainfully.
‘We are Rajputs’, he vouchsafed by way of explanation. ‘Those
fellows are Gujaratis.’

He then went up the stairway to where the film star and her
friends were gathered, and soon the chattering ceased. He must
have impressed on the party that this was no rehearsal.

Staring through the loophole, I glimpsed a single spotted doe

across the dry stream in the mid-distance, soon followed by bevy
of after bevy of peafowl. Then dark forms filtered through the
undergrowth: a sounder of wild pigs. Then a slight movement
behind a bush in the foreground caught my eye. I stared hard. A
panther crouched close to the ground. I had not seen him arrive.
No one had. It was 6.15 p.m. The panther remained where he lay
without moving. Obviously he was aware of people watching and
preferred the greater darkness before he showed himself.

At 6.30 p.m. he moved slightly, but still did not risk an attack. It
was seven o’clock and getting quite dark when the panther could
contain its hunger no longer. From where it was crouching, the
spotted cat leaped neatly on to the platform, walked calmly up to
the goat that had turned around to face its attacker and was
straining backwards at its leash, and almost unconcernedly seized
it by the throat. The goat bleated once and kicked feebly. Then the
feline pressed the head of its prey to the platform and held it there
for a long time, till life was extinct.

It was getting more and more difficult for us to see anything in

the increasing darkness when the Ranger pressed the switch that
was to bring the spotlight into play, but there was no response.
The current had failed.
 We could barely see the panther tearing at the goat’s throat to
suck the blood from the jugular vein. A few minutes later it leaped
down from the platform and drank deeply at the trough of water.
Clearly this panther had been through the performance very often
before and knew exactly what to do. Then it became too dark to
see more.

The film star gave us a winning smile as she brushed ahead on

the narrow stairway in the ground, and soon we were heading for
Udaipur.

The next day was idle till the afternoon, when we left for the
airport. We were bound for the distant city of Nagpur, from where
we were scheduled to motor to the Kanha National Park. But there
were many delays on the way, due partly to bad weather and
partly to an argument at Delhi between the pilot and a passenger
who turned up after the engines had been started, so it was not
until early next morning that we landed at Nagpur. Rain was still
falling.

But we had to be up again at seven o’clock to set off on a

journey of 210 miles by car. Our entourage was of two vehicles: a
car for travelling and a Land Rover for our use in the sanctuary,
where some of the tracks, up and around steep hills, cannot be
negotiated by an ordinary car. Meanwhile the Land Rover was
hauling the trailer tightly packed with camping kit, a cook, a
butler, a table-boy, and all manner of food for our use while we
were ‘in camp’. Also any number of bottles of Coca-Cola for my
American friends. These stood upon ice in large ice-box, in rows
like soldiers on parade. Nagpur is situated in Maharashtra state,
while Kanha is in Madhya Pradesh. Thus we had to cross an
interstate frontier and in doing so were required to sign a form.
Our kit and foodstuffs were also examined with awe. It is not clear
what the searchers were looking for, but what they saw must have
puzzled them beyond belief. They passed us on without further
argument.
 Forty miles short of our destination the car became stuck in the
mud. It had been raining heavily an hour or so earlier and the road
was a morass. We got out to help and discovered we also had a flat
tyre. To jack the car in that mud was a problem. There seemed
nothing to do but wait for the Land Rover to catch us up.

Luckily it appeared fairly soon. We climbed aboard, changing

places with the cook and the other two servants whom we
transferred to the car. We left them to help the driver in his
struggle in the mud.

The road was in a terrible condition due to the recent heavy

rain and it was a difficult journey, even for the Land Rover,
encumbered as it was with the heavy trailer behind. We passed
through three forest chowkies, or checkposts, in succession, at
each of which were displayed numerous notice boards with
warnings against poaching and other offences. At every one of
these a fee or tax of some sort was collected from us. At last we
arrived at the guest houses, for there were quite a number of them.

When, as we unloaded the trailer, I saw all the food that had
been provided for us, I was lost in amazement. How different was
this fare from what I took on my own trips in the south! There,
after the second day, my diet invariably consisted of dried
chappati, often without butter. Roast beef was the luxury, but
only on the first day. Thereafter there were chappaties only, and
of course lots of tea. Here we had turkey, duck, chicken, mutton,
fish, fruits of every sort. Not one chappati could I see anywhere,
nor any sign of beef!

So we set off for the jungle in the Land Rover, a forest guard
seated beside the driver to direct him. Within a furlong we met
herd after herd of spotted deer, some of the stags carrying amazing
horns. Grazing along with these animals, and sometimes by
themselves, were herds of blackbuck. Now and again we could
pick out the almost black form of a mature stag with its white
belly, but for the most part the males were young. Does, along
with their fawns, were quite numerous. Peafowl were plentiful,
and we saw two red junglecocks. One flew across the track ahead
of us while the other ran along the roadside for a while before
dodging into cover.

The red jungle fowl of central and northern India is quite

different from the silver-hackled bird of the south. Neither species
changes its habitat: the central and northern bird is slightly
smaller, dark in colour with rusty red wing feathers, and crows
somewhat like a domestic cock. The southern bird is larger, with a
silver-grey hackle, and wing feathers that look as if they have been
painted with heavy oil-colours in a very dark brown border with
dark spots. Feathers of the same kind adorn the hackle in addition
to those of silver-grey. It has a very distinctive call: ‘Wheew! Kuck!
Ky’a! Ky’a! Khuckhm!’ It is by far the more beautiful of the two
varieties.

We returned to the guest house at sunset to find that the cook

had performed a miracle and our supper was ready. The dining-
room lay just off the verandah, so that while we ate we were able
to listen to all the sounds of the jungle. Soon we heard a series of
strange sounds, the like of which I had never heard before. Loud,
trumpet-like cries, somewhat like the braying of a spotted stag,
but with much more of the brassy resonance of a male sambar’s
note of alarm: ‘Aa-hh-harmm! Aa-hh-harmm! Aa-hh-harmm! Aa-
hh-harmm!’.

This was the call of a male barasingha! It is rather difficult to

imitate that memorable sound on paper, but when you hear it, it
is distinctive. And it is sad to think that in a few more years it will
be heard no more. The barasingha, or twelve-horned deer, derives
its name from its magnificent head of twelve tines, six upon either
side, the word ‘bara’ signifying twelve in Hindi, Urdu and
Hindustani. It is only very slightly smaller in size than a sambar,
but is dark brown as distinct from the brownish grey of the
sambar. Like the sambar, the stags have coarse, long hair on their
flanks and around the neck and throat, where it almost resembles
a mane. They are far larger than spotted deer.

Unfortunately, these creatures seem to be rather silly, lacking

the alertness of both sambar and spotted deer. They move slowly,
heavily and sedately, and are slow to take alarm, slow to react,
slow to run away. Nor can they run as fast as sambar, although the
latter is bigger. The stags have the same habit as the nilgai or blue
bull: they congregate in small herds of half-a-dozen without a
single doe.

These characteristics have led to their downfall, inasmuch as

they fall easy prey to the poacher, their principal enemy, in
addition to marauding tigers and panthers, as well as wild dogs
and even hyaenas. Barasingha, once plentiful in India, are now
almost extinct. The Kanha Sanctuary, designed for their
protection especially, holds but fifty-five of these beautiful
animals. Kaziranga, and a few other sanctuaries, have rather
more; but everywhere they are alarmingly scarce. Their future in
India, together with the lion of Gir and the one-horned rhinoceros
of Kaziranga in the northeast, is very bleak indeed.

I had not yet fallen asleep that night when I heard a tiger
roaring. He must have been half a mile from the guest house. How
good it was to hear that memorable sound again: ‘Oo-oongh! Aa-
oo-oongh! Aungh! Oo-oo-ongh!’.

We were away by six-thirty the next morning and very soon

found the group of barasingha that had been calling the night
before: five stags, all in a bunch together. Hardly a mile further on
we encountered four doe barasingha, these also in a group by
themselves. Not far from them we passed three groups of
blackbuck and many herds of spotted deer, one of them comprising
over a hundred animals. Bevy after bevy of peahens, and some
isolated cock birds, scattered to right and left of us. It was a
peaceful scene until we observed two jackals slinking through the
grass close by, silent reminders of the sudden death that can
overtake the creatures of the jungle at any moment.

Leaving the park-like country that is the abode of the deer, the
Land Rover took us into the low hills that surrounded it. Soon we
saw a pair of bison staring at us from under the tall sal trees. The
jungles of Kanha are very different from those of southern India.
Stately sal trees clothe the former, tall and straight and
beautifully green. The absence of lantana undergrowth is
noticeable, also of the ‘wait-a-bit’ or Segai thorn, both of which
make wandering in the south very difficult at times. This, and the
absence of wild tuskers, which are dangerous and a positive
hazard for the unwary hunter or greenhorn naturalist on foot,
make Kanha a paradise for ‘ghooming’, the Hindi name for
wandering about. On the whole, I would say the Kanha jungles
are about the best for this purpose that I have ever visited.

The next morning we drove through heavy forests, covering

over thirty miles or so of rising, hilly country to a high ridge where
the natural teak opened on to an extensive maidan or expanse of
low grassland, entirely surrounded by the jungle.

We were agreeably surprised to be told that the government of

India tourist department plans to convert this area into a landing-
ground sufficiently large to operate a Dakota plane service from
Nagpur for the convenience of foreign tourists and local sightseers,
thus obviating the long car-journey of 210 miles from Nagpur. \

This plateau overlooks a famous former shooting block, the

Bandla Block, which still goes by the same name. Many old
hunters who have spent their early years in Madhya Pradesh,
which was previously known as the Central Provinces, will
remember this area with nostalgic affection as one that produced
some of the most magnificent tigers, for which these forests were
world-renowned. On the return journey we encountered as many
as seven sambar together, quite an exceptional number for
creatures that generally graze in solitude; also many families of
langur monkeys and any number of red jungle fowl, and the small
barking-deer or muntjac. Returning to the low, and the country,
we passed the usual families of spotted deer and blackbuck.

In the morning we were back again in the Land Rover, meeting

once again large herds of spotted deer and blackbuck, any number
of peafowl and a few barasingha. In desperation the authorities
are now planning to enclose the barasingha within a high wire-
fencing of fairly close mesh, covering an area of a few square
miles, to protect them against their natural enemies, tiger,
panther and wild dog, and of course poachers. It is to be hoped this
succeeds, although by its adoption these animals could hardly
hereafter be classed as living in a truly wild state. Still, I suppose
that fifty barasingha within a fence are better than no fence and
no barasingha!

By this time we were tired of driving about in the Land Rover.

Three elephants, belonging to the forest department, were
obtainable on hire, so we changed over to the backs of a couple of
pachyderms and went searching the borders of some nullahs in the
hopes of seeing a tiger or panther. But we saw only the usual
barasingha and blackbuck.

At about four o’clock we took the Land Rover again to look for
tigers, but we saw only spotted deer, peafowl, red jungle fowl and
langur monkeys. A couple from New Zealand, who had booked
elephants for that evening, were more lucky. They had gone
separately on their respective mounts, and while Jack Doon, the
husband, was returning he came across a spotted stag struggling
on its back. A few yards distant crouched the panther that had
attacked it, caught in the act of slinking away. The stag was
evidently badly mauled and its spine had been broken. The
elephant Jack was riding upon had only recently come to Kanha.
A nervous female, it bolted twice upon seeing the stag and its
assailant. When the mahout finally succeeded in controlling and
bringing it back, Jack discovered the panther again and took
pictures of it for nearly thirty minutes, during which time it
climbed up a tree, jumped down again and then went up a low
rock. Margaret Doon, while returning on the other elephant, came
across a dead spotted fawn. For some reason its killer had
abandoned the meal and now the fawn was being devoured by a
pack of jackals.

That night an official who had arrived at the guest house

insisted that we go out with him at nine o’clock and use his
spotlight to try to see bison or a tiger. As a matter of fact, such
journeys in vehicles with spotlights are strictly disallowed in
Kanha, but being the boss himself, and for our sakes, he made an
exception. We found a very large bull-bison, followed by a cow a
few paces behind, but no tiger ; and when returning met the usual
herds of spotted deer and blackbuck and, close to the bungalow, a
couple of sambar.

At dawn the following morning the official took us out again,

this time using our own Land Rover and driving it himself. We
went to a natural salt lick, where a tower had been constructed,
with a ladder reaching to a covered platform. This tower
overlooked a large jungle pool in which the water was partly
covered with beautiful pink-petalled lotus flowers. Within a few
yards of this pool was the salt lick in a hollow in the ground. A
sambar stag that had been at the salt lick thundered away at out
approach, while from the pool came the flapping of a myriad
wings and swarms of spot-bill and brahmini ducks arose, spiralling
into the air with a whir of wings. As they flew round and round
they uttered sharp cries of alarm.

We also disturbed other creatures: a herd of about fifteen adult

bison with half-a-dozen calves, all of them led by a huge master-
bull. They had been drinking at a smaller pond opposite the
watchtower and we had not seen them at first. This pond was to
the west of the track we were motoring down, and in the park-like
section of the country, while the watchtower and the lake and
salt lick, surrounded by forest, were to the east. Thus the track
formed a sort of natural boundary between the two types of
country. The master-bull, with his following, saw us and
attempted to cross the track to get back into the forest. We
prevented them from doing this by racing the Land Rover ahead,
or in reverse when the need justified it, so that the bison always
found our vehicle between them and the jungle.

Maybe a dozen times we drove forwards or backwards at express

speed, by which time we could see that the herd was becoming
restive and the master-bull distinctly annoyed. The bison were
within thirty yards and less of us; they made attempt after
attempt to cross the track. Then the bull uttered a shrill, whistling
sound and pawed the ground, shaking his monstrous horns at our
driver with increasing anger. Then we let him pass. The herd
presented an imposing sight when it finally thundered across.

The morning mists had not yet lifted when, little further on, we
came upon a sambar stag grazing in the open, and still further two
barasingha stags wanted to do just the opposite—cross over the
open country.

In both our cases our official followed the same tactics, driving
the Land Rover backwards and forwards to prevent them. This
allowed my companions to take some good photographs. Finally
we drove on and allowed the stags to go where they wished.

The usual herds of spotted deer and blackbuck were everywhere,

accompanied by families of peafowl, and we were all in high
spirits that morning by the time we got back for breakfast. At
lunch our friend had a pleasant surprise for us. He announced that
a tiger had killed a buffalo-bait he had ordered to be tied up the
previous day. So our official inquired if we would like to
accompany him on elephant back to try to see the tiger, and of
course we all agreed. Thereupon he ordered all three elephants to
be got ready, one for ourselves, one for another party of visitors
who had arrived that morning, and the third for a young German
and his wife who had also just turned up.

We sent the elephants ahead and followed in half an hour in our

Land Rover, with two jeeps from the Forestry department carrying
the other people. We found the elephants awaiting us in a shady
section of jungle and transhipped. Our official rode with us on the
largest. Following each other in single file, the three elephants
approached the buffalo kill.

As is the case very often, the carcass was not where it should
have been, and where it had been lying a couple of hours earlier
when the scout for the forestry department had spotted it and
come to report its death. In all probability, the tiger had spotted
the scout in turn, and no sooner had the man departed than the
tiger had succeeded in breaking the buffalo’s tethering rope and
dragging the dead animal away. The ground was thickly covered
with dried leaves, but from my perch upon the elephant I could
detect no signs of a drag-mark. It looked as if the tiger had not
dragged his victim away after all, but had shifted it bodily by
carrying the kill across its back.

Some tigers adopt this strategy when they want to be

particularly secretive, so leaving no drag-marks behind. Others
prefer it as being more convenient than a kill that is dragged along
the ground and gets caught by bushes and thorns. In the former
case instinct appears to tell them that its is more difficult to trace
a kill that has been carried away rather than one that has been
dragged, while in the latter case it is entirely a matter of
convenience.

As there were no thorns and scarcely any bushes at this spot, its
was apparent the tiger had carried its kill away to prevent it from
being traced by the scout whom he had seen snooping around.
There was also another possible reason: the disquieting fact that
there were hide-hunters in the Kanha Sanctuary (just as there
were at Gir), who remove the hides of animals killed by carnivora
in order to sell them. Perhaps this tiger had already lost some of
his kills in this way and was taking no chances.

The practice of removing natural kills can have disastrous

consequences. When the killer is frightened away, he does not
return to his kill. Thus he is getting less food than normal and he
is forced to kill some other jungle animal unnecessarily, or a
domestic animal (as so frequently happens in Gir), which enrages
the owner and leads to retaliation against the carnivore.
Moreover, after the skin has been removed, it is a strong
temptation to the skinner to poison the raw carcass lying exposed
in the jungle. Deadly poison—in the form of Folidol—is very easy
to obtain on the explanation that it is required as preventive
against crop pests, for which purpose it is supplied plentifully by
the government. Also, it is so very cheap. The owner of the cow
reasons that his beast has cost time and a great deal of money, and
that after consuming the poison the killer will not be able to
wander far and will soon die. Then the grazer will take the. tiger
skin, too, and the money obtained for it will help to defray the loss
sustained by the death of the milch cow.

Anyway, to carry its kill particularly a buffalo, this particular

tiger must have been a large and powerful specimen. No cub, and
very few tigresses, could accomplish such a task.

I dismounted from the elephant to examine the ground. A

freshly broken leaf above waist-level and, a little further, a
snapped green twig at about the same height, confirmed that the
tiger had indeed carried the buffalo away bodily. There being a
thick carpet of dried leaves on the grounds, no pug-marks were
discernible; had the tiger dragged away its kill the dried leaves
would have revealed it.
 The tiger had headed directly downhill. The official whispered
that a small stream, holding water in places, wound around the
base of the hillock where we now stood. It was about a furlong
away. With little doubt, the tiger had made for the stream.

I remounted the elephant, and spreading out to a distance of a

hundred yards from one another, the three elephants with their
parties now moved slowly downhill in line. The elephant on
which my friend and I were riding was in the centre; the German
and his wife were to our right, and the other party to our left. A
belt of thick-growing green trees revealed the presence of the
stream, and as we reached the high bank overlooking it we heard
a low growl to our right and were just in time to see the
hindquarters of a tiger in full flight with its tail. The German
couple heard the growl too, and from their position to our right
had a clear view of the tiger as it came bounding along the
streambed. The next instant it saw them, changed direction
abruptly, and scrambled up the further bank of the nullah, to
vanish from sight.

Down below us lay the half-eaten remains of the dead buffalo

within a foot of a pool of water trapped in the drying bed of the
stream. Of the tiger we heard or saw no more. Much disappointed,
we returned to where we had left the Land Rover and the two
jeeps, changed into them, and were soon back at the guest house.
In the afternoon we were on our way back to Nagpur.

On our journey we came to a large tank that was on the verge of

drying up. Although there had been rain at Nagpur and Kanha,
the area midway appeared to be suffering from drought. The entire
village population had turned out and men, women and children
of all ages were a foot deep in water, scooping the helpless fish
into their baskets. Some of these were quite big, weighing four to
five pounds each.
 It was two in the morning when in drizzling rain we caught the
plane from Nagpur to Calcutta. We were not scheduled to spend
any time in Calcutta on this stage of our journey; we were to
catch the next flight to Jorhat, a town in northeastern Assam, in
an area known as the North-East Frontier Agency, from where we
would have to drive by car to India’s greatest game sanctuary,
Kaziranga, to see the famous one-horned rhinoceros in its wild
state, in addition to wild buffalo, barasingha, tiger and elephant.

I approached the booking-clerk to verify our seats on this plane

and book our luggage, when he blandly told me that the official
concerned would attend to this work only at 6.15 a.m. The flight
to Jorhat was scheduled for 7.05 a.m.

The one thing passable about the Calcutta airport is its dining-
room. We had tea there and waited till the clerk arrived. He
scanned a list and said our names were not among those of the
passengers on the Jorhat flight. He admitted we had been
‘booked’, but that was not enough; our names had not been
‘confirmed’. Mere booking was not enough, he said. Any clerk
could ‘book’ your name. But the airline authorities had to
‘confirm’ that there was a place for you on the plane. For us this
had not been done. And the plane was already full.

He advised us to wait another fifteen minutes or so. The airline

coach would be coming from the city, which was nine miles
away, bringing the passengers for this flight. Our luck might be
good. Maybe four persons had cancelled their flights, in which
case there would be room for us.

The coach turned up at 6.30 a.m. What was more wonderful,

four seats were available! Then an official asked to see our
‘permits’.

‘What permits?’ we asked in unison.

 ‘What permits?’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you know that you are all
foreigners? Foreigners are not allowed to enter the N.E.F.A. area
without a permit signed by an official of the government of India
as represented by the Assamese office in Calcutta, because Jorhat
is close to the Nagaland border, where foreigners are not allowed.’

We did not know, and said so with some heat. We wanted to go

to Kaziranga to look at rhinos, and were not bothered about
N.E.F.A. or Nagaland. He shrugged and said we could not board
the plane. Then he turned away.

Joe, one of our American friends, was a professional

photographer. He had made the journey to India to take pictures
and publish them in a series of articles about animals. Every
moment was of consequence to him in terms of money. He really
blew his top at the news. The airline official merely smiled. ‘You
will not be able to go to the Assamese office in the city today,’ he
added. ‘You see, there is a general strike in progress and you will
not be able to get a taxi. All motor traffic is off the road.’

‘You might walk the nine miles,’ he went on, ‘but the office is
certain to be closed, due to the strike.’

Yet, in spite of the gloomy picture he had painted we had a little

luck. We succeeded in finding a conveyance to the city. It took us
to one of the largest and best hotels in Calcutta, where we were
fortunate to find accommodation. The strike that had been
threatened did not materialize, but a hartal (which amounts to
the same thing) was in progress. We managed to get a taxi and
went posthaste to the office of the representative of the Assamese
government for our permits. Here our passport numbers were
noted and questions asked. We were told it would take a day or
two for counterchecks to be made before the required permits
could be given. Joe again blew his top. We just managed to get him
out of the office in time. A few seconds more, and we would never
have got those permits.
 We decided to fill in the time while waiting by seeing as much
as we could of Calcutta. Then it would not be necessary for us to
stop over when returning from Jorhat.

We visited the zoo first. There we saw the three famous white
tigers and their three half-grown white cubs. Light grey almost
white in colour, they are certainly unique. One of the tigers is a
beast of outsize proportions. Each of the six animals is housed in
separated quarters. Then there is a gayal, a large animal with the
body of a bison but with straight horns. It comes from eastern
Assam and the Burmese border. Also, of course, the Indian rhino
and a number of Gir and African lions. A feature of the zoo is a
large lake within its boundaries to which great numbers of wild-
duck of all varieties, migrants from beyond the Himalayas, find
their way and spend four months of the year.

For the time being Joe was happy and seemed to have got over
his irritation at the delay in reaching Kaziranga. But his pleasure
was short-lived, for when we got back to the hotel at 5.30 p.m. we
received the bad news that Indian Airlines had suspended all their
flights to and from Calcutta owing to another hartal, called with
immediate effect, due to the resignation of the West Bengal
government.

The news made Joe furious. He wanted to charter a special

plane to Kaziranga or go by car. Since neither of these things could
be done, he became grumpy and sulky. The situation grew rather
unpleasant.

All this happened on Monday, March 16, 1970. The last we

heard before dinner was that, if the local government could sort
itself out, we might be able to fly to Jorhat on the 7.05 a.m. flight
on Wednesday, the 18th—if the permits came by then.

Tuesday (the 17th) was an uneventful day. We did some

sightseeing by taxi in the morning and called at a few shops. By
afternoon, however, the political situation had deteriorated; taxis
were off the road and were replaced by truckloads of armed
policemen patrolling the streets. We were warned not to attempt
to step out of the hotel. Calcutta is crammed with over a million-
and-a-half homeless people who dwell on the pavements. They
cook and eat there, sleep there, and of course hardly ever get the
opportunity to wash. It is unsafe for anybody to go out on the
streets on foot during periods of political trouble of any sort, for
these pavement-dwellers are not slow to take advantage of the
first opportunity that comes their way, and when law and order go
awry, to knife a passer-by in the back. They have no interest in the
contesting political factions.

The only ray of hope that reached us that afternoon was in the
form of our four permits. Frankly, I had not expected these to
arrive for a long time. We ate our dinner early and retired, to wake
up before 5 a.m. and get ready for the air journey we hoped to
make at seven.

I had to carry my own suitcase and airbag down the stairway

from the third floor, as the lift was not working. Nor were the
servants willing to be helpful in this hotel, because of the rule that
they must not be tipped. The airlines office was a bedlam. Nobody
would pay us the least attention and it was impossible to find out
whether we could proceed on the 7.05 a.m. plane, or even if that
plane was taking off. The airport was another bedlam. Nobody
knew if our names were on the list of passengers.

Seven o’clock, then eight and finally three in the afternoon. We

were still firmly upon mother earth. None of us had lunch and we
were all exhausted—what with Joe wanting to do this thing and
that, claim a refund in court, send a telegram to the President of
India with copies to the Prime Minister and the American
Consulate, and the incessant chattering of the Bengalis around us,
which reminded me of the noise made by the thousands of mynah-
birds when they return in the evenings to roost on the tall trees
surrounding my home at Bangalore. It was a nerve-wracking
experience.

Nobody could say at what time our flight to Jorhat would take
place ; indeed, nobody knew whether the plane would fly or not.
To make matters worse, the officials suddenly received
instructions from their union to go on a ‘work to rule strike’,
while the porters were told to go on ‘total strike’.

At last, at 3.15 p.m., the loudspeaker crackled, somebody

coughed, and prepared to speak flight no. 211 was cancelled! We
were lucky to find a taxi to take us back and drop us at the hotel
from which we had started early that morning.

Being of a stubborn sort, I made a jaunt on my own to the

airlines office the same evening, to find that our luck had changed
at last. All four of us were booked on flight no. 249 at 6.10 the
following morning, Thursday the 19th. Returning to the hotel in
triumph, I found I had lost my old room; someone else had already
taken it.

We left at 4.45 a.m. the following morning to find Dum Dum

Airport in the same state of strike and confusion. The fate of flight
no. 249 was greatly in the balance. However, with the use of much
animal cunning, elbow grease and some surreptitious baksheesh,
we managed to work a transfer to a combined flight of nos. 205
and 249 in a Viscount aircraft which, seemingly to the surprise of
the airport officials themselves, and most assuredly to our own,
took off at last at 9.30 a.m. None of us glanced earthwards at
Calcutta as we left the city behind.
 5

The Anaibiddahalla Tigress

NAIBIDDAHALLA literally means in the vernacular ‘the

A hollow into which the elephant fell.’
A stream winds downwards in southerly direction, having its
source quite close to the forest hamlet of Kempekarai in the
mountainous jungle stretch to the north of the town of Pennagram
in the district of Salem in Tamilnadu—formerly the Madras
Presidency. This stream drops sharply at one point. It is a fall of
about two hundred feet and it occurs in the region of granite
rocks, so that the water has worn a deep hollow through striking
the streambed over a period of perhaps thousands of years.

In the rainy season the water fills this hollow and rushes madly
onwards in its course, but in summer, when the stream ceases to
flow, a deep pool of still, dark and forbidding water fills the hole.
Nobody knows its exact depth. Probably it is well over thirty feet.
As summer advances and the heat increases, the level of the pool
descends, leaving a sheer, circular wall of smooth rock all around,
covered with slime and moss, up which nothing that has fallen
into the pool can ever hope to climb back to safety.

That is what gave the place its name. For an elephant came
along one hot season in search of water. The animal came to the
pool and must have extended its trunk to suck up some of the
water. Probably the water was just out of reach. The elephant
extended too far, slipped on the slimy sides skidding down into the
pool.

Elephants are excellent swimmers, but nothing and no one

except a fish can continue swimming for ever. Some cartmen who
were travelling along the nearby road to Muttur heard the
elephant’s screams and gurgles of fear and suffocation. They left
their carts, seated themselves on the rocks, around the pool and
gloated over the drowning beast’s efforts to escape.

It is said that the elephant made prodigious but vain efforts to

get a foothold on these slimy rocks. It slipped back each time.

The cartmen were so interested that they lit fires on the rocks
and camped there the whole night. The elephant finally
disappeared beneath the surface with a last shriek and gurgle in
the early hours of the morning. It took over a fortnight before
sufficient gas could collect in the stomach to float the carcass to
the top. By this time the stench was awful, and it grew worse and
worse as the thick hide and flesh fell apart in decomposition to
expose huge chunks of rotting meat.

After that no creature came near that pool for a very long time.
That is, not for at least thirty years, when a tiger that had been
roaming the area and had started to prey upon men repeated the
whole act by slipping into the pool itself. But that’s another story.

Tigers rarely remained in this area for long, yet it was in fact the
bend in a regular ‘tiger beat’ that resembled a rather wide letter U
if laid upon its left side, that is with the opening facing left. The
lower side represents the bed of the Chinar river, from the point
where it empties itself into the larger Cauvery and for a little over
seven miles up its course. At what point the stream from the
north, along whose course lies the deep pool of Anaibiddahalla,
empties itself into the Chinar.

Tigers were occasionally in the habit of swimming across the

Cauvery and wending a leisurely way up the course of the Chinar,
killing what spotted deer, sambar or pig they could find, and an
occasional heifer or buffalo at the cattle pattis at Panapatti and
Muttur along the way, to turn northwards up the course of the
Anaibiddahalla stream, skirting the big pool and climbing the hill
above it. They then continued another seven miles as the crow
flies till they reached the bed of another stream, euphemistically
known as the ‘Talavadi river’ although it is really little more than
a deep and rocky nullah, flowing westwards for perhaps fifteen
miles to empty itself into the Cauvery river at a point maybe
seven miles above where the Chinar river itself joins the Cauvery.
The Talavadi stream, of course, is represented by the upper side of
the letter U lying on its left side.

As I have related, these wandering tigers from across the

Cauvery would stroll eastwards up the Chinar river, then turn
northwards up the Anaibiddahalla stream and finally return
westwards down the Talavadi nullah to reach the Cauvery and
swim across it once more to the Kollegal bank on the opposite
side.

It was interesting to note that the tigers always followed this

course and never came in the opposite direction—that is, from the
Talavadi to the Anaibiddahalla stream down to the Chinar and
back to the Cauvery. I wandered across this area for many years
and found it always so. I even questioned the poojarees who have
spent all their lives in these forests, and they said the same thing.
It is one of those jungle mysteries that appears to defy
explanation.

These feline hunters had always been harmless, confining

themselves to hit and run raids on the cattle pattis that lay along
the beat if they were not lucky enough to find wild game.

What came in time to be called the ‘Anaibiddahalla Tiger’ was

no exception. In fact it was no tiger, but a tigress. She would
follow this beat approximately every four months. At times the
interval would be longer. From what people living in the mud-
and-wattle huts along the Cauvery told me, she would take a
month to six weeks to complete the journey. Then they would find
her pug-marks coming down the rocky Talavadi watercourse,
taking advantage of the cooler sandy stretches that skirted the
edges of the stream where the rushes grew, and the tall clumps of
the ‘orchid’ or ‘muthur’ grass, till once again she had reached the
banks of the Cauvery. Here, as her pugs indicated, she had spent
no time hesitating. They led to the water’s edge where, whether
the season was dry and the water low, or the monsoons had broken
and the Cauvery in flood, they would disappear from sight. The
tigress must have been a strong swimmer.

Clearly, she had her home on the Kollegal bank of the river,
probably in some cave at some lonely spot on one of the lofty
mountains that rose abruptly in tiers from the river bank. Very
definitely her mate was there too, for suddenly she failed to return
to her old beat and a whole year passed. Even more than a year, in
fact.

Then the tigress returned. Once more her familiar tracks were
seen on the sands of the Chinar river as it wound past the cattle
patti of Panapatti and this time she was not alone. Two sets of
pugs accompanied her, one upon each side. They were small pugs,
about the size of the tracks that would have been made by large
Alsatian dogs. The tigress had brought her two cubs along.

It was most unfortunate that she had done this, for it brought
trouble to the cattle, the herdsmen that attended them and finally
to the tigress herself and her cubs.

The cattle that had been killed hitherto by passing carnivore,

both tigers and panthers, had been few, and the herdsmen who
attended them had not taken the matter very seriously. They
could always get away with an occasional lie by telling the owner
that the animal had died of a sudden sickness, or slipped and
fallen down a khud or steep nullah and broken its neck.
 But this tigress, finding the cattle many in number and
comparatively sleek in condition, decided to settle down in the
area with her two cubs. It was so much easier to kill and to feed
her cubs upon fat heifer or buffalo calf than have to wander for
miles in search of food and then perhaps find none: she would
have to go to sleep on an empty stomach and, worse still, so would
her cubs. She knew from experience that when they were in that
condition, as large as they had grown, they would still persist in
trying to drink milk from her and that was a very painful
experience. For the cubs had long and sharp claws that would tear
into the fur and skin of her belly, and they had grown sharp and
strong teeth that bit into her udders.

Kills began to take place in quick succession now, on almost

every third day, for the cubs had keen appetites. No longer could
the excuse of sickness or an accident be put forward to account for
missing animals. They became far too many. So the poojarees and
other low-caste villagers, who comprised the herdsmen that
attended on the large assortment of cattle and buffalo kraaled at
Panapatti, sent out a call for help to my shikari and camp-
follower, Ranga by name who lives at the small town of
Pennagram, about eight miles away.

I have told you something about Ranga in other stories. He and

a poojaree named Byra and I had wandered in these forests, mile
upon mile, for many years, and there was hardly a corner of any of
them that was unknown to one or all of us. Byra had been a
poacher, and he remained one till he died. Ranga was a far more
versatile fellow. Starting as a poacher, he had climbed the ladder
of status to that of cartman, shikari, cultivator, and finally to that
of a miniature landlord. He had attempted to kill his first wife and
gone to jail for it, because he made the mistake of getting caught.
Profiting from this experience, he had murdered his second wife
after making sure he would not get caught by leaving a
complicated lead to her uncle. Thereafter, realising it would be far
too much of a risk to attempt a hat-trick by murdering his third,
he had solved the problem by marrying a fourth, leaving the two
women as a check upon one another while he got tied up with a
fifth.

Leaving this place of many marriages for the moment and

returning to the subject of the tigress, Ranga received the call for
help and took it very seriously. He had an old muzzle-loader in
those days. But it was a good weapon, inasmuch as it had laid low
many a sambar hind that Ranga had ambushed over a water hole
in summer, many a spotted deer, doe or fawn that had come to
drink at the same water hole, and many a wild pig that had been
so daring as to wander into the sugarcane fields near Pennagram
on a moonlit night. Ranga was certain that he could account for
the tigress with his trusty firearm without any trouble at all.

He sent word by the men who had come to summon him that
the herdsmen should carefully conceal the remains of the next
cow or buffalo killed by the tigress with branches of trees so that
vultures would not find and finish it, and then to call him
immediately. He would come at once, keep watch over the carcass
and finish off the tigress as soon as she had returned for a, second
meal.

The plan worked well up to a point. The tigress killed a buffalo

and with her two cubs ate nearly half of it. The herdsmen
concealed the remains under branches cut from nearby trees and
sent for Ranga. Ranga came without delay, bringing his trusty
matchlock.

The only fly in the ointment was that there was no convenient
branch close enough to the carcass for him to build a machan
upon which to sit up for the tigress. There had been one and only
one, and it had been just in the right place. But the foolish
herdsmen of Panapatti had lopped it down just to get at its leaves
and smaller branches to cover the cadaver! Could they not have
brought the leaves from somewhere else? The whole jungle lay
before them for this purpose. They had been far too lazy. Why
walk so far when a convenient bough was to be found so close at
hand?

So Ranga had to look for another site for his machan. He found
it. There was another branch on another tree. But it was from
eighty to hundred yards away. The range was rather too far for a
muzzle-loader, particularly at night when everything appears so
distorted. Some of these old blunderbusses are wonderfully
effective at impossible ranges for a shotgun to be of any good. But
on a dark night, when it would be difficult to bring off a good shot
even with the aid of torchlight the odds were stacked against
Ranga.

The tigress came along with her cubs. Ranga had heard them
coming. Soon he knew the tigress had started her meal; he could
hear the growls made by the mother and her offspring as they
quarrelled over the meat.

That was when he pressed the button of the electric torch he

had tied with string to the barrels of his muzzle-loader. The cells
were probably half-exhausted, for Ranga said he could hardly pick
up the eyes that shone back a whitish red in his direction. Trusting
to luck he pressed the trigger.

There was the usual roar of the explosion, the bright flash of the
ignited black gunpowder, and the heavy pall of smoke that
covered the whole branch upon which he was seated. Ranga knew
he had not missed. He could hear the tigress roaring loudly and
angrily.

To reload the muzzle-loader in the darkness, balanced

precariously on a hastily constructed and unstable platform, was
not easy, but he managed it at last. The roaring had ceased when
he timidly depressed the switch of the flashlight a second time,
but now he saw nothing beyond the dim, dark blur of the carcass
lying upon the ground. Of tigress or cubs there was no sign.

When daylight came, my henchman and the herdsmen, who

had heard the shot at night and came from their huts, saw that the
tigress must have been hit. There were drops of blood upon the
ground, and later, by dint of careful stalking, they found the trail
with smears and spots of blood on the grass and upon the leaves. It
led downhill and across the Chinar, which at this time of the year
carried running water hardly a foot in depth.

On reaching the further bank, a heavy outcrop of orchid-grass

showed where the tigress and her two cubs had passed. More
smears of blood upon the green stems indicated that the tigress
had been hit somewhere in the right flank. There was no evidence
that her right shoulder or thigh had been damaged, as the pug-
marks she had left in the soft sand showed no signs of a limp, nor
did the wound appear to be a serious one, as the blood trail was
comparatively light. After the clump of orchid-grass, the tigress
and her family had crossed a low thorny hill, on the further side of
which the trail had petered out. Either the wound had gradually
ceased to bleed, or a layer of fat or hide had worked itself across
the cavity to stop the bleeding.

In the usual optimistic fashion of the Indians, Ranga and his

companions congratulated each other that between them they
had got rid of this troublesome animal. No doubt it would die of
its wounds somewhere in the jungle or be drowned when it tried to
swim back across the Cauvery in its weakened state. Of the fate of
its two cubs they never thought or cared.

It was a dark night, just over two months later, when a string of
bullock carts bumped and jangled down the three sharp hairpin
bends in the track that led from the higher-levels of the hill above
the Anaibiddahalla pool to the lush valley through which the
little stream purled on its way to the Chinar. The vegetation was
dense in this valley, and elephants and sloth bear, sambar and
jungle-sheep abounded. The felines and spotted deer kept for the
most part to the more open forest slightly higher up; the deer
because they disliked getting into heavy vegetation where they
could be easily ambushed by carnivore and the even more
dangerous wild dogs, and the felines because the valley was full of
insect pests and they hated the big ticks, the mosquitoes and,
strangely enough, the tiny fleas that were a feature of this forest.

The leading bullock-cart carried a dimly burning lantern

hanging from the yoke securing the two buffaloes that drew it; it
hung just behind their hindquarters. There was a reason for this.
The domestic buffalo is an abnormally stupid animal. If the
lantern had been suspended anywhere near its neck or face, it
would refuse to draw the cart. Nobody knew just why. Maybe the
beasts that drew the cart thought that they were home, so why go
further? With the light behind them and darkness ahead, they
thought they had still to go on. Rather illogical reasoning, I admit,
but maybe buffaloes are illogical creatures. The cartmen had to
use them in preference to the usual bulls, for the loads of cut
bamboos were unusually heavy and the track stoney and steep.
Buffaloes have more strength than bulls.

Admittedly, to hang the light behind rather than in front had

the obvious disadvantage. Nobody, not even the buffaloes, could
see what lay ahead. And when there was only one lantern to the
whole convoy of a dozen carts, it did not help. But perhaps it was
better not to see too much, on the principle that to see no evil was
to know no evil. What I mean is, an elephant might be standing
just around the corner or just off the track. Ordinarily, he would
not be visible at night. Also, ordinarily, unless he was a ‘bad’
elephant, he would take no notice of a string of bullock-carts
passing by. So why see him unnecessarily and become unnerved?

However, this did not always work. If perchance the elephant

was not so good, or even slightly bad, he might not relish this
disturbance of his privacy. Yet there was nothing the cartmen
could do about it anyway. They certainly could not turn back. Try
turning a bullock cart around hurriedly on a narrow track on a
pitch-black night, with eleven more carts and eleven friends
driving them behind you. Of course they could all come to a halt
instead; at least the leader could. Number two would bump into
him and stop. Number three would bump into the number two
and so on. Would it help? Better to keep going. If the beastly
elephant comes too close, beat the empty kerosene tin in the cart
behind you, kept there for just that purpose. That should stop him.
And if it does not? Jump out of the cart and leg it down the line of
carts behind you. But do not lose your head and run into the
jungle; there may be another elephant there. By the time the
elephant smashes up your cart, throws one or both your buffaloes
into the air in his exhilaration and then turns his attention to cart
number two, you have enough time to be well out of the way.
Besides, there are eleven other fellows behind you. By the time
they wake up and realise all is not well, the elephant will have
had a roaring time. The main thing is to save your own skin.

But what about snake? Poisonous snakes crossing the road? One
of the buffaloes might step upon one; in which case, within two
hours there would be only one buffalo less.

The cartman should always ride in his cart, not walk behind it
for fear of elephants. One such cartman never kept to this rule. He
had met a herd of elephants on this very track, but about seven
miles further on. It had been evening and he had been alone in his
cart; so he had returned to the camp of the bamboo-cutters, to set
forth before dawn the next morning. This time he walked behind
the cart, so that if he bumped into the elephant he could fade
away without being spotted.

However, the buffaloes escaped treading on a cobra in the track,

but one of the cartwheels broke its back. The next thing the cobra
saw was the man’s foot. So he bit it. The cartman walked another
mile or so, reaching the Muttur forest bungalow, where I was
encamped, at break of day. I cut the wound to bleed it, and walked
him about vigorously.

All to no avail. The poor fellow died in about two hours, and
the police gave me no end of trouble for two days. Apparently, the
fact that I had cut his foot with a knife to cause bleeding was
highly suspicious. Perhaps if I had done it with some blunt
instrument and concealed the blood things would have been okay.
I just could not get them to understand the reason. I think I have
told this story somewhere else, but it suffers repetition as it has
direct bearing on bullock-carts that travel through jungles by
night.

However, no elephant ambushed this particular convoy. But a

very hungry tigress did, accompanied by two equally hungry cubs.
They let the convoy pass, that is all but one. They attacked the
last cart.

The driver was sound asleep when it happened, hunched up over

the scraps of rope he used as reins, and rolled up in a coarse black
blanket. He awoke with a start, to the sensation of falling through
space, as the cart toppled down into a nullah bordering the road.
He could hear deafening sounds; growls, snarls and the bellowing
of his own two buffaloes. He did not know it just then but riding
on the back of one of them, with her fangs embedded in its throat,
was a tigress. A cub, slightly less than half-grown, but
ineffectually into its side, while another clung to the hindquarter
of the other buffalo.

The cart and all the creatures involved in this melee landed
with a crash at the bottom of the nullah, which was luckily not
deep. The cartman was thrown free, while the yoke holding the
buffaloes snapped. The buffalo that had been attacked by one of
the cubs broke away and bolted down the nullah, leaving the
bewildered cub to join its mother and the other cub that were
attacking the remaining buffalo. In another two minutes it was
dead.

The cartman, hastily extricating himself from the entangling

blanket, saw struggling black forms and heard frightful noises. By
the light of the stars he scrambled up the side of the nullah to
regain the track the convoy had been following. Away in the
distance he heard the jangling and thumping of the other carts as
they raced away from the scene. Those of the drivers who had
been awake and heard the pandemonium that had broken out
behind them had guessed that something terrible was happening
to their companion behind. Exactly to which companion they did
not care nor stop to find out; the buffaloes yoked to the carts
needed no goading to speed their pace. They knew the roars of a
tiger when they heard them! Galloping behind each other in a
jagged line, the convoy bounced and thudded down the precarious
track, while running for his life, the luckless driver whose cart had
been attacked ran behind to catch them up.

News of this event spread far and wide and the bullock-carts
ceased to travel by night. This did not help the tigress, who
became more hungry, and she had to feed her cubs besides herself.
Nobody knew it then, but her right shoulder had been badly hurt;
in fact, the bone was split by the lead ball from an old, old
musket. It was Ranga’s musket that had done the damage.

Driven by hunger, the tigress started to attack cattle by

daylight. In this she was joined by her cubs, who were rapidly
learning the art of killing, though the methods were crude and
amateurish as befitted their inexperience. Their mother could not
do much better, handicapped as she was by a smashed shoulder.
Thus it transpired that each kill made by this trio of animals
presented a nasty spectacle of mangled living flesh and torn hide
and bone, a victim that had been partly eaten alive. It was all so
different from the kill made by a normal tiger; a neat job in which
the neck of the prey is neatly broken with a minimum of
bloodshed.

These attacks continued for the best part of six months, during
which time the cubs grew apace. They now required no help, but
could kill expertly by themselves. Curiously, they remained with
their maimed mother instead of breaking away and fending for
themselves as cubs begin to do when about a year old. The killings
of cattle and buffaloes increased as the cubs grew older and larger
and their appetites increased.

Probably nothing more exciting would have happened had not

Mariappa, the cowherd, instead of running away as fast as he
could, as did all wise cowherds, rushed to defend his milch-cow
when the three tigers attacked it at the edge of his field. He might
have succeeded had the attacker been a single beast, but numbers
bring courage, both to human being and to tigers.

If you should be ‘ghooming’ in a jungle—that is wandering

about with the hope of seeing what animals you come across—or
should you meet a pair of tigers or a tigress with cubs (both of
which are today most unlikely to happen, I might tell you), halt
and above all do not move. Do not start to run away, for that will
attract the attention of the tigers which, just like your dog, love to
chase things that run away from them. Take cover, by all means,
if you know how, without floundering about and advertising your
presence. Above all, remain absolutely motionless. And never, I
strongly advise you, start to follow them to see where they are
going. There is a fair chance that you can do this in perfect safety
with a single tiger, or even with a pair of panthers. But when a
pair of tigers are involved, or a mother with cubs, the chances are
small. Tigers do not like their family privacy disturbed for one
thing, while numbers definitely bolster their courage. With
elephants it is quite the opposite. Leave ‘Jumbo’ alone if he is by
himself, and avoid a female with a calf, though you can drive a
herd of thirty like cattle almost with impunity, even if you are all
by yourself.

Mariappa committed the grave error of rushing towards three

tigers lying over the lovely cow which they had just killed. I
suppose he thought he would be able to save it. Very brave of him,
but equally foolish. The next instant he was dead. Which of the
three felines killed him nobody knows.
 6

In a Jungle Long Ago

T ALL happened at Panapatti many years ago. Patti, as I have

I explained in earlier stories, signifies ‘a cattle-camp’, and
Panapatti was one such camp. It is situated on the southern bank
of the Chinar river, about three miles and a half from its
confluence with the Cauvery, which is the largest river in
southern India. The Chinar holds water only in the monsoons, and
possibly a couple of months after that. For the remaining six
months of the year it is a dry nullah, although both banks for a
dozen mile or more from where it empties itself into the great river
are clothed with heavy jungle, acres of bamboo, with muthee,
tamarind and jumlum trees and other varieties in between.

When the monsoons end vegetation dries quickly in India. As a

consequence the grass and the stalks of cholam, ragi and rice,
harvested from the fields and given to the cattle after the ears of
grain have been removed, becomes exhausted too and there is
nothing for the domestic herds to eat. That is when the owners of
the herds turn covetous eyes upon the forests, where the grass still
grows and certain varieties of leaves and shrubs provide grazing.

Grazing licences are purchased from the forest department, and

thousands of domestic cattle are driven into the jungle, where
they are kept till the advent of the next monsoons, when they are
driven back to the village again once local grazing becomes
possible as the grass and crops spring up. As this is an annual
performance regular campsites have grown up in all the forests
where the cattle are kraaled during the summer months. These
sites in the south are the ‘pattis’.
 Panapatti is in the district of Salem of what is now Tamil Nadu
state and was formerly the Presidency of Madras; hardly anybody
outside a radius of twenty miles knew or heard of its existence. To
my knowledge on only two occasions did excitement in any form
come to Panapatti. The first of these was with the advent of an
elephant that killed a few people, including a hunter that had
come after it. This animal came to be known as ‘The Rogue
Elephant of Panapatti’. I have told the story in an earlier book.*

There was a lull of several years after that. Then notoriety

visited the little camp for the second time with the advent of ‘The
Avenging Spirit’, which I am going to tell you about. Let me
hasten to add that this spirit was not a human phantom but a tiger
that appeared suddenly from nowhere, earned a ghostly fame, and
then disappeared as mysteriously as it had come.

The owners of most of the herds kraaled at Panapatti were rich

landlords inhabiting the large town of Dharmapuri, about twenty-
eight miles away as the crow flies. Three or four, of lesser
importance, hailed from the smaller town of Pennagram situated
just ten miles distant. The herdsmen to whom the cattle were
entrusted during their stay at patti, were the lowest caste of
villagers from Pennagram, augmented by a few ‘poojarees’, who
were jungle-men belonging to an aboriginal tribe, living in the
forest all the year round, sheltered in little thatched huts or in
gavvies or hollows dug into the banks of the Chinar river at spots
where that stream ran through hilly country and the banks were
steep and high. This protected the inmates from elephants that
crossed the Cauvery and walked up the bed of the Chinar river in
the dark hours of the night.

Such a poojaree was Kaiyara. He had been one of the graziers

regularly employed for quite a number of years in looking after the
herds that came to Panapatti during the summer months. On an
average the cattle remained in this camp for about six months in
the year, and Kaiyara’s wage was ten rupees (about 50p) for the
entire period, plus a weekly allowance of rice or cholam or ragi.
Not all together, mind you, for that would be gross over-payment.
Say about ten pounds in weight per week, whichever grain was
the cheapest available in the market at that time.

When Kaiyara had first taken service several years ago, he had
had his wife with him and an only child, a daughter named
Mardee. Then the krait came. It had been a very hot night and the
slim, jet black snake with the infrequent white notches across its
neck and back, had slithered into the grass-thatched hut occupied
by the little family and coiled itself around the base of the dark
earthen pot in which the drinking water was kept. No doubt the
reptile was feeling the heat, too, and relished the cool of the pot.

Kaiyara’s wife had very long hair. When she lay on the floor of
the hut at night, it had a habit of getting knotted or falling across
her face and disturbing her. So on that occasion she had decided to
tie it up with the strip of black rag that she kept for the purpose.

But where was that rag? By the water-pot. Talking to her

husband as she did so, the woman stooped and her fingers closed
around what she thought was the rag. Unfortunately it was the
krait she had grasped.

The snake struck at what it thought was an enemy, burying its

small fangs just above her wrist. Then it disengaged itself,
slithered behind the water-pot and passed through the wattle hut
wall into the jungle outside.

The woman hardly saw what had bitten her. Something cold
and black, she knew, and then it was gone. She called to her
husband and held out her arm for his inspection. Kaiyara looked
and saw two tiny drops of red blood on her back skin. They were
hardly half-an-inch apart. The poojaree recognized the marks for
what they were, punctures inflicted by the fangs of a venomous
snake.
 He got busy. There was no doctor, no anti-venom injection, no
hospital within twenty-eight miles. Only his dirty cloth bag,
containing some powdered herbs and roots, could help.

Kaiyara knew nothing about lancing the wound and bleeding it.
So he stepped outside, picked up some soft cow-dung, made a
mixture of it with some of the powder from his bag, and smeared
the paste thickly over the wound. Then he started muttering a
mantra, over and over again.

Within thirty minutes his wife complained of great pain in her

wrist. Also shooting pains in her abdomen. She said she was
beginning to feel giddy. After another thirty minutes she could not
speak. The last she had said was that she had great pains in her
stomach. Saliva was pouring from the corners of her mouth. Her
breathing was heavy. Yet another thirty minutes later there was
hardly any sign of breathing. The woman was cold and limp. Her
eyes had rolled back in their sockets. A few minutes more and she
was dead. Kaiyara was left alone with his little girl, Mardee, to
look after.

The years passed. Mardee was now a comely lass. She had grown
into full womanhood, mature and well developed in body.
Handsome, too for a poojaree aboriginal. She was her father’s
mainstay and looked after him well, cooking all the meals and
doing the chores in their tiny household. She also went out with
the cattle at dawn and grazed them till sunset, returning with the
herds of beasts as they ambled home in the evenings when the sun
sank behind the jagged hillocks to the west on the bank of the
Chinar.

Many of the poor herdsmen and a number of the poojarees

coveted her and came to Kaiyara with proposals of marriage. To
strengthen their suits, some were prepared to forego the usual
dowry which every father had to pay the bridegroom and his
family before a daughter could be married. Mardee spurned all her
suitors. Young as she was, the girl was of a determined nature; she
would have nothing to do with common herdsmen or poojarees.

Then one day, Sathynarayan came to Panapatti. He was the

eldest son of his father, Gopalswamy of Dharmapuri, a rich
landlord and merchant who owned over two hundred head of
cattle grazing at Panapatti. Sathynarayan was also married and
had a wife and young son. But they stayed behind at Dharmapuri
when he came to Panapatti to inspect his father’s herd.
Sathynarayan arrived at a comfortable time of the morning when
the herds had already been taken out for graze: about nine o’
clock. The cattle had been driven out as the sun’s rays were just
rising above the Muttur Ridge, four miles to the east, to melt away
the heavy mists that clothed the valley of the Chinar and the
sloping land on both its banks, and to send the wild elephants into
the dense bamboos for shelter, and the sambar into the hills.

He left his car on the main road with his chauffeur and walked
the two miles of jungle track that brought him to the patti. It was
a filthy track, Sathynarayan thought; the earth was several inches
deep in layers of cow-dung, deposited year after year by successive
herds of cattle and buffaloes. He stepped delicately, avoiding the
more recent patches of dung for fear of soiling his shoes.

Soon he stood at the doorway of Kaiyara’s hut and coughed

loudly; then he spat. It was utterly beneath his dignity to call the
inmate by name. The poojaree had watched his employer’s son
approaching. He crawled through the low doorway and prostrated
himself on hands and knees, touching his forehead to the ground,
the customary salutation of a poojaree in the old days.

‘What news?’ inquired the young man curtly.

‘All is well, Swamy,’ replied the poojaree regaining his feet. ‘By
the grace of the gods, none of your revered father’s cattle have
been taken away by the ferocious wild beasts that fill this forest
nor stricken by the cursed foot-and-mouth sickness. I give thanks
daily to the gods for their mercy. The animals have been driven
out to graze under the care of my unworthy daughter.’

‘So that is how you earn your keep?’ asked Sathynarayan

pointedly. ‘By sending the cattle out in charge of a girl while you
sleep in your hut. What can she do if a wild animal should
attack?’

The father was silent, then he thought of a brilliant excuse: ‘I

was sick of the fever, with pains in my stomach and diarrhoea all
last night, your honour, else I would have gone with the herd
myself.

‘You lie!’ accused the landlord’s son. ‘However, as I have come

to see the animals for myself, you must now guide me to where
your daughter has driven them.’

Thus it came about that Sathynarayan saw Mardee for the first
time and lusted after her greatly. He could not speak to her
straightaway. That would have been beneath his status,
particularly with her father looking on. He would have to look for
some better opportunity.

The young man took a great interest in his father’s herd after
that day. His parent was rather surprised suddenly to discover that
his son-and-heir, who had hitherto shown little liking for his
business and none whatever for cattle, had developed an
unexpected thirst for knowledge. So he smiled indulgently and
decided to encourage his son. Probably it was just a passing fad
and would soon wear off, when the boy would become as useless
as before. Of course Sathynarayan’s wife could not comment.
Women in India are not permitted to question the comings and
going of their men.

Sathynarayan timed his visits to a later hour, when he knew the

animals would be grazing in the forest. Moreover, he avoided the
patti and went directly to the grazing ground. Thus he met
Mardee for the second time, and third and fourth time, and many
times thereafter.

Although she was still a child, her woman’s instinct told the
poojaree girl that the young man had fallen in love with her, a
sentiment which he was not slow to encourage with small gifts of
money. Mardee had always aimed high, far above the local
cattleboys and poojarees, and here was the answer to her dreams.
A very rich young man; her employer’s only son to boot!

Sathynarayan lost no time in seducing her. The jungle offered

plenty of scope for that and Mardee became pregnant. Of course,
the lovers thought that nobody knew of their clandestine affair.
Actually everybody in the patti knew about it. The herd-boys had
seen from a distance. The poojarees had gone one better: they had
stalked the lovers and peeped on their most intimate moments at
close range. Then they had run back and told Kaiyara.

The old man was astounded. Such a thing was unheard of; it
had never happened before. His employer’s son was a Brahmin of
the highest caste. Moreover, he had his own wife and son. Mardee,
his own daughter, as a poojaree was of the lowest caste! How
could this thing be? If he should dare to question the young man,
the matter would be reported, and his employer, the father, would
undoubtedly throw Kaiyara out of his job. So he kept the matter to
himself for five months until it was evident his daughter was going
to have a baby. He questioned the girl. To his dismay, she
appeared to be not in the least ashamed. She admitted that
Sathynarayan was the father and declared he was in love with her
and had promised to marry her.

At the very next opportunity Kaiyara screwed up enough

courage to question the young man.
 Sathynarayan flew into a towering rage. ‘What are you talking
about?’ he thundered. ‘Would I defile myself with your daughter, a
slut of the lowest caste, like yourself? Who told you this absurd
tale?’

‘She told me herself answered the old man flatly.

Sathynarayan scowled, but said nothing in reply. He turned his

back and walked away.

The next morning Mardee took the herd out again for grazing. It
was clear she had not slept the night before. There were rings
under her eyes and they were red. She had been crying. This could
be understood, for her father had said that the young man had
denied having touched her and had called her a low-class slut.

It was long past the sunset hour when the herd struggled back
that evening. They came in twos and three, and a few of them did
not come at all. And of Mardee there was no trace.

Darkness fell before Kaiyara fully realized what had happened.

He begged the other men to come with him in search of his
daughter. Some agreed. Others pleaded that they were indisposed.

There were no lanterns in the patti. Nor did anyone possess an

electric torch. Each little hut had just one small oil-light of its
own, a tiny taper of wick, floating in a little earthenware bowl of
oil. There was no moonlight either, for it was time of amavasa,
the darkest period of the month. Moreover, this is also the most
inauspicious and dangerous period to be out at night, the time
when devils of all kinds roam at will: evil spirits that sometimes
appear as men and women, sometimes as elephants, tigers and
other wild animals, and often as tall white pillars reaching to
heaven. They would cackle and scream with unholy laughter
when they came across defenceless mortals to kill.
 In this atmosphere of terror the little party set forth, treading
their way along the trails left by the cattle as they grazed in the
forest. The only lights came from the stars that blinked down
through the foliage. Inky darkness covered the ground. A demon
might be anywhere, behind tree-trunk or bush, and might strike at
any moment. A tiger or panther might lurk round any corner.
Even an elephant could be three paces away and would be entirely
hidden in that gloom. The men walked together, in a bunch, those
at the sides making considerable noise as they brushed through the
thorns bordering the pathways and getting their skins well
lacerated in the process because nobody wanted to be the last man
in line.

It was common knowledge that it was the last man who always
fell prey to the attack of a tiger, a panther or an elephant. At least,
if that happened, he would cry out and warn the others, who
would have a chance to run away. But if a demon attacked him he
would just disappear in silence. Nobody would know about it.
Then the next last man would vanish, and the next, and so on. No
one would know a thing till all had disappeared.

In this fashion the little party crept forward, faltered and then
came to a stop. Each member had worked himself into a state of
abject fear and the feeling was infectious. By mutual consent they
came to a halt.

‘Mardee’, screamed her father in desperation. ‘Mardee, Mardee,

where are you my child?’

There was no answer but the sough of the jungle breeze as it

began to blow down the valley. Far away a tiger roared. Just ahead
an elephant heard the roar and trumpeted in challenge. A sambar
stag on the further bank of the Chinar caught the scent of human
beings and belled in alarm. Once, twice and many times. A langur
monkey, higher up the hillside, woke to the disturbing noises and
grated his repeated warning to the other members of his tribe.
 The search party wavered no longer. They turned and hastened
back to the patti. Indeed, they walked so fast it was impossible to
do so in a bunch. Somebody had to be last. But this time the gods
were good: no wild beasts attacked him, nor did a demon strike
him down. They all got back to the patti, but without Mardee.

As the girl had vanished in broad daylight, everybody thought

she had been taken by a tiger. Had an elephant killed her, or a
panther for that matter, some trace of her would have been found.
But although Kaiyara, and every other resident of the patti,
combed the surrounding jungle for a week, not a trace of the
missing girl did they come across.

Then there came a clue. A lone cartman, struggling to get his

vehicle up the steep incline of the Muttur track leading through
the jungle to Pennagram, remembered that he had been forced off
the roadway into the ditch by a big car that had come up from
behind and was trying to get ahead of him. Because of the
gradient, all carts were hauled by buffaloes, as they were more
sturdy than the customary bullocks, and more sure-footed.
Unfortunately, they were also more stupid. When the car had
come up from behind, the cartman had noticed that, strangely,
the driver had not even once sounded his horn. Instead, he had
attempted to overtake the cart in swift silence, with the result
that the buffaloes had shied and run down into the steep ditch
beside the road, capsizing the vehicle with its load of bamboos.
Luckily, the cartman had been thrown clear, and as he hit the
ground he had looked up to see who was responsible for this
callous behaviour.

The car was Sathynarayan’s. The cartman knew it well by sight.

Somebody else was driving but he recognized Sathynarayan in the
back seat. He had been holding on to a woman. He had caught a
glimpse of a red sari as the car lurched past at high speed. He said
he did not know who the woman was. But Mardee had been
wearing a red sari on the day she disappeared. Slowly the pieces of
the puzzle came to fit together.

Normally, one could expect the Muttur track to be deserted in

the early hours of the morning. The presence of the car-man was
something unexpected. If a car were parked at a bend in the track
where it wound around a stony hillock called Karadimedu (Bear’s
Mill), the owner could follow a short cut through the forest that
would take him in about twenty minutes to the grazing ground
where Mardee had driven the cattle.

The whole thing seemed to lead to a choice of two conclusions.

Either the lovers had made an appointment which the rich young
man had used as an opportunity to abduct her, perhaps with the
intention of murdering her later; or unknown to her, he came
upon her by stealth and had taken her away against her wish.

Kaiyara reasoned all this out in his mind aided by one or two of
his companions whom he felt he could trust. He dared not speak of
it openly. There were informers everywhere and none knew who
could be trusted. Word would be carried to the young man, or his
father, Gopalswamy. Kaiyara would then be sacked. That would
be the least that could happen. He remembered he was up against
moneyed people. They could pay goondas (ruffians) to beat him
up, perhaps murder him. For that matter, they could bring a false
charge against him of theft or something else. He would be locked
up in the police station and be beaten up mercilessly. His cronies
advised him to leave well alone. Treat the whole matter as the
will of God, and forget about it.

But Kaiyara was a father. Further, he held a reputation at least

among the herdsmen and his brother poojarees at Panapatti, of
being a black magician who could cast powerful spells, and if he
did nothing he would lose the reputation for good and all. He
would be scorned as an imposter, a coward. His companions would
say to each other: he called himself a black magician, but where is
his magic now? If he were genuinely what he claimed to be, he
would cast a spell upon the man who had committed this crime
and that man would fall very sick and die. For everybody at the
patti had reasoned out for himself what had happened, although
none dared to speak of the matter openly.

A few days later, the night of amavasa came again, the darkest
night of the month, when evil spirits are afoot and magicians cast
their most potent spells. When the camp fire burned fitfully at
Panapatti after the evening meal and the herdsmen sat around to
chat for a few minutes before retiring to their huts for the night,
Kaiyara stepped into their midst and addressed them. He had
adorned himself for the occasion. Red and white marks changed
his face into a fearsome sight. A silver armlet above his right
elbow identified his status as a black magician. A necklace of the
large serrated seeds of the oudarrachamani plant encircled his
neck, and another of large, black, glass beads.

He cleared his throat and began to speak: ‘Brothers, as you all

know some evil man has beguiled my daughter. Not only has he
done wrong, but he has taken her away and perhaps murdered her.
The days are bad and we are poor people. There is none we can
approach for help. None will stretch forth a finger to aid us, for we
have no money, while the evil man who has done this thing is
very, very rich. But I do have this power which neither he nor all
his money, influence and friends can take away from me. It is the
power to curse him and his family, from the realms of the living to
those of the dead. I will go in search of my beloved daughter.
Maybe I will find her, maybe not. Maybe, I myself will not return.
Should any harm befall me at the hands of this evil man, I want
you to bear witness that I now curse him and his family. His life,
and the lives of his dear ones, will be swallowed up for the life of
my beloved daughter and my own. I curse him! I curse him! I curse
him! By this thrice repeated curse, it shall be as I say.’
 Next morning Kaiyara went forth from the patti. Only his close
companions knew he had gone to Dharmapuri boldly to announce
to his employer, the rich businessman and cattle-owner, what
Sathynarayan had done to his daughter.

Kaiyara never came back. He was never seen again! The

herdsmen soon forgot about him and the words he had uttered.
Possibly his special friends thought about it and felt sorry. The
poojaree had been foolish enough to put his head into the tiger’s
mouth, so to say.

Six months passed. It was the festival of Pongal and everybody

was enjoying themselves. In the village the bullocks’ horns were
gaudily painted, red, blue, green, bright yellow. Upon their
foreheads were long red and white marks of ochre too. Games were
arranged and sometimes mock fights between men and bulls.

Sathynarayan and his wife and son, accompanied by his father,

motored from Dharmapuri through Pennagram to the point on the
road where they had to leave the car in the care of the driver and
walk the distance to Panapatti.

In fact this trip had been entirely the father’s idea.

Sathynarayan certainly did not want to go to Panapatti ever
again. The place held too many awkward memories for him. That
damned poojaree girl had taken him seriously. She had actually
believed the silly stories he had spun that he was going to marry
her and make a lady out of her. To make matters worse, the
wretched girl had the misfortune to become pregnant, and to
crown matters she had told her father all about it. The affair had
cost him a thousand rupees, which he had to pay to the chauffeur,
Das, to gain his silence about the day they had abducted the
bitch. Luckily not even Das knew what he had done with her
body. He had made the driver get out of the car so that there
would be no witness.
 As if that were not bad enough, the damned girl’s father had had
the temerity to come all the way to their family home at
Dharmapuri to inquire about his daughter’s whereabouts. By a
stroke of good fortune, his father had gone to Madras the day
before. That incident had cost him another thousand rupees. This
time Das knew, for it had been Das who had taken the dead body
late at night in the spare car. He and the driver had weighted it
with stones and the latter had dragged it out of the car and thrown
it into a large tank forty miles away, along the road to Salem.

But all this meant that Das knew too much. Last week the
driver had approached him with a demand for five hundred
rupees. Sathynarayan had started to refuse, but had stopped short
when he saw the smirk upon the driver’s face which told its own
tale.

Then Sathynarayan made a plan. Immediately after Pongal he

would go for a big shoot, and he would take Das with him. There
would be a shooting accident and the driver would be killed! Of
course, a lot of awkward questions would be asked by the police,
but he knew that his father would come forth with bags of money
and the questioners would fall silent.

Now why, of all place, did his father want to visit Panapatti for
the Pongal festival? Sathynarayan had tried to put the old man off.
But as everybody knows, old people are very stubborn. His parent
had got quite hot about it. He had even chided the young man
with the disappointment he had felt when the latter’s sudden
interest in the cattle herd at Panapatti had as suddenly ended.
And so the four of them were trudging through the jungle to
Panapatti, having left Das to look after the car. The Chauffeur had
worn another of his nasty smirks as he caught his eye before
parting. Sathynarayan resolved that he would have to stage that
hunting trip and the accident that was to go with it, without
further delay. Das was becoming far too dangerous.
 The four visitors reached the patti where the herdsmen and the
few poojarees had made ready to welcome them. As the august
patrons were of the highest caste no refreshments of any sort could
be prepared by them or pass through their defiled hands before
being presented. Thus the gifts took the form of green coconuts,
which had to be broken before the water could be drunk, and huge
sweet-limes called ‘sathgoodies’, from which the outer skin had to
be removed to get at the pulp. Gifts of this sort would be readily
accepted, as there was no chance of the ingredients being
contaminated.

The painted and gaudily decorated cattle were displayed and a

couple of mock-fights between men and bulls were staged. As the
animals were roped and held in restraint by half-a-dozen men on
each side, these encounters were farcical and excited nobody
except perhaps those who took part in them. The evening closed
with the usual felicitations and, after consuming more coconut
water, the visitors prepared to depart. They had taken care to
ascertain from the herdsmen that there were no elephants in the
vicinity and so they dawdled till a later hour than they would
otherwise have done. Once again the sun was sinking behind the
jagged hills across the western bank of the Chinar, but with
normal walking they would reach the main road where the car
awaited them before dusk.

It happened somewhere midway between the patti and the main

road. Sathynarayan and his father were walking ahead together,
probably discussing a business deal of some sort. The young man’s
wife, as behoves all respectable and dutiful Indian married
women, was obliged to walk a few paces to the rear. This she was
doing, leading her small boy by the hand. The child was tired and
bored to death by the whole proceeding. He was crying.

It is not good for the young of any creature to cry in the forest.
The jungle recognizes no law of pity for the young and helpless,
only the rule of the survival of the fittest, which certainly does not
include the young. There was a sudden snarl; at the same time a
great tawny body with black stripes materialized from nowhere to
seize the crying child in its jaws. The mother saw this and
instinctively hurled herself at the beast’s head to save her child.
The two men in front heard the snarl and swung around. They saw
the tiger with the child in its mouth rear up and strike the mother
with its front paws. They waited to see no more.

Sathynarayan, who was younger, ran faster and reached the car
first. His father fell from exhaustion several times before he also
made it. Then Das drove the car at breakneck speed to Pennagram
to get help. No help was forthcoming at that hour, for the shades
of night had already fallen. The next morning a vast concourse of
people armed to the teeth, retracted the steps of the fleeing men
and came upon the tragedy.

Mother and the son lay a yard apart. The tiger’s great teeth had
bitten through and through the little boy. His mother had been
killed by the two great blows that had been dealt to her. “Not a
morsel of flesh had been eaten from either victim. Upon the hard
ground were no traces of pug-marks.

As may be imagined, pandemonium reigned at Pennagram and

in the nearby villages and forest pattis. No man-eating tiger or
panther had been heard of for a hundred miles around. As a
matter of fact, at this particular time the herdsmen of Panapatti
and the fishermen at Uttaimalai and Hogenaikal and the other
hamlets on the other banks of the great Cauvery river confirmed
that there was a distinct lack of carnivores of any sort in the area.
Being the dry season, and this year a particularly hot one, the
sambar had taken themselves to the mountains and the spotted
deer had gone to less dry area. Such carnivore as had existed, and
these were few, had gone with them.

Where the killer had come from, nobody could tell. Why he had
killed and then not eaten was a still greater mystery.
 I had been on a visit to my land at Anchetty, a hamlet in the
same forest but about twenty miles to the north when all this
happened, but no news had reached Anchetty yet. I had later left
Anchetty, walked to another patti named Gundalam, and then
sixteen miles down the course of a stream I have called the ‘Secret
river’ to its confluence with Cauvery river. From there I had come
another ten miles to Uttaimalai, where the fishermen were very
excited at having heard of the happenings near Panapatti.

There is a short cut across the foothills which brought me to the

bed of the Chinar river two furlongs below Panapatti. I found the
herdsmen and poojarees gathered under a tree discussing the
recent event. They had not driven the herds of cattle into the
forest for grazing for the last two mornings for fear the killer might
attack either the animals or themselves—that is, the one or two
herdsmen who felt that such a thing might happen, and they were
in the minority.

All the poojarees, without exception, and the rest of the

herdsmen were of the opinion that they and the herds were quite
safe. The tiger that had killed was not a man-eater, for it had not
touched the bodies of the woman and child it had slain! Nor was it
a game-killer, for they had come across no bones or carcases of
sambar or spotted deer. The vultures had not soared in the sky nor
quarrelled over the remains of a kill for a long time.

In fact, this was not a tiger or a panther at all—at least, not one
of flesh and blood! It was the spirit of Kaiyara, the poojaree, who
had avenged the murder of his only daughter and of himself. The
poojaree had assumed the form of a tiger to fulfil the curses he had
placed upon the braggart Sathynarayan.

‘Nor is this the end, dorai,’ the eldest of the poojarees at the
patti, and one who had been a particular crony of Kaiyara’s,
confided to me in an undertone. ‘Not by a long chalk. It is but one
half of the curse. The lesser half, in fact. The two really guilty
ones have yet to die, the murderous Sathynarayan and the
rascally car-driver who helped him.’

It is a rare thing for an Indian to confide his innermost thoughts

to a man of Western origin. An unwritten and unspoken
proscription exists against persons of another race and colour, to
whom it is considered most unwise to impart secret information of
any importance. There is a general belief that Westerners are
extremely foolish, very callous, most disbelieving and, in fact,
grossly ignorant of all matters not directly involving the five
material senses. This prejudice is everywhere in the land and
perhaps strongest in the minds of simple folk from the villages and
jungles. It took me more than two hours of subtle and adroit
questioning before I could wheedle from the old man the facts
which I have already set forth in this story. Considering moreover,
that I have mixed with jungle folk and villagers from the time I—
and they—could walk and talk, I consider myself extremely lucky
to have been able to get all the facts I eventually collected.

To me, of course, all this was but jungle-talk, the sort of thing
one could expect to hear from superstitious folk. In my opinion,
the tiger was just a tiger and nothing more. Perhaps it was a
wounded animal and in pain when it saw the woman and child
and attacked them in sheer rage. Maybe the crying of the child
attracted and enticed it, perhaps even annoyed it. Maybe a
hundred other reasons, but it was only a flesh-and-blood tiger.
From this followed the next thought that, although for some
unaccountable reason it had not eaten either of its victims, it
might attack again at any time. Accordingly I made arrangements
to try to shoot it. At that time I was not working, so the time
factor did not count and I was in not hurry to return to city life.

As I have related in other books, most man-eaters follow a

regular ‘beat’ in the territory where they operate. By this I mean
that they follow a definite itinerary in moving from one jungle
area to another, past particular villages, up the beds of or across
certain streams, or along certain game-trails and fire-lines, in
moving from one locality to another. Having moved this way once
and killed and eaten a human or two here and there, they come
back along the same trails and routes after a certain period of
time, and do this over and over again. So, with patience and care,
it is possible to map out the ‘beat’ followed by such a man-eater
and to forecast with considerable accuracy when and where to
wait for him in ambush, or try to entice him with a bait or by
some other means.

All this did not apply in the present case. This animal had not
killed any other human being anywhere for miles around. As I
have said, it had not even attacked a single cow in any of the
herds, nor had it killed a deer or pig as far as was known.

I enlisted the aid of the poojarees and herdsmen in the patti and
scoured the bed of the Chinar river, both up and down, for several
miles in each direction in order to find its pug-marks and ascertain
if it was a male or female. Search as we did, we found no pug-
marks anywhere.

This tiger must have come from the east, therefore, where lay
comparatively open country, scrub jungle which petered out into
cultivation for miles around. No tiger could live, or conceal itself,
in such conditions. It had to come from the forest. Tigers do not
live in fields!

I prevailed upon the herdsmen to lend me four cattle from the

herd that belonged to Sathynarayan’s father, promising to pay for
any one that was killed. I knew that the owner would not object
under the circumstances, but nonetheless sent one of the
herdsmen to Dharmapuri to inform the owner of what I was doing.

I found the poojarees in the patti disinclined to be cooperative

in the proceedings from this point onwards. The ancient one
among them told me, flatly that I could not expect him and his
clan-members to help me to lay a trap for their dead companion
when he turned up in the form of a tiger—not that he would be so
foolish as to kill any of the baits I had tied up, or allow himself to
be shot at. It was well known that no bullet made of lead could
penetrate a spirit. Nevertheless, it was the motive of their actions
in helping me by which they would be judged. They could not,
and would not assist me in trying to shoot this tiger.

Money talks and so I was able to entice the herdsmen who were
not poojarees to aid me. After much inquiring and tramping up
and down, I chose four places as being the most likely for a tiger to
turn up. All that I could do now was to wait complacently till one
of the baits was taken.

Rather than be idle meanwhile, I scoured the forest from dawn

to dusk searching for the pugs of the tiger up and down the banks
of the Chinar river. As the herdsmen and poojarees at Panapatti
were not keen on helping me, I sent for my old friend Byra, himself
a poojaree, who lived at Anaibiddahalla, another patti about
fifteen miles distant, and for Ranga who had accompanied me on
many adventures. Both these men were expert trackers and knew
the area for miles around. But the three of us searched in vain: not
a single tiger-pug did we find. The killer had disappeared as
silently and as suddenly as he had come.

Time ran out on me and the day came to go back to Bangalore. I

returned the four baits I had borrowed together with a small
gratuity. Normally, it is not possible to come to an arrangement of
this sort and the hunter is compelled to purchase his baits
outright. But this case was an exception because they knew for
certain hat none of the baits would be harmed. How could they,
when there was no tiger to harm them?

About two months elapsed and Das, the driver, was returning
alone to Dharmapuri in the big family car from the city of Salem,
sixty-five miles away, where he had taken Sathynarayan’s father
for admission to hospital for removal of a cataract. Das had left
the old man there and was hurrying back for dinner. He had forty
miles to go to reach his home in Dharmapuri. The road narrowed
down to traverse the winding bund of a large deep tank. There
appeared to be no traffic in sight and Das accelerated.

Then something must have happened to the steering, or may be

a front tyre blew out. Nobody knows for certain. The only
witnesses were two villagers hurrying homewards who saw the
whole incident. The car left the roadway suddenly at a point
where the road turned left, crashed through the thin brick wall
bordering the bund directly ahead and plunged headlong into the
tank.

Das had closed the windows. He was trapped in the car and his
body was recovered a week later when the vehicle was hauled out
by the police.

Was it coincidence that he was drowned in the very tank into

which he had thrown the body of Kaiyara after his master and he
had murdered the poojaree and weighted the body with a stone?
Sathynarayan heard the news and madness fell upon him. First,
his only son, then his wife. Now the chauffeur, Das.

Sathynarayan remembered the murder of the old poojaree and

his daughter before him. Tales had been carried to him about the
curse the old man had uttered against him and he became
convinced it was his turn next. At that moment, Sathynarayan
realized he must die. Thus his mind gave way. His father returned
from hospital to find his son a lunatic. The old man did not spare
expense. He took Sathynarayan to Salem and consulted the best of
doctors. The boy kept repeating the names of Kaiyara and Mardee
in his raving but the doctors could do nothing to cure him.

Sathynarayan was then taken to Madras, and admitted to a

mental home. The psychiatrist discovered that the mania arose
from some connection in the madman’s mind with the two persons
whose names he kept muttering. However, no treatment was
effective and the father became reconciled to the fact that his son
and heir was permanently insane. The young man was brought
home, where he was given two male attendants to look after him
night and day. His father hoped that he would improve with time.

In this he was doomed to disappointment. His son became worse

and grew violent, whereas before he had been but a gibbering
maniac. The old man reluctantly decided that he would have to
put him into the asylum at Madras as a permanent inmate. But
this was not to be, for the curse of Kaiyara had yet to exact its full
toll—or so people said!

Sathynarayan was missing from his room when his attendant

brought his breakfast early one morning. He had been there the
evening before. A search was made all over the town but nobody
remembered to have seen him anywhere. They young man was
well known and somebody would have noticed his movements. It
was four days later when vultures spiralled the sky above the track
that leads from the main road to the cattle kraal at Panapatti.
They flew in wide circles, which narrowed as the birds of prey
rapidly increased in numbers. Then, one after another, they
plummeted to earth, their wing-feathers emitting a loud rattling
noise as they tore through the air.

Byra saw the vultures and heard the sound. He had taken
employment that year among the graziers at Panapatti and was
driving a herd of cattle to the forest for grazing. He knew the
vultures had spotted a ‘kill’, and being a hunter from childhood he
went to investigate. Perhaps there might be some meat for him to
eat.

The kill was easy to find. The discordant screeching noise made
by the vultures led him to it unerringly. The birds were gathered
round in a circle and had not yet begun to feed. For they were
afraid!

The reason for that fear lay in the fact that dead thing they were
contemplating was a human body. It was Sathynarayan, and he
had been killed by a tiger. But no part of his flesh had been eaten.

Byra told me, the next time we met, that he and the other
poojarees and herdsmen had searched the whole area thoroughly
for pug-marks, but they had found none. Then he shrugged: ‘How
could we dorai?’ he asked. ‘For it was no tiger that killed that
swine! Kaiyara made a good job of it.’

_____________
* See: Nine Man-Eaters and One Rouge.
Jungle Tales For Children

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Contents

FOREWORD
A Word to Parents Who Buy This Book
A Word to the Children Who Read It
1. Bruno, the Sloth Bear
2. The Brave Hyena
3. The Wise Old Elephant
4. The Lone Jackal
5. The Love of an Elephant for His Son
 Foreword

Y BOYHOOD in India was an exquisite blend of

M contradictions. Schoolmates from several religious faiths,
languages, ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic groups and
cultures played together happily, enjoying each other’s festivals
and food, revelling in their differences.

If my new home, Australia, can be described as a ‘melting pot’

of cultures, then my native land of India is best described as a
‘thali’. A large plate, served with a vast variety of delicious,
different foods, different colours, textures, flavours, spices and
temperatures—never to be mixed but savoured slowly and
individually as part of a complete, satisfying and fulfilling feast.

In those early years after the British departed, we were left with
adults who loved hunting wild animals for sport and children who
loved the joyful books about animals showing human
characteristics in their daily lives. Anthropomorphism is a
phenomenon that goes back to the Palaeolithic times.

At school we were enchanted by Grimms’ Fairy Tales by the

Brothers Grimm, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis
Carroll and The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. We then
graduated to The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, The Wind
in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis and Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne.

Sadly, these charming books are no longer read widely. Instead,

we have violent video games which occupy the fingers but not the
brains of our children. Bringing horror into their homes and
cruelty into their hearts.
 The most beautiful word ever written, in any language, at any
time, in any country, in human history, came from India. From
the Upanishads 8,000 years ago. ‘Ahimsa’—non-violence to any
living being.

Mahatma Gandhi bravely told the truth: ‘A nation is judged by

the way she treats her animals.’ On this basis, all nations must be
judged with unsparing harshness.

In law school we are constantly told of our ‘Duty of Care’. But

how often are we told that we have a ‘Duty to Care’? Well, there is
one place. In the Indian Constitution (Article 51A [g]). ‘It shall be
the fundamental duty of every citizen of India to protect and
improve the Natural Environment, including forests, lakes, rivers
and wildlife, and to have compassion for all living creatures.’

But as Hamlet ruefully observed, ‘…it is a custom, more

honour’d in the breach than the observance.’

Gandhi would recoil in horror to know that every week 3 billion

animals are now tortured and killed for food, fashion, fad or fun…
or in useless laboratory experiments…Every week!

These are crimes of unimaginable proportions. Crimes against

so-called ‘farm’ animals are so egregious that, if committed
against a domestic pet, or an ‘iconic’ animal like a tiger, they
would land the miscreant in prison. But these crimes go
unpunished. So the cruellest mammalian primate, with an
opposable thumb, an insatiable appetite and arrogance beyond
compare, is responsible for the greatest ecocide in human history.

As a boy, and then as a young man, I held Kenneth Anderson in

awe. To this day, I don’t know why my family cheerfully
addressed him as ‘Jock’. I was spellbound by his prodigious
knowledge of the jungles, rivers, creeks and tanks; the animals,
birds and insects—and his fascination with snakes; his deep
affection for the hospitable, gentle people who lived in the jungle;
his eccentric nature and desire to spend as much of his waking
hours as possible in the jungle, as far away from human
interference as possible. An hour spent away from the jungle was,
to Jock, a wasted hour.

He was often alone. But he was never lonely. Like all strong
men, he stood strongest when he was alone. I felt singularly
honoured when his son, Donald, wrote: ‘I wish you could have
spent more time with my father. He would have been proud to see
the man you have become.’

I have read every book ever written by Jock Anderson. And,

through the generosity of Donald, they occupy pride of place in
my library. They are constant reminders of another time—more
innocent perhaps, when the world was a simpler place. When we
still had a chance to see the future and do something to protect it.
Alas, with each passing day, we see it disappearing before our
eyes. Newer generations know less, care less and want more. The
beauty of the Indian jungle and the wild animals that live there
are tragically under threat from human encroachment as never
before.

I am delighted that there are so many remarkable young people

who have discovered Jock Anderson, his writing and his son,
Donald. Their stories are all interwoven into the rich tapestry
through which the fascinating history of India is revealed. I had
the unbridled joy of meeting several of these young people, and I
am astonished to see the reverence they have for a man they know
only through his books and their jungle travels with his beloved
son.

I hope this book is read by every Indian child. I read it again

today and it took my mind’s eye back to another time. Another
India. Half a century ago. When the Indian jungle was teeming
with animals from species too diverse to count. When the rivers
were clean. When birdsong could be heard above the sounds of the
river and the wind in the trees. When a young boy sat alone,
daydreaming, amongst the watermelons, on the banks of the
Cauvery and Arkavarthi rivers at Sangam. Experiencing the
solitary joy only an innocent heart could understand—and only
Jock Anderson could describe.

I am eternally grateful for the man. His memories. And his

books.

Philip Malcolm Wollen

Australia
 Word to Parents Who Buy This Book

N WRITING this book for children, I have tried to keep three

I purposes in view.
The first has been to relate something new and unusual, slightly
different from the kind of stories to which they have so long been
accustomed; and at the same time, something that would hold
their interest in each story.

My second purpose has been to teach them a little about a few

of the wild animals and birds that exist along with us in this
beautiful land in which we live. In doing this, I want to educate
them to some small extent in what may loosely be called Natural
History, while arousing in the minds of the youngsters a love of
Nature and an affection and gentleness for the dumb creatures
that live around us. For they do really need this kindness in a
world of increasing cruelty and harshness on the part of men
towards the humble beasts of the forest, as well as those that serve
us in civilization.

Lastly, into each story I have tried to weave a moral or lesson,

sometimes several of them, that impinge and impress themselves
on the minds of the boy or girl who reads them. This, really, is my
main purpose. I am convinced that many of us would have been
far better men and women today had we been taught better when
we were young. Some of us were taught by the cane and threats of
severe punishment; perhaps a few of us were not taught at all. In
both cases, the results may not have been very good. The method
of moulding the mind, when it is young, is the correct one and the
best approach for forming men and women of character and
gentleness, with an ingrained regard for what is right and just.

If this little book can speak for itself—if it interests, educates

and moulds at least one young mind into becoming a good, if not
great, man or woman and citizen of India—I am satisfied; while to
you, the parent who buys it, this gift for your little boy or girl will
have been a sound investment.

Kenneth Anderson
 A Word to the Children Who Read It

HAVE written this book especially for you, and I do hope you
I like the stories it contains. They are a little different from those
you may have read up to this time, but I have tried to make them
interesting all the same.

These tales are about animals. My reason for relating them is to

get you to know more about the animals and birds that live along
with us; and if you know a little more about animals you are sure
to come to love them and be kind to them. You should remember
that the same God that made you and me made these creatures
also, and therefore you have no right to be cruel to them in any
way.

In each story there is a lesson for you to learn; in some cases,

several lessons. The wonderful thing is that these lessons are not
taught to us by people but by the humble creatures that many of
us think have no feelings or sense of any kind. After reading these
tales, I am sure you will agree with me that wild animals and
birds, and domestic creatures also, do have sense and feelings after
all. And if they can teach us such good and valuable lessons, do
you not think we should learn those lessons and follow them, and
be kind to the creatures that have taught us?

Should you like these stories and enjoy reading this book, there
is a great favour you can do me in return. Will you do it, please? It
is quite an easy thing that I ask of you.

Learn the lessons taught here, and make up your mind to be

kind to all animals and birds. And tell your friends to be kind too.

When you grow up into men and women, you will be surprised
to find that not only did you do me a favour but you have also
done something that will reward you very greatly in your
everyday life. You will have built up a character for each one of
yourselves; and that is something far more precious than money or
gold!

Kenneth Anderson
 1

Bruno, the Sloth Bear

HIS is the story of a baby sloth bear and all that happened to
T him for the three years during which he lived.
Before beginning, let me explain briefly that the name ‘sloth
bear’ is given to the only kind of bear that lives in the forests in
the centre and south of our country. In the North, there are other
kinds of bears too, but the story I am about to relate took place in
the South.

Actually, it is quite a wrong name to give this bear, but the

reason is because this animal has very long nails on its feet,
resembling the long nails growing on the feet of the ‘sloth’, which
is quite a different creature altogether, and lives in a far distant
continent called South America. The ‘sloth’ of South America is
to be found on trees, and is something like a monkey. Also, it is
very lazy and moves slowly. That is the reason why people who
are lazy are often called ‘slothful’. The word means that they are
full, like a sloth, of laziness.

But the South Indian sloth bear is by no means lazy like the
South American sloth. In the wild state in the jungles where it
lives, it is true that this bear sleeps nearly all day, but that is
because it comes out at night. During that time it is very busy
indeed, digging in the earth for roots and the different insects,
grubs and white ants, that it feeds upon.

The sloth bear is jet black in colour except for a white mark on
its chest. The hair growing on top of its shoulders is extra long,
because mother bears, who generally have two babies at a time,
carry these babies on their backs when they move about from
place to place, and this long hair helps the young bears to have
something to hold on to, and to grip, with their sharp little claws
and teeth.

The story begins late one evening in a jungle in the south of our
country. It was growing dark and a mother bear and her two
babies, who had been asleep all day, had just come out of their
den in the forest to search for food. The mother bear was walking
along a narrow pathway that wound between the bushes, and on
her back were perched her two little babies, holding on for all they
were worth.

Then a terrible thing happened. Around the corner there

stepped a man with a gun in his hand. He was a hunter and quite
a cruel man, indeed!

Without thinking or caring, he raised his gun and fired two shots
at the poor mother bear who happened to be walking along
innocently, only a few feet in front of him.

The first shot struck her right in the middle of her forehead. She
fell backwards, and the second shot went through her chest. The
mother bear did not move after that, for she was dead.

But the hunter was not as brave as he was cruel. He did not
come near the dead bear at once, thinking perhaps she might not
be dead at all, but only wounded, and that she would bite or tear
him with her claws, if he came too close.
 After a while, however, when he saw that the bear did not
move, he walked up to the body, where he made a very sad
discovery.

His second bullet, in passing through the mother bear’s chest,

had come out through her back and had killed one of the two baby
bears that had been perched there. The other bear cub, which was
alive and unhurt, was still clinging on to its mother, not realizing
that she was dead.

Even that wicked hunter felt sorry then, for what he had done,
and determined that he would take the little bear home and give
it to his wife and son. He knew they would look after it and care
for it, while if he left it in the jungle, it would surely die of
starvation, or be killed by some wild animal, without its mother
to feed and protect it.

The baby bear did not want to let go of its parent and made a
good deal of noise, but the man caught it by the back of its neck,
pulled it of the dead body of its mother, and put it into a large
canvas bag that was slung across his shoulder. Then he took the
cub home, and gave it to his wife and son.

They were delighted. His wife put a pink ribbon around the
cub’s neck, kissed him on his little black nose, and called him
‘Bruno’, for he was a boy cub. The hunter’s son also picked him up
and played with the little bear, giving him milk to drink and
sweets to eat. Bruno did not appear to be at all frightened or shy
now. On the other hand, he soon made friends with all the people
of the household, and grew to be quite at home.

From that day, the little fellow became almost like a child in
that family, and was treated as one. Even the cruel hunter who
had shot his poor mother, was more sorry than ever for the deed
that he had done, as he, too, grew to love little Bruno more and
more each day.
 When he first came, Bruno liked to drink milk from a bottle like
a baby. But he soon gave up this practice, and would eat and drink
anything that was given to him. He did not lap like a dog or cat,
but would place his long lips inside the tray or pan, or whatever it
was in which the food was served, and draw it up into his mouth
and stomach with a loud, sucking sound, as if he had some big
pump working inside him.

Another habit to which the young bear was very accustomed,

was to suck one of the paws on his legs, and sometimes his own
knee, with a loud, humming sound, resembling the noise made by
a whole lot of bees when they are swarming.

The hunter and his wife, whom I shall call Mr and Mrs Singh,
and their son, Kamal, tried for a long time to discover what was
the cause of this habit. But they were not successful. Later they
found out that nearly all bears follow this practice. Then they
thought that it might just be a bad habit among sloth bears in
general.

As a matter of fact, this is not a bad habit among these animals

at all. They suck their own paws and knees because they like the
taste of the salty sweat that comes out at these places. Bears are
very fond of salt, and will eat whole handfuls of it, if you give it to
them.

As he grew older and older, Bruno became more and more

mischievous. Mr and Mrs Singh had a number of dogs, and Bruno
got very friendly with all of them. He would gobble up his own
share of food quickly, and then go and rob from the plates in
which the dogs were eating. The dogs would growl and try to snap
at him, but he would just close his eyes and go on sucking up the
dogs’ food, till all of it had disappeared in a matter of seconds.

Every morning, Mr Singh would take him out for a walk, along
with the dogs. At times, they would meet another lady or
gentleman, also out for a walk with their dogs. Before Mr Singh
could stop them, Bruno and the dogs would give chase, of course,
only in play, and with no intention of harming or biting the other
dogs. But the strange lady or gentleman would not know this. It
was a funny sight to see them running away for all they were
worth, with their pet dog held high in the air to save it from Bruno
and the pack of dogs with him.

Although Mr Singh could not help laughing, he often got into

trouble over this, as the lady, or gentleman, would go to the police
station and make a report. Then a policeman would come along
and tell Mr Singh that he should keep Bruno chained, and would
threaten to fine him.

Once, when they were all going for a walk, Mr Singh and his
pets passed a tennis court where four men were playing tennis.
Seeing the ball bouncing about was too much of a temptation for
Bruno. Immediately, he ran on to the court, chased and caught
the tennis ball, and ran away with it in his mouth. The four men
who were playing, were so frightened, that they left the court and
ran in all directions. Mr Singh had a hard time getting the ball
back out of Bruno’s mouth. When he finally succeeded, it was of
no use anyhow, for Bruno had bitten it through and through with
his strong teeth, and his master had to pay for a new ball.

As he grew bigger, the little bear not only became more

mischievous, but more and more greedy, and developed a number
of bad habits. One of these was, that he got to know at what time
in the morning the servant woman usually returned from the
market, carrying a big basket containing all the provisions she had
bought.

So he did a very naughty thing. He hid behind a tree until the

woman had come close, and then rushed out at her, holding on to
her legs, and trying to reach for the basket on her head. The
woman of course, thought he was going to bite her. She screamed
with fright, threw the basket down, and ran away, whereupon
Bruno ate up every single thing in the basket, leaving just the
firewood.

The servant complained, with tears in her eyes, to her master

and mistress, but as they had grown very fond of Bruno, they did
not like to punish him and excused him, instead. As a result, there
was nothing to eat for lunch that day, as Bruno had gobbled it all
up. He had made sure of his lunch by eating everyone else’s
instead!

The following morning, the naughty Bruno did the same thing.
He chased the servant as she came from the market, and once
more ate up all the contents of her basket. She complained again,
and said she would not work there the following day.

This time, Mr Singh had to give Bruno a beating and chain him
up. He also had to keep him chained every morning, an hour
before the servant woman was due to come from the market.

On another day, Mr Singh had changed the oil in the engine of

his car and had kept the old oil, which was black and very dirty,
in an empty tin in the garage. Bruno found this and drank it all
up. Nearly one gallon of dirty oil! Everyone thought he would get
very sick and die. But nothing happened to him at all!

There was a day, however, when Bruno did something very

naughty through which he nearly lost his life. It came about in
this way.

As you know, rats and mice are very numerous in old houses and
do a lot of damage. They had destroyed some papers in Mr Singh’s
office room, which made him angry, and so he put a lot of rat
poison there for them to eat and die, closing the door so that
neither Bruno, nor any of the dogs, could enter and eat the poison
by accident.
 But Bruno was very clever; or rather he thought he was very
clever. He climbed in through the window and ate some of this
poison.

An hour later he became very very sick. His master knew what
had happened. He went in his car and fetched the animal doctor
to try to save Bruno’s life.

The doctor was a clever man. Bruno was too ill to be able to
swallow, but the doctor gave him many injections. With all that,
it took nearly two hours before he was able to open his eyes. Do
you know he was such a greedy little bear that, an hour later, he
wanted to eat again!

Another strange habit this bear formed was to cuddle and fondle
a piece of dead tree-root against his breast, as if it was a baby bear
of his own. I am sure I could not tell you where he found this tree-
root or how he got hold of it, but one day the Singhs noticed he
was holding on to something hard, kissing it with his long, thick
lips, and licking it with his tongue. When they went closer, they
saw it was just a hard bit of dead root. But Bruno would not let go
of it. Day by day he would hug and play with his strange toy, till
his owners called it his baby.

On another day, Kamal got hold of a piece of bamboo about four

feet long, which in play he pointed at Bruno and kept saying, ‘I’m
going to shoot you! I’m going to shoot you!’

Straightaway Bruno grabbed the other end of the bamboo with

his paw, and then very cleverly held it in the crook of his arm and
pointed it back at Kamal. Everybody laughed at this, and Kamal
left the bamboo with him. Very often after that, when anybody
went near him, Bruno would point the bamboo at them, so that in
the end this stick was called ‘Bruno’s gun’.

Bruno kept these two strange toys of his, his ‘baby’ and his
‘gun’, with him till the day he died.
 In about two years’ time, this bear had grown very big indeed,
although he still hugged his ‘baby’ and pointed his ‘gun’. People
began to get scared of him, because he had very long teeth and
sharp claws on his feet. Mr and Mrs Singh also became afraid that
he might bite one of the children belonging to their tenants, or
their neighbours, when they called in at the house sometimes.
They thought over the matter, and finally decided to send Bruno
to a zoo.

The nearest zoo was in a town nearly 90 miles away. Mr Singh

wrote to the officer-in-charge, asking if he would like to have
Bruno as a gift. The zookeeper replied, accepting the present, and
a week later, sent a lorry with a cage in it, in which to fetch
Bruno.

The bear cried bitterly, and so did his mistress, when he was
forced into the cage, which was then lifted on to the lorry. Mr
Singh felt very sad, too, to see him go. He had been such a sweet
and affectionate pet. Then the lorry drove away.

But that’s not the end of the story.

As I have related, Mrs Singh cried a great deal when Bruno was
taken away. A week later, a friend happened to be going to the
town where the zoo was to which Bruno had been sent. She asked
this friend to visit the zoo to find out how Bruno was getting
along.

The friend returned two days later with sad news. Bruno had
become very thin, and the zookeeper said he was always crying,
particularly at night, and had hardly eaten anything.

Both Mr and Mrs Singh were very upset when they heard this
news. Mrs Singh wrote immediately to the officer-in-charge of the
zoo, inquiring more about Bruno.
 The man wrote back. He said the same thing. The bear was
always crying, would hardly eat, although they had offered him
all kinds of food, and was becoming very thin indeed. He added
that Bruno was no doubt missing his old mistress and master, and
could not forget them. It appeared as if he would never settle
down in his new home in the zoo and might pine away till he
died.

When a pet animal behaves like this, and refuses to eat after he
has been separated from his master or mistress, it is called
‘fretting’.

After receiving the letter from the zookeeper, Mrs Singh cried
bitterly again. She said that she wanted to go and visit Bruno.

At first, her husband did not agree. He knew that such a visit
would make her more sad. But Mrs Singh was determined, and
said she would go by train if he did not take her by car. So finally
he consented, and they both set out by car for the town where the
zoo was.

Before they could even reach his cage, the Singhs could hear
poor Bruno crying to himself. And when he saw them, what a
change took place! He screamed and screamed with joy. So much
so, that many people came running to see what it was all about.

Mrs Singh was very happy. She bought him ice cream and buns
at the canteen. Bruno ate it all, for he was starving, and wanted
more.

All day the Singhs stayed with him. When evening came and
the visitors had to leave, poor Bruno cried very bitterly again. As
they got into their car on the road far away, the Singhs could still
hear him screaming.

So there and then they made up their minds. They would stay
the night in some hotel and not go back. The following morning,
they would ask the zookeeper to let them have their pet back.

Early next morning, they returned to the zoo. From the road
once again, they could hear the bear crying and knew he had been
crying all night. But how he shrieked with joy when they stood
before his cage once more!

A little later, the officer-in-charge of the zoo arrived, and both

Mr and Mrs Singh asked him to please give their pet back to them.
He happened to be a kind-hearted man, and agreed readily.

So they fetched a wooden box, put Bruno inside, got men to lift
the box on to the top of the car, where they tied it on securely,
and were soon on their 90-mile journey back home.

This time, to avoid any danger of Bruno biting the tenants’ or

neighbours’ children, the Singhs thought of a clever plan.

They called labourers to dig a wide and deep trench around a

small square-shaped bit of ground, which they left as an island in
the centre. Then they built a little brick house on the island for
Bruno, and knew if they put him there he would be quite happy,
while at the same time the children who came to the house,
would be safe from Bruno, as he could not cross over the trench to
harm them, nor could they cross over to go near him. The
carpenters also built a sort of drawbridge with two old ladders,
across which the Singhs and Kamal could go on to the island
themselves, to feed the bear and play with him and pet him.

It took nearly ten days for the labourers and carpenters to finish
their work, and during this time, Bruno had to remain shut in the
box in which he had been brought from the zoo. But never once
did he cry, for he knew his old mistress and master were near him
all the time.

At last the work was finished. The box was carried across the
drawbridge of ladders and Bruno was set free on his island. Mrs
Singh gave him back his ‘baby’ and his ‘gun’. Both these things
she had kept carefully in memory of Bruno since the day the zoo
men had come and taken him away in the lorry.

What a happy day that was for Bruno! How he howled with
pleasure and delight, hugged his ‘baby’, pointed his ‘gun’, and ate
his fill of all the nice things his master and mistress gave him!

The trench was too deep and wide for Bruno or the children to
cross, but certainly not too wide for his doggy friends to jump over.
All of them visited him several times a day and he was filled with
joy once again.

Diwali came shortly after that. As a gift, Mrs Singh gave him a
large stuffed teddy bear which she had bought. But this, I am sorry
to tell you, Bruno played with so roughly, that he soon tore it to
bits. Mr Singh was more wise. He gave him a bag of nuts, which
Bruno thoroughly enjoyed.

In this manner another eighteen months passed. Bruno was now

a fully grown sloth bear, three and a half years old, very large in
size, very fierce to look at, but just as sweet and gentle in nature.
Nobody would go on the island except Mr and Mrs Singh and
Kamal and their four dogs. All seven knew that Bruno would
never bite any of them.

Suddenly Mrs Singh became very ill. She was taken to hospital
and Bruno never saw her again. The doctors there did everything
they could to cure her, but she got worse and worse, and finally
died.

Each morning Bruno would climb on to the roof of his little

house in the middle of the island, stand up on his two hind legs,
look forth for his mistress and cry bitterly. All day long he would
cry, and most of the night, too. But his mistress never came back
to him.
 After some days, he refused to eat any food. Mr Singh and his
son tried to console him, and feed him with bread, milk, cake,
nuts and all sorts of nice things. But he met them with tears in his
eyes and ate nothing. Day by day he grew more thin. Day after
day he cried for the mistress who did not come back.

Exactly three months to the very day after his mistress had died,
poor Bruno himself died early in the morning. Mr Singh and his
son were with him till the end. There were tears in the big bear’s
eyes as he breathed his last—tears for the mistress who had left
him and had never come back to see him again!

And there were tears in Mr Singh’s eyes, and in Kamal’s eyes

too, as they watched their dear pet die before them, of a broken
heart. For yes, his loyal and loving heart was broken indeed.

They buried him along with his ‘baby’ and his ‘gun’ that
evening. If there is a heaven where people and animals go to when
they die, I am sure he must be happy there now, along with his
toys, together once again with his beloved mistress.
 2

The Brave Hyena

HYENA is a curious-looking animal indeed. It is shaped

A something like a dog but has stripes like a tiger. Even its walk
is peculiar. It seems to halt or hesitate every little while, as if in
doubt. Perhaps it is in constant fear all the time. Its form is
unusual, too. The head and forepart of the body are large and
strong, but its back slopes down to hind legs that are much smaller
and weaker than the front. The big bushy tail, dark grey in colour,
is almost like a brush. All the time that it looks at us, this small
animal appears to be crying, for we can see what seem to be tears
in its large black eyes. That is why people sometimes call this
creature the ‘crying hyena’.

This strange beast is found almost all over our country, but
mainly in the jungles. Some of the people who also live in the
forests all their lives think it is half a tiger and half a dog.
Actually it has nothing to do with a tiger at all, but is more of a
dog, although there are some important differences.

The hyena hides all day and only comes out at night to search
for something to eat. You see, both tigers and panthers don’t finish
every bit of the animals they kill. There are always some scraps
left over, and of course plenty of bones, and these remains are
what the hyena lives on for food, together with any other
creatures that die in the forest due to other causes. Because of this
habit, many people think he is a very filthy animal. Rarely does a
hyena succeed in catching anything alive. He moves too slowly to
be able to do so, and is rather timid.

Really, a hyena is not a dirty animal at all. As a matter of fact,

he is quite clean. Unlike some of our dogs, the hyena keeps his
hair and skin free of all dirt by constantly licking himself.

I had one as a pet till quite recently. He was very tame and used
to come with me for long walks along the roads and across the
countryside. All the people who passed by and saw him were
frightened, but he was perfectly harmless and had a most sweet
nature. He was particularly fond of dogs and was ready to play
with every one of them he met, although some of the dogs were
rude in return and wanted to snap and bite at him. No doubt this
was because he looked so funny to them.

Now I shall tell you how I came to get this animal, and all that
happened in a jungle one night that led me to finding him. This
story will show you that, although the hyena looks such an ugly
and horrible beast, it is capable of performing a most noble action.

I was once sitting at night on top of a high rock, overlooking the

bed of a dry stream. All round me was dense jungle, for I had
purposely chosen this quiet spot. When I want to see wild animals,
I go to a forest on a moonlit night, sit on a tree or rock, place a few
broken branches in front of me so that I will be hidden and not
seen, watch animals all night long as they roam about freely in
the jungle. Sometimes they come quite close to me, without ever
knowing that I am hiding nearby.

Some of the animals you see in a circus and zoo are here in these
jungles. To name a few: there are elephants, tigers, panthers,
bears, bison—which are really wild cattle—and several kinds of
deer. There are also many sorts of smaller creatures which you
have perhaps never seen, and whose names you do not know.

The night my story begins, the rock on which I was sitting, as I

have already told you, was by the side of a dry stream-bed. That
is, it was dry everywhere else except for a small pool of dirty water
that had collected in a hollow right in front of me. It was now in
the middle of the hot weather and all the grass and trees were very
dry.

Before climbing up the rock, I had noticed the footprints of a

number of animals that had visited this pool the previous night,
and I hoped I would be able to see them for myself if they came
again.

Once the sun sets, it gets very dark in a jungle, and also very
frightening. If you are alone, you feel that all sorts of terrible
creatures are watching you from under the trees where you cannot
see them, getting ready to spring upon you and kill you at any
moment. You cannot get over the feeling that hidden eyes are
looking at you from dark corners.

So that evening, when the sun went down and it began to grow
dark so rapidly, I became afraid too. I wondered if a tiger might
come and see me perched on top of the rock. It was not too high
for him to spring up at me! I knew it would take another hour for
the moon to rise, but before then it would be very dark and if a
tiger came, I would not be able to see him.

Now and again I could hear sounds in the jungle, some of them
far away and other quite close. A sambar, which is a kind of deer,
larger than the spotted deer and fully brown in colour, called in
the darkness: ‘Dhank! Oonk! Oonk!’ It seemed frightened of
something, as the sound it was making was a cry of alarm. In the
bushes and long grass below the rock, I could hear faint rustling
noises as if something was creeping through them and coming
closer and closer to where I was sitting. It was far too dark to see
anything, and I was becoming more and more frightened. I felt the
hair at the back of my neck standing on end.

After a while everything became a little more clear and I knew

that something I had been expecting was coming. Then it
appeared over the tops of the forest trees to the east. At first it was
huge and like a big red ball of fire, but as it climbed higher it
seemed to grow smaller and smaller, while changing its colour
from red to a shining silver.

In a short half hour the moon had risen! The moonlight I had
been waiting for so anxiously, had come at last! It grew almost as
bright as day and I could see every bush and blade of grass
distinctly, and with its coming, I didn’t feel quite so frightened of
any beast that might have been hiding below me.

But not for very long!

‘O-o-o-ongh! Aungh-ha! Aungh! Ugh! Ugh!’

The sound crashed through the silence, as suddenly, a loud,

deep roar came from beneath the trees of the forest on the opposite
bank of the dry stream. Then it was repeated three or four times.

It was a tiger!

He was hiding somewhere in front of me! Would he attack? No

wonder the sambar had been so terrified a moment ago when he
had sounded his alarm cry.

All this while, a number of frogs were croaking on the banks of

the muddy pool of water that lay below me: ‘Korr! Korr! Korr!
Korr!’

The next minute they had all stopped croaking together. Why
was this? What was frightening them now? Then I knew the
answer.

They had stopped because they had seen the tiger. And I could
see him myself, too, as he stepped out from behind the dark
shadows under the trees. He was a beautiful animal to look at;
huge in size, clearly marked with black stripes across his brown
hair that seemed to be grey in appearance!

The tiger walked boldly to the edge of the water, crouched down
on the sand, bent his head and began to drink. I could clearly hear
the sound of him, lapping up the water.

He drank deeply for about five minutes, stood up, gently shook
his head, and then walked forward till he reached the foot of the
rock on which I was sitting.

I was trembling all over with excitement and fear, not knowing
what was going to happen next. Would the tiger look up and see
me hiding on the rock? Would he spring at me then?

But to my good luck he didn’t look up. I lost sight of him as he

passed close beneath, and then a second later I heard a faint
swishing sound as he entered the grass. There was silence after
that and I knew the tiger had gone and I was safe.

Not long afterwards there came a loud, twanging sound from

the jungle behind me, followed by a great thud. And seconds later
I heard a sharp screeching: ‘Tri-a-a-ank! Tri-a-aank!’

The elephants had arrived!

One of them had broken a big branch off a tree and it had fallen
to the ground. That was what had caused the twanging twice, to
alert the other members. Very likely he saw, or smelt, the tiger
that just passed.
 The herd came nearer, and at last, with a loud breaking of more
branches and tearing of the bushes all around, they marched on to
the dry stream-bed, one after the other, about a hundred yards
away.

I could count five of them. There was a mother, followed by a

very small baby who could just about toddle along behind her.
Next came a young elephant that was no taller than I. The fourth
was a half-grown male elephant. He had short tusks which I could
see quite clearly. The last was a huge, tall animal, about ten feet
in height, with long tusks that looked very white in the bright
moonlight.

One behind the other, the five elephants walked to the muddy
pool and entered it without hesitation. Very soon the water
became too deep for the little baby. He started to cry and squeal in
alarm, making a funny sound somewhat like a young pig: ‘Quink!
Quink! Quink!’

But the mother elephant was there to help him. She stretched
out her trunk beneath him and lifted him up so as to keep his head
above water. The little fellow began to enjoy this. His squeals of
fear turned into squeals of delight.

After throwing water over themselves and each other, the five
elephants came out of the pool and stood on the dry sand of the
stream-bed. Then, what do you think they did next? Why, they
started throwing sand over themselves and each other, till they
were covered and as dirty as they had been before bathing! Perhaps
this was their way of drying themselves, as they had no towels!

It took almost an hour to do all this. Then the five of them

marched off into the jungle, one behind the other, in the same
order as they had arrived. I could hear them breaking branches
and making a noise for sometime afterwards, till finally there was
silence.
 My watch showed the time to be past 10 p.m.

Suddenly, I was aware of something grey coming down the dry

bed of the stream towards the pool. It moved in a funny way. It
would come forward a few steps, then stop. Then come forward,
and stop again!

When it stood almost opposite me I could make out the grey

form and black stripes of a hyena, and could see its black snout
and upright ears.

The hyena seemed to be afraid of something behind it. Every

little while it would stop, turn its head backwards, and look
around. I wondered what it was that could be frightening the
beast.

Finally it made up its mind to drink water. It must have been

very thirsty, for it darted to the edge of the pool and started
lapping very fast, as if to drink as quickly and as much as it could,
before running away again.

Only then did I come to discover why the hyena seemed to be so

frightened, for behind him I could now observe a number of forms
slinking along the banks of the dry stream. They came nearer and
nearer, and then suddenly, with shrill calls which you would
never for a moment think came from any animal as they, rushed
upon the unfortunate hyena together.

In the moonlight I could recognize these creatures now. I

counted six of them. They were wild dogs!

Wild dogs in our jungles behave very much like the wolves you
must have read about that live in the cold lands of the north. They
hunt in packs, as do our jackals, but are much more fierce, and
kill and eat other animals, mainly deer and pigs, which they tear
to bits and eat almost alive. They are very cruel also, and cunning
by nature. They even attack bears, panthers and tigers, and all
living creatures, except the elephants, are afraid of them.

While wandering in the jungles, I have several times come

across the bodies of tigers that have been torn to shreds and eaten
by wild dogs. Of course, the tiger puts up a great fight and kills a
great many of his attackers before he himself is killed, but these
beasts are so fierce and greedy, and number so many, that they eat
not only the tiger after they have killed it, but their own friends
that the tiger has killed.

But unlike the scavengers I have told you about, wild dogs do
not touch any dead thing they may come across, they must kill it,
and then eat.

They were far too fast for him. He had scarcely gone a few yards
when they were upon him and a terrible fight commenced.

The hyena was bigger and stronger and could bite harder than
any of its attackers, but by nature it is not a fighter, nor can it
think and move so quickly. Also it was alone, while the dogs were
half a dozen in number.

They jumped on the poor hyena and bit it all over, while it
fought back as best as it could.

Luckily, the hyena was able to catch one of the attackers by its
throat, and gave it such a great crunch that the wild dog died at
once. But the others would not let go and kept on biting the
unfortunate hyena. I knew it would soon be killed.

I wanted to save the poor thing, but I had no gun with me and
was afraid of getting down from my rock to go near the fighting
animals, in case any of them, particularly the wild dogs who were
in a great rage and very excited, should turn on me and perhaps
kill me too.
 So, from the top of the rock I started to shout, clap my hands,
and make as much noise as I could.

For a minute or two, none of the fighting animals heard, as they

were intent upon biting one another. Then one of the wild dogs
looked up and saw me. He stopped attacking the hyena, and soon
the others did so too. Then the five of them stared at me boldly, no
doubt very cross because I had interfered at such a time.

The hyena took this opportunity to slink away, but I could see
in the moonlight that it had been badly bitten and was covered
with blood. One of its hind legs appeared to be dragging along the
ground.

It disappeared behind the rock on which I was sitting, while I

kept making clicking noises with my thumb and finger to get the
wild dogs to keep looking at me to give the hyena a chance of
escaping.

For about five minutes they stood and stared. Then they must
have realized that I was too high up on the rock and they could
not reach me. Also, they were cunning and knew if they followed
the hyena they would be able to catch up with it again, and kill
and eat it.

So once more, making their hunting call that I have told you
sounds like the cries of some strange bird, the remaining five dogs
began to run the way the hyena had gone, sniffing the ground and
following the trail of blood that had dripped from it.

Nearly ten minutes later, far away in the distance, I could hear
the sounds of fighting once again, and knew that the hyena was
being killed.

No animals came to the pool to drink water for the rest of that
night, although I kept awake till morning. I suppose the noise of
the fight that had taken place must have been heard all over the
jungle and frightened everything away.

Next morning, when the sun rose and it became a bit warm, I
climbed down from the rock and followed that trail of blood that
had been left behind by the hyena in its flight. I wanted to find out
how the matter had ended.

There was a small hill by the side of the dry stream, and it was
from here that I had heard the sounds of the fight being continued
after the dogs had caught up with the hyena. Quite a lot of blood
had dripped on to the ground from the wounded beast, so there
was no difficulty in locating the place where the battle had finally
ended.

I came upon the dead body of the hyena at last, or rather I

should say, some torn bits of striped skin and a few bones. All the
rest had been eaten by the dogs.

The poor animal must have fought well, for I also saw the
remains of a second dog that had been killed by it. This dog had
also been eaten by its companions before they had gorged
themselves sufficiently to leave the spot.

After looking sadly at all that remained of the gallant hyena, I

turned to walk away, when I heard a faint sound. It was
something like the sound you must have heard young kittens
making; a sort of faint mewing.

I looked around at once to see where it was coming from.

A few yards away were five or six large rocks heaped together
one upon the other, and below them was a space leading
underground. Standing just outside this hole, or low cave, was a
baby hyena. He was looking very sorrowfully at me, and at the
remains of the big hyena that had been killed. Even from that
distance I could see what looked like tears glistening in the corners
of his large eyes. I knew that he was weeping for his mother.

Only then did I realize that the brave mother could have
prolonged her life by running into the cave where she lived with
her baby, but hadn’t done so for fear that the cruel wild dogs
would follow her into the hole and eat up her puppy. So she had
decided to remain outside and fight them, although she knew that
in doing so she would surely be killed. But at least the dogs would
go away after that with their bellies full, and would not think of
searching inside the cave. What a heroic action, indeed!

I caught that baby hyena and brought it back home. He was a

male and I called him ‘Jackie’. I kept him as a pet till he was four
years old. Lots of children, and big people too, even visitors from
England, America and Germany, came to my house to see him,
and they were all very thrilled to see how tame he was.
 3

The Wise Old Elephant

HIS is the story of a wise old elephant who once lived in one of
T the great forests of our country.
Lots and lots of other animals lived with him in that jungle.
There were tigers and panthers, deers and crocodiles, birds and
snakes, and all kinds of wonderful creatures. But of all of these,
this old elephant became the king, and I will tell you how and
why he became king.

As you know, it does not rain throughout the year in our

country. In fact, for eight or nine months it does not rain at all,
and the land becomes hot and dry and parched. Then, in the
middle of the year, after the hottest season, down comes the rain;
and when it does come, it rains hard for days and days and days. It
is almost as if the rain is trying to make up for not coming all the
rest of the year.

In the forests, the pools and the rivers store up this rainwater
and keep it for many months, and it is from these pools and rivers
that the birds and the animals, and all the other creatures of the
jungle, have to drink water to keep themselves alive during the
dry period.

Year after year, by the end of the hot weather, but before the
rain starts, there is very little water left anywhere. The leaves fall
from the trees, the grass withers and dries, and the animals
become thin and starved. The koel, a bird that you may have
often heard in your garden, cries out for rain. In the hot
afternoons, when the sun is beating down without mercy and the
animals and other creatures look anxiously at the clear sky,
longing for the clouds to appear which will bring the rain, this
bird can be heard calling to the gods to send the rain quickly: ‘Ko-
el! Ko-el! Ko-el!’ And what is most wonderful to relate, the gods
generally hear this bird and send the rain within a few days to
water the forests.

But one year, long ago, the gods became angry with the villagers
and determined to punish them by sending no rain that year. And
because of the sins of these wicked men, the poor koel and the
other birds and wild animals in the forest, who were innocent
themselves, had to suffer. The koel cried aloud for water, but her
call was in vain. The rain never fell. The animals in the jungle
panted with thirst, but still there was no rain. At last, a time
came when they made up their minds that they would all have to
die.

So they arranged a meeting in order to decide what they should

do.

But before such a meeting could be held, the animals had to first
come to an agreement among themselves. The tigers had to
promise not to kill the deers that came to the meeting, and the
panthers had to promise not to harm any other creatures either.
 The monkeys served as messengers to carry the invitation to
each of the animals in turn to attend this meeting. They knew
they were safe in talking to the tigers while giving this message,
for they could hang by their tails and legs high up in the trees, out
of reach.

When the tigers and panthers heard about the meeting they
were glad, for they were thirsty too and very frightened as well,
but were not clever enough to be able to think what should be
done and wanted the help of the other animals, who were more
clever, in showing them a way to get the water they needed so
much.

At last all the beasts met together under the shade of a very
large banyan tree that was growing in the heart of the forest.

The monkeys, who had arranged the meeting, took the lead.
They told the animals who had gathered there that something had
to be done soon to get water, or all of them would die of thirst.

A sly old jackal then had an idea.

‘That’s easy,’ he said, ‘all you monkeys have to do is to climb to

the tops of the coconut palms in the forest, break off the nuts that
are growing there, and are full of water, and throw them down to
us.’

The animals were happy at hearing these words. They said the
jackal was a very clever fellow to have thought of such an idea
and all of them set off behind him to the nearest grove of coconut
trees in the jungle to get the coconut water.

The monkeys scampered up the tall coconut palms and soon bit
off the nuts from the tops of the trees. They began to throw them
to the ground, and the animals ran to pick them up and drink the
water that they thought was inside.
 But, alas, they were greatly disappointed. For in falling from the
tall palm trees, the nuts hit the ground so hard that most of them
burst and the coconut water spilled into the parched earth before
the animals had any chance to drink it.

The poor creatures huddled together at the foot of the coconut

trees after that. They were desperate and filled with fear. For they
were very thirsty and the only plan they had thought of had
failed.

Just then an old elephant among them had another idea. Up to

this time, none of the other animals had even troubled to ask this
elephant’s advice, for to them he looked rather a stupid fellow.
Although he was very large in size, he had a mild temper and did
not harm any of the other creatures. In fact, they were less afraid
of him than they were of the tigers, the panthers, the wolves and
the wild dogs that lived in the jungles. All of these killed any
animal they could catch, and sometimes each other, but the big
old elephant did not harm even a little bird or a mouse.

‘I am growing old now,’ he began, ‘but I remember that, over

fifty years ago, before any of you were born, the rains had failed to
come, just as they have failed this year, and everything dried up.

‘I was searching for water one day when I came to the bed of a
stream. There was no water in it and the stream was quite dry.

‘But for some reason that I don’t know, I began to scrape with
my front feet and dig with my trunk in the sand. Perhaps it was
just idleness that made me dig. Maybe, I was angry.

‘Anyway, I dug, and I dug, and I dug.

‘Then I noticed a strange thing. As I went deeper the sand began

getting cooler and cooler. And it was not so dry. In fact, it was
becoming moist.
 ‘The thought came to me that I might find water in this way. So
I began to dig harder, faster and deeper.

‘I dug quite a deep hole and a large one, and right enough, I
found water! I drank, and drank, and drank.

‘They all came and drank, and they were very happy after that
and thanked me very much, too.

‘But I must tell you that all this happened in another jungle,
quite far from here,’ concluded the old elephant. ‘I know there is a
stream in this forest, and that it is dry now. But I don’t know if I
will be able to find any water should I dig in it, like I did that day,
many years ago.’

There followed a chorus of pleadings from all the other animals

that heard him. Even the tigers, and the big bison and wild
buffaloes that had come to the meeting, began to beg of him.
‘Please, please try,’ they asked, ‘for we are so very, very thirsty.’

The obliging old elephant immediately agreed to try, and they

all trooped off behind him to the dry bed of the stream, just a mile
away.

The elephant selected a spot where the sand seemed soft, and
there he began to dig with one of his large, powerful front legs and
with his long trunk.

It was hard work, at first, for him to shift away the loose sand.
But seeing what was required, the sloth bear and the porcupine
started to help him. Soon the mongoose and the pangolin, which is
a small animal that has scales on it like armour, began to dig too.
Then the wild pigs joined in.

They dug and they dug, while the elephant cleared away the
loose earth as fast as he could with his trunk and feet.
 They worked hard and for a long time.

Then they noticed the sand becoming wet and more loose and
more soft. So they dug even harder and faster and deeper.

At last the sand became quite dark in colour, for it was damp,
and they could get the smell of water. They dug even harder after
that.

Finally they came upon a tiny trickle of muddy water that

showed through the sand, and they dug yet harder and faster still.

In about four hours, the animals had made a large hole in the
bed of the stream which soon filled with the life-giving water that
had been running underground all this time, but was too little to
show itself at the surface, and which they had known nothing
about.

The animals drank their fill after that. But the big old elephant,
although he was very thirsty and had worked so hard, and
although it had been his idea to dig and find the water, waited till
all of them had finished before he began to drink. Remember, he
was a huge animal, bigger than any of them, and could have
easily pushed them aside had he wanted.

When he had finished drinking, the elephant looked up and

found all the animals still gathered around him. He was surprised
that they had not gone away and wondered what they wanted.

So he asked them, ‘Do any of you want more water?’

‘We are waiting to thank you,’ they answered in a chorus, ‘and

to make you our king. For you are the wisest of us all, the
strongest and yet the most generous and gentle.’

Then, by common consent, one by one, all those animals, large

and small, filed past the old elephant to thank him for saving their
lives. Many of them had tears of gratitude in their eyes. Even the
tiger, who had been considered by most of them to hold this title,
was glad to give it up now.

And that was how the wise old elephant became the King of the
Jungle, a distinction that is held by him and his descendants to
this day.

The truce between the animals continued for a long time. They
all drank from that water-hole in the stream-bed, nor did one
harm the other for many weeks, till at last the gods forgave the
wicked villagers and sent rain.

After that, the stream began to flow and there was plenty of
water for everyone in the forest. Then the tigers and panthers,
who were in the habit of hunting for their food, told the elephant,
their king, and the monkeys, to tell the other animals of the
jungle that their truce must now come to an end. They were very
hungry, and from the following day would have to once again
start killing and eating such creatures as they could catch.

In a later story I will tell you what happened to this same wise
old elephant.
 4

The Lone Jackal

N THE jungles and wastelands of our country, are many kinds of

I animals that belong to the dog family. In a few places there are
wolves which look very much like the wolves of northern Europe
and America, and resemble Alsation dogs. Then there are hyenas
and wild dogs, jackals and foxes.

The most cunning and clever of the lot are the jackals. This
story not only shows how artful one of them was, but proves that
a clever brain always gets the better of someone or something that
is not so intelligent, or that relies mostly on its own strength,
rather than its cunning or ability.

Jackals live in families, or ‘packs’ as they are called, both in

jungles as well as round about our villages. Like hyenas and
vultures, they are ‘scavengers’. This means they eat any dead
creature that they may come across, and other stinking things
that would remain on the land and smell for days if not taken
away.

The thought that dead creatures do lie about in the jungles may
surprise you, but it is so, as tigers and panthers will not eat
anything that is dead. It is left to the jackals, hyenas and vultures
to do so, as well as eat whatever is left of those animals that the
tigers and panthers have killed and eaten most of themselves.

The jackal is a handsome animal, the size of an average dog, but

grey-brown in colour with a dark bushy tail. It has very pretty
grayish-green eyes and pointed ears. Hyenas and vultures, on the
other hand, are ugly to look at. But all three of these creatures do
a very useful service.

Packs of jackals hide in the jungle all day, or under bushes, or in

holes in the ground, and only come out at night in search of food.
Sometimes they are very noisy, particularly on moonlit nights,
and their cries are so strange and loud that they frighten children
who are not accustomed to the sound.

Every pack has a leader, and it is he who starts to call first. He

begins with something like this: ‘Oo-ooo-ooo! Wooo-ooo-ooo!’
Then quickly he changes to: ‘Oo-ooo-where! Ooo-where! Ooo-
where!’ and stops. Now all the jackals in the pack begin to answer
him. Very quickly and very loudly, they keep howling: ‘Here!
Here! Heeere! Hee-eere! Hee-yah! Hee-yah! Yah! Yah!

Now the leader starts again, and keeps up his part of the call,
which is: ‘Oo-ooo-ooo! Oo-ooo-where! Oo-ooo-where!’ over and
over again, while the other jackals keep answering: ‘Here! Here!
Hee-eere! Heeyah! Yah! Yah!’

These packs of jackals keep searching all night for food,

although they do not call all the time. Sometimes they become
greedy and come into villages, where they will make off with
fowls, or even young goats. On the fields they will eat such small
things as lizards, rats, mice and birds that are sleeping on the
ground.

As I have said, all jackals are cunning, but at times one of them
living in the jungle becomes more cunning than ever. We may
even say he becomes wise, for what do you think he does?
 Why, a most unusual thing! You may think it is a very
dangerous thing to do too, and I agree. But the jackal is so clever
that he manages to get away with it safely enough.

He starts following a particular tiger or panther about,

everywhere that the animal goes. The jackal knows that the tiger,
or panther, has to kill and eat some animal every two or three
days to keep himself alive, so that by following and waiting till his
master has finished eating and goes to some river or pool to drink
water, the jackal has a chance to grab something that is left of the
dead animal for himself, before the tiger can get back. In this way,
the jackal is certain of getting regular meals practically every
second day without too much trouble to himself.

Of course, the tiger would kill the jackal if he could catch him
at any time, particularly when he is robbing; but the jackal is too
clever to get caught. While he is gobbling what he has stolen, he
keeps a sharp look out with his eyes, ears and nose for the tiger’s
return. No sooner does he see, hear, or scent his master coming
back than he scampers away, safe and out of sight.

Often the tiger gets so accustomed to seeing the jackal following

him that he does not try to catch or kill him. So long as the jackal
doesn’t come too near and within reach of his paws, the tiger
begins to take him for granted, and leaves the jackal alone.

When this happens, the cunning jackal is clever enough to

know it and at once takes full advantage of the situation. He
makes himself almost a partner of the tiger. When he sees some
animal which perhaps the tiger has not seen or heard, he calls
aloud to attract the tiger’s attention. The animal he has spotted
does not get afraid, because it thinks the sound comes only from a
jackal.

In time, the tiger gets to learn the jackal is calling him to a

feast. He attacks and kills the animal that the jackal had first
seen, and eats as much of it as he can. Then the jackal eats what is
left.

In this way, the mighty tiger and the cunning jackal become
almost friends, while the jackal is sure of never going hungry. For
is not the tiger there to provide food for him? Very clever on the
part of the jackal, don’t you agree?

A jackal that forms the habit of following a tiger, or panther,

does not stay with the rest of the pack. For a tiger may tolerate the
presence of one jackal. He would certainly not like a number of
them following him about. To say the least of it, they would give
away his presence to all the creatures of the jungle. Thus the
jackal that follows a tiger does so alone and is therefore known as
‘the lone jackal’.

When this lone jackal calls to let his partner, the tiger or
panther, know he has seen some animal that may be feasted upon,
he does not make the same sounds that I have told you about
earlier, as made by the leader and the rest of the jackal pack. He
utters quite a different call.

It is rather difficult for me to imitate this noise in writing, but I

should say it closely resembles the sound that will come if you call
the word ‘Ba-ooh-ah! Ba-ooh-ah!’ three or four times in a loud
voice. It is the signal which the tiger has learnt and indicates that
the lone jackal has seen something they both can eat, and he
hurries to answer the cry.

The story I am now about to relate concerns one such lone

jackal, and how he used his cunning brain to escape from certain
death.

It was evening, and a tiger had gone down to a pool of water

among the rocks a short distance away, to drink and rest awhile.
 The lone jackal, which had formed the habit of following this
tiger about, was rolling on his back in the sand on the bed of the
dry stream that led to the pool where the tiger had gone. The sand
was warm, as the sun had been shining on it all day, and the
jackal was enjoying this warmth.

Suddenly the lone jackal stopped rolling about and scrambled

quickly to his feet. He thought he had heard a sound coming from
the long grass and thick bushes that grew along both banks of the
dry stream. It had been a faint rustling noise, but the jackal knew
that rustling sounds of any kind mean danger. His partner, the
tiger, might have become angry for some reason and might even
now be creeping upon him. Or it could have been made by a
panther, a wild dog, or even a poisonous snake in the grass, all of
which creatures were his enemies.

So the lone jackal stood alert, his ears upright and twitching,
trying to catch the sound again, while the tip of his nose quivered
as he attempted to get the scent of an enemy.

At that moment the wind blew a little towards him, but it was
enough. The lone jackal caught the smell at once. It came from his
old and most dreaded foe—the panther!

The jackal stared towards a clump of thick bushes and grass that
grew on the left bank of the dry stream. Although he could not see
anything, he knew for certain that the panther was hiding behind
that bush.

He started to think fast. The jackal knew that within another

minute the panther would spring upon him. If he tried to creep
away, it would see him and attack sooner. What was he to do at
this time of great danger?

Suddenly, the lone jackal remembered his companion. He had

been watching the tiger only a few minutes earlier, and knew that
it had gone down to the pool of water close by, to drink there. He
also knew that tigers do not like panthers, and often kill and eat
them. Could he rely upon the tiger to help him now? At any
moment that panther would leap upon him, and there could be no
escape. The jackal thought and thought fast.

Then, keeping an eye watchfully upon the dense clump of grass

and bushes where his enemy lay in hiding, he raised his head to
call loudly: ‘Ba-oooh-ah! Ba-oooh-ah! Ba-oooh-ah!’

The next moment he started to run as fast as he could down the

dry stream-bed towards the pool of water where the tiger had
gone.

The panther, who did not suspect his presence had been
discovered by the cunning jackal, was just about to spring upon
his victim, when he saw the jackal raise his head and call three
times in a strange way, ‘Ba-ooh-ah!’ He had begun to wonder at
the unusual sound, when the jackal dashed off at top speed down
the stream-bed, and without waiting a moment longer, the
panther sprang after him in long, fast bounds.

Jackals can run fast, and this one certainly did his best, but they
cannot move as fast as a charging panther, who comes onward in
great rapid leaps, roaring as he comes, ‘Woof! Woof! Woof!’

The jackal heard the sounds behind him growing ever louder
and closer, and he made up his mind that he would be killed. In
sheer terror he attempted to run faster still.

‘Aar-rumf! Aar-rumf!’ Without warning the earth seemed to

tremble as those terrible roars came suddenly from in front.

The next instant, a huge shape sprang over him, a mighty

reddish-brown and white form, striped with black, directly at the
panther who was now very close behind.

It was his partner, the tiger, and he had come to the rescue!
 In yet greater terror the jackal ran on and on, while the sounds
of a great fight broke out behind, as the panther battled for its life
against its mighty cousin, the tiger. But all to no avail.

The tiger had finished drinking water and was lying under a
tree, feeling very hungry indeed. Three days had passed since he
had eaten. He heard the jackal’s urgent call to a feast and
bounded up the dry stream in response.

Then he heard another sound that made him very angry indeed.
It was the roar made by the panther as he was chasing the jackal.

This infuriated him even more, as he hated panthers anyhow.

He concluded that this one must be trying to rob the feast to
which the jackal was calling him, and the tiger made up his mind
to put an end to his enemy if he could catch him.

So it was that the tiger and panther fought to the death, but it
was a battle that did not last very long. With a tremendous blow
of his paw, the tiger struck his opponent across its head, and before
the smaller animal could recover, bit deeply into its throat. A few
minutes later the panther was dead.

Far off, as the noise of growling and snarling came to a stop, the
jackal ceased running too. He knew that his companion, the tiger,
had won the fight, and that the horrible panther, his enemy, had
been killed. He was safe.

So you see that even among the most fierce animals there is a
sense of loyalty and friendship.

Had the jackal lost his head, and not called to the tiger, he
would surely have been killed, but by using his brains, the jackal
was able to outwit an enemy many times larger, stronger and
more fierce than himself.
 5

The Love of an Elephant for His Son

HIS is the story of how the wise old elephant was brought from
T the forest, where he lived, to a zoo in one of our cities.
In the jungle this elephant went by the name of ‘Yanai’. A word
that struck fear into the hearts of all the villagers.

When he was young, Yanai was not a tame elephant as he is

now. Children could not go for a ride on his back. On the other
hand, he was a very fierce animal and people kept as far away
from him as possible. If they saw him in the jungle, or even heard
him breaking down the branches of trees, the villagers ran away as
fast as they could. This was because other wild elephants, like
Yanai, had been known to kill people they met in the forest by
chasing and catching them, and then trampling upon them with
their huge feet, or beating them against the ground with their
trunks.

Do not think for moment, that just because an elephant is such

a large animal he cannot move fast. When he wants to do so, an
elephant can run nearly as fast as a man, and for a much longer
distance too. Also, it is rather easy for him to catch a person in a
forest. For a man cannot run through bushes. For one thing the
thorns stop him and he has to go around. But when an elephant
chases anybody, it just crashes its way through everything, and so
can very quickly catch up with the man who is trying to run away
from it.

Well, Yanai lived with his wife and two children in a very
beautiful part of the forest for many years, till he became quite an
old animal. A lovely stream ran through the jungle that supplied
them with water to drink and bathe in during the rainy season.
Then in the valleys between the hills, grew many clumps of
bamboo. Yanai and his family used to break down these bamboos
in order to feed on the young, tender leaves that grew at the very
top. The baby elephants were particularly fond of these shoots. On
the hillsides there were tamarind trees. When the tamarind pods
became ripe, Yanai and his little family, and lots of other
elephants too, used to spend whole days and nights beneath these
trees, reaching up with their long trunks to break down the ripe
pods and stuff themselves till they were full.

Yanai had a lovely pair of tusks, but his wife’s tusks were hardly
over six inches in length. This is because female elephants do not
grow long tusks.

Yanai had two children. Both of them were boys. The first was
about ten years old, but still too young for his tusks to show. His
name was Hathi. The second was a baby. He had been born hardly
a month earlier.

When Hathi saw his baby brother the day he was born, he got
quite a shock. For the baby elephant looked almost pink, and was
covered with hair. He wondered what this strange thing could be,
till his father and mother told him it was his baby brother, and
that his name was Kootee.

Within a month, Kootee began to show that he was quite a

mischievous baby indeed. When Hathi was not looking, he would
sneak forward from under his mother and pull his older brother’s
tail. Then he would run back there for shelter, when he found
Hathi becoming angry at having his tail pulled.

Kootee was still too young to eat any of the bamboo and other
leaves on which the elephants fed, or for that matter, the wild
fruit either. He drank milk from his mother and spent all his spare
time worrying Hathi. But with all that, Hathi was very fond of
him, while his mother and Yanai doted on the little fellow and
guarded him against the ever-hungry tigers that would have killed
and eaten him if they could, as he was not yet three feet high.

Kootee even teased his father, the mighty Yanai, by running

about under him and playing. Yanai’s tail was too high up for
Kootee to reach, so the little fellow made up for it by trying to pull
his father’s trunk that hung almost to the ground. It was funny to
see him teasing his parent, who was such a huge creature. But the
old elephant never got angry. He loved his little son very much
and was always tender and kind.

About this time a letter was sent from the zoo in Calcutta to the
government officer in charge of the forests, who is known as the
Chief Conservator, asking for an elephant to be caught and
supplied to the zoo. It was to be tamed first before being sent to
Calcutta, where it would be used for giving rides to children upon
its back.

The Chief Conservator agreed, and ordered the Forest Ranger to

set traps in the jungle to catch an elephant. The Forest Ranger
serves under the Chief Conservator and is in charge of a particular
part of the jungle. He is put there by the government, along with a
number of assistants, to look after the forest and see that nobody
cuts down the trees or kills the wild animals. There are several of
these rangers in every jungle.

So the ranger who had been ordered to trap the elephant, and
whose name was Ram, set about his work. He told his assistants to
ask the jungle-men, known as Karumbas in this part of the
country, to find places where elephants roam regularly, so that he
could set his traps there. These Karumbas, having been born in the
jungle and having lived all their lives there, know about the
habits of the wild animals.

Off they went early one morning to search for tracks and
suitable places where there was a chance of catching an elephant,
and by evening returned with the good news that they had come
across three different pathways followed by the herds of elephants,
leading to the little stream in the jungle, where the huge beasts
used to drink water twice a day.

When he heard this, Ram gathered all his assistants, and as

many Karumbas as he could get, and took them to the first of
these pathways. Right in the middle of it he got the men to dig a
large pit. It was 12-feet deep by 20-feet long, and was as wide as
the pathway itself, which was about ten feet wide.

It took the men many days to dig the pit. This was because they
had to carry the earth they had dug in baskets and throw it some
distance away, in order to follow the rest of the cunning plan that
Ram had made. The work had to be done carefully and as quietly
as possible, so as not to make the elephants suspicious of a trap
being set.

At last the big pit was finished and every scrap of loose earth
had been cleared away.

Ram then made his men gather fallen and rotting leaves and
throw them into the pit up to a depth of about three feet. After
that they cut bamboos, split them, and made a sort of rough top to
cover the pit entirely, from end to end. Over this cover Ram and
his men scattered some earth very cleverly, and then planted grass
and even small shrubs in that earth, till the bamboos could no
longer be seen. In fact, so skilfully did they work, that by the time
they were finished, all signs of the pit that had been dug across the
pathway, were completely hidden. The path looked just the same
as it had before.

Finally, to attract the elephants, Ram told his assistants to

gather two baskets of tamarind pods and place them in a big pile
right in the centre of his trap. He knew the elephants would pass
that way, see the pile of tamarind, and walk forward to eat it,
while the thin bamboo cover would not be able to support the
great weight of an elephant, and would collapse just as soon as the
first of these animals trod upon it, and the elephant would fall
into the pit.

Ram had placed dry and rotting leaves at the bottom of the pit.
These dry leaves were to form a sort of cushion to break the fall of
the elephant, so that it would not hurt itself. Otherwise, being the
heavy animal that it was, a fall of about twelve feet into the pit,
might have caused the elephant to break a leg.

At last, everything was ready. With a final look around to see

that no mistakes had been made, Ram and his followers went back
to their quarters to wait patiently, till the Karumbas reported that
an elephant had been caught.

They did not have to wait long.

Just two nights later, Yanai and his family walked down that
tract.

As is usually the practice with wild elephants when they roam

in the jungles, Yanai’s wife was leading; Kootee was immediately
behind her; then came Hathi; and lastly Yanai, the mighty
elephant, their lord and protector. In a family party, the bull
elephant, who is the leader, always guards the rear against attack,
for it is from behind that the cruel tiger suddenly makes his
unexpected leap to kill a helpless baby elephant should its parents
be walking in front.
 So it was that the mother elephant turned the corner and came
upon the trap so cunningly laid by Ram and his men, with the
tamarind pods to tempt them.

Something seemed to warn her of danger and she stopped so

suddenly that little Kootee bumped his forehead against her hind
legs. Suspiciously, the mother elephant looked in front of her, but
everything seemed all right at first. The heap of ripe tamarind
pods certainly looked very tempting. She thought they looked
almost too nice. She wondered how they had got here when there
was no tamarind tree anywhere close by.

And then, before she could stop him, Kootee darted between her
legs and forwards towards the tamarind. Although he was yet too
young to eat it, Kootee was a bit greedy, and that was the cause of
the punishment that soon befell him.

Small as he was, he weighed almost three hundred pounds, and

that was far too great a weight to be borne by the thin frame of
bamboo matting beneath.

There came a crashing sound all at once, and Kootee

disappeared from view as he fell into the pit below.

For a moment his mother was so surprised that she did not
realize what happened to Kootee. Then she looked down into the
pit through the hole in the cover through which he had fallen, and
saw Kootee inside. He was squealing with fright and looking up at
her very pitifully, and there were large tears streaming from his
eyes already.

Kootee’s mother became frantic. She trumpeted with rage and

fear, not knowing what to do.

Hathi ran behind a tree and hid himself when he heard his
mother’s screams, while Yanai, thinking some tiger had attacked
his wife and little son, rushed forward from the rear to defend
them. Indeed, he all but fell into the pit in his haste, and was just
saved in time by his wife, who put out her trunk to stop him.

When the old elephant saw what had happened to his baby, he
too went mad with rage. His shrieks, added to the screams of his
wife, and the squeals of little Kootee from inside the pit, fairly
shook the jungle with sound.

Far away in their quarters, Ram and his assistants were

disturbed from their sleep by the noise the elephants created and
were very pleased. They knew they were lucky and that an
elephant must have been trapped.

Meanwhile, both father and mother elephant became yet more

desperate in their efforts to rescue their baby. Yanai went down on
his knees, and with his mighty tusks, trunk and forelegs, tried to
break down the top of the pit. For a short while he succeeded.
Then the slope he had dug became too steep and he nearly fell in,
head over heels, for the second time.

On her part, Yanai’s wife tore down some long bamboos and
threw them inside, with their ends resting against the top of the
pit. She hoped Kootee would be able to pull himself out by
grasping one of the ends with his trunk, while she hauled him out
by the other end. But he was too much of a baby to be able to
understand her plan.

All night long the parents tried to rescue their little son, but
failed. With all that, they kept trying and trying, till the sky in the
east began to grow bright and they knew that soon it would be
morning.

Old Yanai knelt down once again at the edge of the pit and
stretched his trunk inside to the fullest extent until Kootee could
just touch it with the tip of his own trunk. But the distance
between was a little too far, and there was no grip, while Kootee
was still too small and weak to be able to hold on while his father
pulled him out of the pit.

The sun was rising above the hills in the east when Yanai
thought of a last, desperate plan to save his baby son. He did not
tell his wife what he had in mind, for it would only distress her
and she would cry and tell him not to do it. Instead, he turned
around and stood still to look at his beautiful home, the jungle,
for the last time in freedom.

The next moment, old Yanai deliberately jumped into the pit
himself!

Once inside, it was easy for him to wind his trunk around little
Kootee and lift him high above his head so that the mother
elephant could, in turn, also catch him and take him completely
out of the pit. At last their precious baby was free. But at what a
price!

‘What about you?’ Yanai’s wife asked, fear in her voice and tears
in her eyes.

‘Alas, I can’t get out,’ replied Yanai sadly, ‘but as long as our
son is safe, I’m glad to have been able to set him free.’

Just then they heard the voices of men approaching. In her grief
Yanai’s wife thought of rushing upon them and killing them, but
old Yanai gave her sound advice.

‘They will be armed with guns,’ he said, ‘and will shoot you,
Hathi, and Kootee too. Flee while there’s yet time to do so. Only
think of me sometimes, and when he grows into a big boy, tell
Kootee what his father did for him.’

Crying pitifully, Yanai’s wife led their sons away, and a few
minutes later Ram, the Forest Ranger, followed by a number of
men, came to the spot.
 When they saw the huge elephant they had caught, they were
very pleased indeed, for they knew they would get a reward from
the government when he was sold.

For fifteen days they starved poor Yanai till he became so weak
he could hardly stand. Then, when they saw he was in no
condition to fight back, with the help of four tame elephants and
ropes, they pulled him out of the pit, but not before they had put
great iron rings and heavy chains around his feet to prevent him
from attacking them or escaping.

They kept him tied in this manner for several months, giving
him just enough food to keep him from starving to death.

It was a long time before Yanai became tame enough to be

allowed to move about freely, although the heavy iron rings and
chains were still kept on his legs.

At last, he was sold by the government for six thousand rupees,

while Ram and the men who had helped him, got a reward of
three hundred rupees.

Yanai was put into a special wagon and taken by train to

Calcutta where he was lodged in the zoo and taught, little by
little, to allow people to ride on his back.

He has been there many years now and has become very friendly
with people and especially with little children. He loves to take
them for rides on his great broad back.

When he sees children a sad look comes into his eyes. Perhaps
his mind and his spirit wander away many thousands of miles at
that moment, back to his distant family and his beloved jungles.
Maybe he sees his wife and Hathi, and Kootee, who has now
become a full-grown elephant himself, safe and happy there. Old
Yanai sighs a little then, but he is glad he sacrificed himself so
that his family could be free.
 And in that distant forest, Yanai’s wife still thinks of her brave
husband. She has never ceased to remember him. While Hathi and
Kootee try their best to be as big, strong and large-hearted as their
father. For elephants never forget!
 The Bond of Love

WILL begin with Bruno, my wife’s pet sloth bear. I got him for
I her by accident. Two years ago we were passing through the
sugarcane fields near Mysore. People were driving away the wild
pigs from the fields by shooting at them. Some were shot and some
escaped. We thought that everything was over when suddenly a
black sloth bear came out panting in the hot sun.

Now I will not shoot a sloth bear wantonly but, unfortunately

for the poor beast, one of my companions did not feel that way
about it, and promptly shot the bear on the spot.

As we watched the fallen animal we were surprised to see that

the black fur on its back moved and left the prostrate body. Then
we saw it was a baby bear that had been riding on its mother’s
back when the sudden shot had killed her. The little creature ran
around its prostrate parent making a pitiful noise.

I ran up to it to attempt a capture. It scooted into the sugarcane

field. Following it with my companions, I was at last able to grab
it by the scruff of its neck while it snapped and tried to scratch me
with its long, hooked claws.

We put it in one of the gunny-bags we had brought and when I

got back to Bangalore I duly presented it to my wife. She was
delighted! She at once put a coloured ribbon around its neck, and
after discovering the cub was a ‘boy’ she christened it Bruno.

Bruno soon took to drinking milk from a bottle. It was but a step
further and within a very few days he started eating and drinking
everything else. And everything is the right word, for he ate
porridge made from any ingredients, vegetables, fruit, nuts, meat
(especially pork), curry and rice regardless of condiments and
chillies, bread, eggs, chocolates, sweets, pudding, ice-cream, etc.,
etc., etc. As for drink: milk, tea, coffee, lime-juice, aerated water,
buttermilk, beer, alcoholic liquor and, in fact, anything liquid. It
all went down with relish.

The bear became very attached to our two Alsatian dogs and to
all the children of the tenants living in our bungalow. He was left
quite free in his younger days and spent his time in playing,
running into the kitchen and going to sleep in our beds.

One day an accident befell him. I put down poison (barium

carbonate) to kill the rats and mice that had got into my library.
Bruno entered the library as he often did, and he ate some of the
poison. Paralysis set in to the extent that he could not stand on his
feet. But he dragged himself on his stumps to my wife, who called
me. I guessed what had happened. Off I rushed in the car to the
vet’s residence. A case of poisoning! Tame Bear — barium
carbonate — what to do?

Out came his medical books, and a feverish reference to index

began: “What poison did you say, sir?” “Barium carbonate”. “Ah
yes—B—Ba—Barium Salts—Ah! Barium carbonate! Symptoms—
paralysis—treatment—injections of… Just a minute, sir. I’ll bring
my syringe and the medicine.”

A dash back to the car. Bruno still floundering about on his

stumps, but clearly weakening rapidly; some vomiting, heavy
breathing, with heaving flanks and gaping mouth.

Hold him, everybody! In goes the hypodermic— Bruno squeals

— 10 c.c. of the antidote enters his system without a drop being
wasted. Ten minutes later: condition unchanged! Another 10 c.c.
injected! Ten minutes later: breathing less stertorous— Bruno can
move his arms and legs a little although he cannot stand yet.
Thirty minutes later: Bruno gets up and has a great feed! He looks
at us disdainfully, as much as to say, ‘What’s barium carbonate to
a big black bear like me?’ Bruno is still eating.

Another time he found nearly one gallon of old engine oil which
I had drained from the sump of the Studebaker and was keeping as
a weapon against the inroads of termites. He promptly drank the
lot. But it had no ill effects whatever.

The months rolled on and Bruno had grown many times the size
he was when he came. He had equalled the Alsatians in height
and had even outgrown them. But was just as sweet, just as
mischievous, just as playful. And he was very fond of us all. Above
all, he loved my wife, and she loved him too! She had changed his
name from Bruno, to Baba, a Hindustani word signifying ‘small
boy’. And he could do a few tricks, too. At the command, ‘Baba,
wrestle’, or ‘Baba, box,’ he vigorously tackled anyone who came
forward for a rough and tumble. Give him a stick and say ‘Baba,
hold gun’, and he pointed the stick at you. Ask him, ‘Baba,
where’s baby?’ and he immediately produced and cradled
affectionately a stump of wood which he had carefully concealed
in his straw bed. But because of the tenants’ children, poor Bruno,
or Baba, had to be kept chained most of the time.

Then my son and I advised my wife, and friends advised her too,
to give Baba to the zoo at Mysore. He was getting too big to keep
at home. After some weeks of such advice she at last consented.
Hastily, and before she could change her mind, a letter was
written to the curator of the zoo. Did he want a tame bear for his
collection? He replied, “Yes”. The zoo sent a cage from Mysore in a
lorry, a distance of eighty-seven miles, and Baba was packed off.

We all missed him greatly; but in a sense we were relieved. My

wife was inconsolable. She wept and fretted. For the first few days
she would not eat a thing. Then she wrote a number of letters to
the curator. How was Baba? Back came the replies, “Well, but
fretting; he refuses food too.”
 After that, friends visiting Mysore were begged to make a point
of going to the zoo and seeing how Baba was getting along. They
reported that he was well but looked very thin and sad. All the
keepers at the zoo said he was fretting. For three months I
managed to restrain my wife from visiting Mysore. Then she said
one day, “I must see Baba. Either you take me by car; or I will go
myself by bus or train.” So I took her by car.

Friends had conjectured that the bear would not recognise her. I
had thought so too. But while she was yet some yards from his
cage Baba saw her and recognised her. He howled with happiness.
She ran up to him, petted him through the bars, and he stood on
his head in delight.

For the next three hours she would not leave that cage. She gave
him tea, lemonade, cakes, ice-cream and what not. Then ‘closing
time’ came and we had to leave. My wife cried bitterly; Baba cried
bitterly; even the hardened curator and the keepers felt depressed.
As for me, I had reconciled myself to what I knew was going to
happen next.

“Oh please, sir,” she asked the curator, “may I have my Baba
back”? Hesitantly, he answered, “Madam, he belongs to the zoo
and is Government property now. I cannot give away Government
property. But if my boss, the superintendent at Bangalore agrees,
certainly you may have him back.”

There followed the return journey to Bangalore and a visit to

the superintendent’s bungalow. A tearful pleading: “Baba and I
are both fretting for each other. Will you please give him back to
me?” He was a kind-hearted man and consented. Not only that,
but he wrote to the curator telling him to lend us a cage for
transporting the bear to Bangalore.

Back we went to Mysore again, armed with the superintendent’s

letter. Baba was driven into a small cage and hoisted on top of the
car; the cage was tied securely, and a slow and careful return
journey to Bangalore was accomplished.

Once home, a squad of coolies were engaged for special work in

our compound. An island was made for Baba. It was twenty feet
long and fifteen feet wide, and was surrounded by a dry pit, or
moat, six feet wide and seven feet deep. A wooden box that once
housed fowls was brought and put on the island for Baba to sleep
in at night. Straw was placed inside to keep him warm, and his
‘baby’, the gnarled stump, along with his ‘gun’, the piece of
bamboo, both of which had been sentimentally preserved since he
had been sent away to the zoo, were put back for him to play
with.

In a few days the coolies hoisted the cage on to the island and
Baba was released. He was delighted; standing on his hindlegs, he
pointed his ‘gun’ and cradled his ‘baby’. My wife spent hours
sitting on a chair there while he sat on her lap. He was fifteen
months old and pretty heavy too!

The way my wife reaches the island and leaves it is interesting. I

have tied a rope to the overhanging branch of a mango tree with a
loop at its end. Putting one foot in the loop, she kicks off with the
other, to bridge the six-foot gap that constitutes the width of the
surrounding pit. The return journey is made the same way. But
who can say now that a sloth bear has no sense of affection, no
memory and no individual characteristics?

Kenneth Anderson
Tales of Man Singh

by

Kenneth Anderson
 Dedication

This book
is
dedicated
to the
Spirit of Adventure,
and to all the red-blooded youths and men
of all countries
who pursue her.
 Contents

INTRODUCTION
Acknowledgement
1. Chota Singh of the C.I.D.
2. Jhani and Lotibai
3. The Policemen Who Sought a Reward
4. The Invasion of the Ravine Kingdom
5. The Rich Landlord and the Poor Maiden
6. The Three Travellers and the American Journalist
7. The History of Man Singh
Epilogue
 Introduction

HE young men and women of free India are indeed fortunate

T in many ways. They have a beautiful country as their
homeland, second to none in the world. A country where they can
find every type of geography and scenery that is to be found
anywhere else. Some of the highest mountains in the world; wide,
rolling plains; marsh land; desert land; magnificent rivers and
beautiful sea beaches. They can have any climate; from the
freezing cold of snowy Kashmir, to the burning, unrivalled heat of
some of the central districts. They have a Venice in Kashmir,
lagoons and waterways in Malabar, glorious forests where the
King of the Jungle—the tiger—still roams at liberty; picturesque
waterfalls; and ancient cities, rich in folklore and history.

The pages of Indian history are generously pageanted by unique

personalities. They range from the very bad, like Timur the Lame,
to the very good, like Akbar the Great. There are warriors who
carved their names forever in the memories of the living, such as
Shivaji, the Maratha, and Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore; there
are apostles of peace who shook the world with their doctrines of
love, such as Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi; and there
are martyrs who shed their blood for India, in ancient times and
modern, including that Joan of Arc of the East, the Rani of Jhansi.

These figures of Indian history, both good and bad, have one
attribute in common. As personalities, they are unmatched,
unparalleled, unique. No boy or girl in India who has the ability
to read need seek for adventure stories abroad, for his and her own
land abounds in them. The stage is set, teeming with heroes and
heroines and in deeds that thrill and chill the blood; requiring but
more writers to record them, and the youth of the country to read.
 Such a unique personality was Man Singh, King of Dacoits. A
man possessing diametrically opposing attributes, he was at once
a murderer and thief, generous benefactor and upholder of the
poor. Cruel, cunning and sly, he was brave with the heart of a
lion. A fugitive from justice for years, he exhibited attributes of
true equity to those who followed in his band.

In no way are these stories intended to glorify or even commend

Man Singh and his ideals. They are merely yarns of adventure
which I truly hope will afford a degree of pleasure to those who
read them. That pleasure will be my reward.

Sit with me, then, in your imagination, around the flickering

light of a campfire and hearken to the tales I have to tell you. The
smoke curls upwards to the twinkling stars, floating in the
unlimited space above. At times the fire erupts with a shower of
sparks and then dies down again.

Throw on a fresh log of wood, friend. For outside the narrow

circle of light is utter darkness, punctuated by the distant chirrup
of crickets and the nearer croaking of a bullfrog.

It is dangerous to be left in the darkness, friend. For mysterious

and unknown things lurk there, unseen in the Stygian gloom.

And Dacoits!

Kenneth Anderson
 Acknowledgement

The author wishes to acknowledge, with grateful thanks, his

indebtedness to Shri Vishwa Nath, Editor and Publisher of The
Caravan, one of India’s foremost publications, for giving him
permission to use much of the data in recording the History of
Man Singh that appeared in an article entitled ‘Raja Man Singh’
by Tapan Ghosh.
 1

Chota Singh of the C.I.D.

IS real name was not Chota Singh at all. (Chota, as those of

H you who have been in India know quite well, is merely an
adjective in the Hindi language, signifying ‘small’; or maybe,
‘short’ or ‘diminutive’.) His real name was Katar Singh.

But he had been called ‘chota’ from childhood, because he was

a puny-looking youth, far shorter than the average boy of his age.
And the epithet stuck to him like glue and followed him into the
Police Force which he joined when 19 years old as an ordinary
constable.

Katar Singh, or to give him his nickname of ‘Chota’ by which

we shall hereafter allude to him, made up for his poor physique
and short stature—he was about 5 feet 3 inches—by a powerful
personality and outstanding intelligence.

The story is told that when Chota applied to join the Force as a
young man, he, with other applicants, was duly interviewed by
the District Superintendent of Police. As those were the days of
the British Raj, this officer was a European—an Englishman who
had put in many years of service with the Police in India.

The recruits were called one by one in turn. At last Katar Singh
stood before the D.S.P. The police officer looked at him somewhat
disdainfully and then remarked, ‘We want “burra admi”, (well-
built men) in the Force, and not “chota admi” (small men) and
weaklings like you. Go home, little man, and apply for the post of
a clerk somewhere else; not that of a policeman.’
 A rebuff like that would have unnerved a normal applicant at
any time.

But Chota was far from being such a normal applicant.

He answered without a moment’s hesitation, ‘But, sahib, do

“burra admi” always possess “burra akul” (great intelligence)?
That is something to be considered, is it not?’

The D.S.P. lost his temper. ‘Meaning…’ he began.

‘Exactly what I say, sahib.’

‘What makes you think you are so smart?’ queried the police
officer, turning red.

‘That you will have no doubt about, but will come to know for
yourself, sahib; and within two months—If you employ me.’

Impertinent little devil, thought the D.S.P. Thinks no end of

himself. Conceited to the very core.

And then, aloud, to the little man. ‘Suppose I take you at your
word and enrol you right away and put you on probation on night
duty. Will you still be able to make me agree within those two
months?’

‘Without the least shadow of doubt, huzoor’, Katar Singh had

returned immediately.

And throughout the whole conversation he had looked the

D.S.P. in the eyes, without once turning his head away.

‘Dammit, I will take you at your word. But remember, out you
go after the two months are over, unless you do something very
unusual to prove your mettle.’

‘That is all I ask for, sahib,’ Chota had concluded.

 Within five weeks of that day, Katar Singh, alone on night duty,
caught and brought in a notorious cat burglar. Single-handed.

The police had been searching unsuccessfully for that cat

burglar for the past two years.

And that was how Katar Singh, or ‘Chota’ as he was better

known from top to bottom in the Police Force, came to be
confirmed after his probation, although his medical sheet recorded
figures which were far below the standard required for a ‘pass’
with reference to his height, chest measurements and weight.

That was only the beginning.

Chota showed unusual abilities for turning in reports that were

brief and to the point. He appeared to have the natural gift of
being able to discern facts that were of evidential value, and to
discard matters that were of little importance. Above all, he had
the powers of reasoning and deduction that are not very
commonly found in men of his class and grade.

Within six months he was transferred to the Traffic Branch; and

within a year of that date had achieved the double distinction of
not having lost a single case he had brought in, as well as of
having the largest number of prosecutions to his credit from
among the members of his branch.

At that time the Government had issued a circular to all chiefs

of the Police Force to send some of their best men for special
training in the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.).
Chota, with only one-and-a-half years service to his credit had
more recommendations, and more grounds for them, than many of
his colleagues with 10 and 15 years.

An important factor that had contributed very largely towards

his success was his inherent honesty and interest in his work. On
the one hand he never accepted a bribe, however large. On the
other, he did not invent cases against people in the hopes of
getting money from them to withdraw the charge later, or for
reasons of vindictiveness or petty spite.

When Chota filed a charge sheet, he only did it against

somebody who had really done something wrong; and he
succeeded in his prosecution.

Hence he came to be strongly advocated as a very promising

policeman, suitable for assignment to the C.I.D.

He underwent the year’s training that was prescribed and took

to the work as naturally as a duck takes to water, topping the list
of successful candidates in the examination.

His career in the C.I.D. thereafter was meteoric. In a

comparatively short time he was promoted to Head Constable;
and then was made a Sub-Inspector at the first vacancy that
offered itself.

Two years later he was Inspector Katar Singh of the C.I.D.; but
still ‘Chota’ to his superiors and friends, and ‘Chota Sahib’ to
those whom he had superseded and left far behind.

Chota was a Rajput by birth, although he did not seem like one
in appearance. He did not look martial nor warlike by any means;
being puny and slightly-built; affable and mild.

He was clean-shaven and wore his hair closely cropped to the

skull. These features were the despair of his family and his closest
friends and relations, who deplored his unsightly looks.

Chota himself knew well enough the reason why he deliberately

did these things. But he did not tell that reason to anyone.

He was an adept at disguise and could dress and act any part he
set himself to impersonate. And Chota knew a clean-shaven and
closely-cropped man could wear a false beard, moustache and wig;
whereas a man who already had long hair or a beard, or whiskers,
could not disguise himself—unless he chose to shave them off.

So, he wisely determined not to grow them in the first instance.

Then the necessity for removing them could not arise. It was easy
enough to take them off at any time; but they took long to grow.

His round, pleasant face and mild, brown eyes enabled him to
wear any sort of disguise with little risk of penetration. His
features had no distinguishing factors.

Chota spoke five dialects fluently, and could read and write four
of them.

When Rajah Man Singh and his band of followers commenced to

grow in numbers and their depredations increased by leaps and
bounds, the police authorities sought means to circumvent him. It
was generally known that the bandits had their headquarters
among the Chambal ravines, but exactly where, nobody could
tell.

That was what the police wanted to find out very much, and
quickly, too.

It was most dangerous work. Many informers and police spies

had already paid dearly for their temerity in trying to discover the
answers to these questions, with their lives.

Headless corpses, bloated, disfigured and decomposed, had been

hauled out of the rolling waters of the Chambal and Kunwari
rivers. They had been so long immersed that their flesh was soft
and rotting. It came off in chunks as the grapnel hooks tried to
draw the bodies ashore. Many could not be identified at all. Now
and again, by the presence of some trinket or particular mark, the
police knew they were gazing at the cadaver of one of their secret
agents.
 At other times plain heads, minus their bodies, were left behind
by the dacoits, spiked to a bamboo or a cut stem in the dense,
thorny scrub. Very frequently the head would carry a piece of
paper clenched tightly between the teeth even where the rest of
the flesh had rotted away. Scrawled on the paper would be a
message reading, ‘Let this be a warning to all police agents and
informers as to what will befall them when we catch them’.
Underneath the message would follow four words. ‘Rajah Man
Singh Rathore’.

It was not a popular assignment, therefore, to be ordered to try

to get information regarding this redoubtable outlaw. Police
agents came to regard it as a form of official punishment; possibly
their death sentence.

Some would try to evade the issue by reporting sick. Quite a

number escaped by resigning when commissioned on this duty. A
few panicked—and deserted.

Chota went to his immediate superior one morning—an

Assistant Superintendent of Police. ‘Sir, please use your influence
and recommend me for special duty; the duty of arresting Man
Singh,’ he asked, blandly.

‘Say that again,’ asked the A.S.P., scarcely believing his ears.

Chota said it again.

The A.S.P. wondered. Did this man know what he was asking
for? Possibly his own death sentence. The A.S.P. told him so in
confidence.

Chota merely replied, ‘It is appointed to every man to die but

once.’

To those words the A.S.P. could find neither an appropriate nor

an effective answer.
 So he made the recommendation.

And the Inspector General eagerly jumped at it.

Chota was paid three months’ salary in advance. He was also

given some extra money to defray incidental expenses. Thereafter
he was on his own for the next ninety days.

Chota had heard all the current stories about how Man Singh
defended the poor, particularly men who had been wronged by the
moneylenders, by the zamindars, and by the rich in general.

He immediately set about becoming one such poor man who

had been wronged in exactly that way.

He dressed himself in rags and tatters—as a beggar.

Then he walked the 63 miles to the village of Dhowd, situated

on the nearer bank of the Chambal River and not far from the
‘ravines’.

All day he sat himself in the marketplace and begged for alms.
At night he slept in the dust of the roadside. And he ate only what
he could buy with the few copper pice he was given by the way of
charity.

He found out who was the ‘baniya’, (moneylender) of the place

and appeared at his ‘dukaan’ (shop or business premises).

‘Alms for a poor man,’ he whined.

Nobody, looking at the bent and haggard figure dressed in rags,

covered with filth, matted hair that had apparently never been
washed, a straggling beard and tottering, dragging walk, would
have recognised him as an Inspector of Police. The disguise was
complete.
 The baniya promptly ordered him out.

‘I am starving, your honour. Spare me a pice,’ he cringed, not

making any effort to go away.

‘Arre badmash!’ (Oh rascal!), cried the moneylender, ‘if you

don’t get out this instant I will teach you a lesson.’

‘Charity, huzoor; for a poor, starving man,’ he begged.

‘Oh, Ram, Dehu,’ called the baniya to his servants, ‘kick this
creature out at once; he is annoying me.’

Ram and Dehu promptly, and literally, kicked him out.

But the beggar was back again the next day. Once more he cried
out, ‘A copper for this poor man,’ while standing in front of the
baniya’s place of business.

‘So you are back again’, cried the moneylender, testily.

‘Yesterday I told my servants to kick you out. Today I will tell
them to soundly beat you.’

‘Give me an anna, please huzoor,’ was the imperturbable reply.

The baniya became enraged. He clapped his hands and his two
henchmen presented themselves before him.

‘Useless dogs,’ he said to them, ‘can you not do a simple thing

for me? Rid me of this persistent beggar who pesters me each day.
Teach him a lesson and beat him hard. Do anything; but make
certain he does not show himself here, ever again.’

Ram and Dehu hastened to obey their patron. They

administered many whacks with bamboo sticks on the person of
the unfortunate beggar in the open street. So much so that even
the passers-by felt sorry for him, and murmured beneath their
breaths at the harsh treatment of this poor man by the ‘sowcar’
(usurer) and his servants.

Chota smarted with pain from the blows he had received. But he
was also satisfied that he had given a good public performance in
keeping with his disguise as a poor beggar being harassed and
beaten by the rich. He wept loudly and lamented that Fate could
think of being so unkind to the downtrodden as to permit this ill-
treatment of a beggar at the hands of a member of the moneyed
class.

That evening he sat in the marketplace and showed the stripes

on his bare back—real ones—to all who passed by; and he cried
very bitterly as he told them the story. ‘See for yourselves, Sirs,
how the wealthy oppress the poor in this land.’

But the result he had been hoping for did not come about at
once. Chota cursed his ill-luck and determined to try again.

Two days later he appeared once more, this time as if by

accident at the residence of the same baniya whose name was
Kunjilal. On this occasion, not only was he beaten but also
dragged to the police station. Chota did not reveal his identity
there, so he received a second thrashing at the hands of the police.

In the marketplace that evening his lament was couched in

slightly different terms. ‘Is there none to help the down-and-out in
this cruel land? If there was but a leader, I would gladly join him
and teach these wealthy dogs a lesson.’

Towards sunset a stalwart villager threw an anna on to the open

kerchief spread by Chota on the road before him.

‘God bless you, huzoor,’ he said fervently. ‘Oh, if only the land
was left to the peasants how happy we would be. It is these rich
people; these wealthy landlords and baniyas, who oppress us. If
only someone would lead us against them, they could be
overthrown for ever.’

Instead of passing on his way immediately, the tall man

regarded him speculatively. Chota felt that he was being closely
scrutinised. The dark eyes of the unknown man appeared to bore
through and through him.

The beggar pretended not to notice. He stooped down, picked up

the anna, and put it into a small, dirty cloth bag which he
produced from the waistband of his dhoty.

The stranger had time to notice that the bag contained a few
small copper coins only.

Then the beggar restored the bag to its former place, tucked next
to the bare skin of his stomach where it was encircled by the
dhoty.

The newcomer said, ‘Suppose there was such a man, oh beggar.

What would you do then?’

Chota looked up, the light of fanaticism in his eyes. ‘Just tell me
where to find him, huzoor,’ he replied, ‘and I will offer myself to
him this instant. I will serve him faithfully, if only it is to teach
these rich bastards a lesson. See for yourself where I was beaten by
the baniya’s servants. Not content with that, they dragged me to
the police, who beat me too.’ And pulling up the ends of his
ragged shirt, he turned his back so that the stranger could see for
himself the scars he carried from the various beatings he had
received.

But the tall fellow said nothing. Just coughed.

He turned and began to walk away.

 Chota felt disappointed. Would he never succeed in establishing
the contact he had been trying so hard to do?

Then the stranger halted a few feet away, hesitated for an

appreciable time, and retraced his steps.

He said to Chota, ‘There are rumours that a certain dacoit

hangs around these parts. It is said that he is not really a thief. He
merely robs the rich to feed the poor. Is that the type of leader you
would wish to join?’

‘Oh yes,’ returned Chota eagerly. ‘If your honour will but tell
me where to find him, I will go to him right away.’

The tall man laughed. ‘It is not so simple as all that, brother,’ he
said. ‘If it was so easy to find Man Singh; well, I guess there would
have been no Man Singh by now.’ And he smiled cryptically.
‘However, we shall see.’

He rummaged in his pocket and produced a silver rupee which

he passed unostentatiously to Chota. The beggar allowed his
countenance to beam with gratitude.

But there was more than gratitude that shone from Chota’s eyes.
There was the glint of exultation. The sheer joy experienced by
the trained sleuth who knows that, at long last, he is hot upon the
trail.

Chota did not see the tall man all of next day. But he came
again the following evening at sunset and handed the beggar
another rupee.

The mendicant began to thank him, humbly and happily; but

the tall man cut him short.

‘Before a disciple can join a master,’ he spoke enigmatically, ‘it

is necessary for that disciple to prove himself to be in earnest, and
above all, trustworthy.’

‘I am ready to be tried at any time,’ Chota answered

unhesitatingly. ‘Let the master put me to any test he wants.’

The tall man said, ‘I cannot be seen holding a prolonged

conversation with a beggar in such a public place as this. People
would wonder what it is all about. Meet me at midnight beneath
the large banyan tree that grows by the road besides the second
milestone on the way to Bhind. I may have something to tell you
then.’

He moved away. Chota salaamed profusely in the manner of a

beggar who had just been handed some alms.

* * *

It was inky black beneath the spreading boughs of the gnarled

banyan tree near the second milestone as Chota arrived that
night, about fifteen minutes to midnight. He had deliberately
come before time, because he wanted to know in what manner the
tall man was going to approach him, and from where. After all, he
felt no suspicion would be attached to his early arrival, even if it
was noticed. A beggar would not be expected to own a watch.
Apart from that, what more natural than a poor man coming
early to an appointment, particularly with the hope of getting
some money through it?

But Chota was disappointed in expecting he would be the first

to arrive.

Three figures emerged from the blackness cast by the shadows of

the banyan’s branches. They surrounded him. By his height,
Chota made out one of them to be his benefactor who had
arranged the rendezvous. His companions were strangers.
 ‘You come before time, beggar?’

The voice came from one of the other men. It was a hard voice
and seemed to hold a tinge of suspicion in it.

‘Sirs, I am a stranger to these parts and have never been to this

spot before. Besides, I own no watch. When the village ‘ghadi’, (a
bell or gong sounded in some public place to record each hour)
struck the hour of eleven, I set out to give myself enough time to
come here in order not to keep the tall gentleman waiting.’

‘I see,’ replied the man, apparently satisfied with the simple

explanation.

‘We are told that you have been beaten by the village baniya
and the police,’ he continued. ‘Why did that happen?’

‘I begged for alms before his shop,’ Chota toned his voice down
to a complaining whine, ‘and he ordered his servants to thrash
me. Very foolishly I went a second time, although I didn’t know it
then, to his residence. I was hammered again and dragged to the
police station, where the police beat me some more.’

‘Show me the marks of these beatings,’ asked the speaker, flatly.

‘You may certainly see them for yourself, huzoor. But the
darkness.—’

Chota’s further words came to a stop as the stranger pressed the

button of a small electric torch, sending a ray of light directly into
his eyes. He blinked.

Then he turned around and commenced to pull up his torn shirt

as he had done so often before.

‘Take it off completely,’ ordered the same voice, brusquely.

 Chota complied immediately.

He felt the three men examining his back closely, and at that
minute congratulated himself upon undergoing the various
trouncings in reality. Had the scars not been genuine, Chota knew
that he would have died violently on the spot. Yes indeed, he
owed his life to those real weals across his back. Because they
testified that he had been beaten very cruelly in all truth.

A little later he felt a moist finger touching the bare skin of his
back. The finger began to rub up and down, vigorously. The
wound thus rubbed commenced to burn as the scab was broken
off. Then he knew what the man was doing. He had spat on his
own finger and was rubbing one of the scabs caused by the
bamboo that had been used in belabouring him. Should the scab
be unreal and put there by some colouring agent, the spittle would
remove it and the deception would be revealed.

On the other hand, the friction now caused by the rubbing

finger tore off the newly-forming scab over the healing wound and
made it bleed. It also began to smart him sharply.

Chota felt more moisture beneath the rubbing finger. It

commenced to tickle him unpleasantly. He could feel a faint
trickling of something running down his back and realised it was
his blood.

What the devil is the fellow going to do next, he wondered. The

dacoits were being cautious, no doubt, and he smiled inwardly to
himself.

The rubbing finger started working on one of the other scabs till
it also began to bleed.

Then on a third scab. And that bled also.

 God damn you, Chota thought; are you going to rub off every
bloody scab and make my back as sore as hell—you bastard!

But when the third scab bled the man became satisfied.

There was a distinctly more friendly tone in his voice when he

spoke to Chota again.

‘Excuse me for hurting you afresh, brother. But we cannot afford

to run any risk. There are so many police spies about.’

Chota noticed the use of the word ‘brother’. Apparently he had

passed the test satisfactorily and the brigands were about to
accept him into their fold.

‘Let us sit here under this tree and talk softly,’ the voice
continued. ‘We won’t be seen.’

All this while Chota had been trying hard to pierce the darkness
with his eyes to see what manner of men he was conversing with.
His companion of the evening, of course, he knew to be the tall
man. But he could not see the other two clearly. The man who had
been doing all the talking and was no doubt the leader, was the
shortest of the three. He appeared to have some kind of
moustache, but was otherwise clean-shaven. The third man who
had not uttered a word so far, was slightly taller and fairly heavily
built. Chota could make out he was bearded. Every one of them
wore turbans.

That was about all that he could distinguish in the darkness.

They sat on the ground and the leader began to talk to him in a
whisper.

‘What is your name and where do you come from? Have you
been a mendicant all your life?’
 Chota had carefully prepared the answers to questions of this
sort long before he had set out on the assignment of trying to catch
Man Singh. He had those answers ready on his lips now.

‘My name is Bapat Rao,’ he said, ‘and I come of Maratha stock

from the far away town of Sholapur. My father and my father’s
father before him were farmers. Our family possessed many acres
of land then.

‘But the monsoons failed successively and a long drought set in.
The crops withered and there was no grain. Then the cattle began
to die in scores. The little money we had saved up, we spent in
buying gram for the animals and grain for ourselves, imported into
the town from other districts. In our area, there was not a single
green blade of grass to be seen anywhere.

‘My father, in his desperation, mortgaged our land to the local

baniya, Mohan Lal, intending with the next monsoons, when the
crops grew again, to redeem it.

‘But there was no next monsoon, Sirs; nor did the crops grow
again. At least, not that next year nor the year after. For three
years in succession God scourged Sholapur and the district around
it, for hundreds of miles. All the money we had borrowed from
Mohan Lal was spent. My father went to him again and the wily
moneylender advanced still more money on our farm. And then
there was a third mortgage.

‘The rains came on the fourth year. But God was still angry with
us. After withholding the monsoon for three years, He sent the
rain on the fourth year. But He sent it in overabundance.

‘The rivers rose and the floods came. Our fields, that had been
parched for so long, were now inundated. And our house, which
was built mostly of mud and unbaked bricks, collapsed entirely.
 ‘That was the last blow, Sirs, from which my poor father could
not recover. The cruel Mohan Lal prosecuted and our lands were
auctioned to discharge the mortgage that had been raised on
them. After paying Mohan Lal his capital and accrued interest on
the three loans, and the cost of the case at court, there was just a
few rupees left for food for a few days.

‘We were landless, homeless and put on the streets.’

‘The blow killed my poor mother within two months. She had
always been a frail and sickly woman, of small stature—and that
is why I am short and frail, too, as I have taken after her. The
exposure of sleeping under trees by the wayside at night,
unprotected from the cold and dew gave her pneumonia, to which
she succumbed within six days.

‘My father became practically mad after that. Our mother had
been his sole consolation through all his troubles. With her death
he felt he could face the world no longer.

‘The very night of the day on which mother died, my father

hung himself from a branch of the mahua tree under which we
were all sleeping.

‘You can imagine our plight next morning when we awoke, Sirs.
Dangling before our eyes was the corpse of our father. The rope
which he had tied around his neck, and the other end of which he
had attached to a branch that spread above us, before he had
jumped off, was stretched taut with the weight of our poor father
which hung from it. His eyes bulged in a ghastly manner; his
tongue lolled out and had become quite black. Slowly his body
swayed and revolved on the tightly-stretched rope, blown by the
fresh breeze of that early, but dreadful dawn.

‘On the ground lay the yet-uncremated remains of our beloved

mother. She had died the previous morning. By that evening she
would be stinking in that hot climate. We had no money to
conduct the two cremation ceremonies.

‘My young brother and I and my sister who was still younger—a
comely girl not yet 14 years old—had been left behind to face the
cruel hard world, without an anna for the three of us.

‘I well remember that awful morning, Sirs,’ continued Chota

reminiscently, a sob creeping into his voice. ‘For some time we
were silent, too shocked and bereft of words even to speak. Then
my sister began to cry, and my brother and I joined her.

‘Next my brother, who had always had the most brains amongst
the three of us, did a very dreadful thing. In a paroxysm of pent-up
and confused rage, he began to curse the corpse of our dead father
as it dangled in the air.

‘“You beast,” he cried loudly, with tears streaming down his

face and shaking his fists in the air, “you have brought us to this
state. You mortgaged our lands and home. You starved our dear
mother so that she became too weak to resist the sickness that
overtook her. And now, damned coward that you are, you killed
yourself because you were too much of a bandicoot (a very large
rat the size of a guinea pig) to carry the burden you had thrust
upon her. We are your children. You begot us. Now, how are we to
live?”

‘His voice rose to a frenzied scream. “Don’t just hang there and
stare at us with those dreadful bulging eyes and your tongue
lolling out of your mouth, but answer us,” he wailed. “You, who
were our father; speak and answer us.”

‘And then, in a fearful outburst of hysterical tears, “Damn you!

And I say it again and again. You, who were our father; damn you!
damn you! damn you!”
 ‘His behaviour had momentarily shocked my sister and myself
into stemming our tears.

‘I loved father dearly, and knew in all fairness he could not be

entirely blamed for all the misfortunes that had befallen us. This
outrageous behaviour by my brother, Scinji Rao, infuriated me
beyond reason.

‘Although shorter than him in stature, I sprang upon him,

seized his throat in both my hands, and commenced to squeeze
and squeeze and squeeze. As from a great distance I could hear my
sister, Kamala, screaming to me to release him.

‘People rushed to the rescue and tore me away from on top of

my brother. I had knocked him down and was sitting astride his
chest, strangling him with my bare hands. Had they not dragged
me away, I would have killed him that very morning.

‘Then the police came.

‘That evening, after a post-mortem held by them, the bodies of

our poor parents were cremated. A huge crowd attended out of
curiosity, hushed by the awful tragedy of the drama.

‘The inquiries went on and on for days after that. Nothing

seemed to satisfy the police. They appeared bent upon unearthing
some crime where there had been none, but only a dreadful
tragedy.

‘A few people gave us a little food and money. But that was soon
finished and we had to work.

‘I never spoke to my brother again after that tragic morning. He

went away a few days later to Poona to try to get work. The last
news I heard of him was that he had gone mad and was in an
asylum.
 ‘My sister, Kamala, was a beautiful girl; the charms of
youthfulness were rapidly becoming replaced by budding
womanhood in her rising figure, upright stance and pretty face.

‘The scoundrelly Mohan Lal, not content with all the harm he
had done to our family, somehow contrived through his agents to
inveigle her to come and live with him. I heard later that, after
keeping her for over a year, he had suddenly turned her out into
the streets, and that she had gone to Bombay where she is living
the life of a harlot.

‘I went as far north as Delhi myself, seeking work but finding no

permanent employment. The ill-luck of our family appears to dog
my footsteps. And so I come to be here before you all today—a
beggar! And for the second time, I have been the victim of the rich
and of a moneylender into the bargain; Kunjilal, the village
baniya.’

It had been a lengthy tale, and Chota had related it well.

Indeed, it was not for nothing that he had spent such a long time
in making it up. It just had to be a story that would call for
immediate sympathy.

Chota felt he had succeeded and that the men before him had
been moved.

He was right. The leader commenced speaking again, but his

voice was quite changed. It no longer held the note of curtness and
suspicion that had been there before. It was kindly. Moreover he
now talked in a brotherly tone as used between long and trusted
friends.

‘Indeed brother,’ he said, ‘yours is a very sad story. It all but

brought tears into my eyes. But be of good cheer now, we are your
friends. In time to come you will meet another who will prove to
be the greatest benefactor you could ever hope for. I am referring
to our peerless leader, Rajah Man Singh Rathore, the noble.
 ‘But for now, let us get down to business. This moneylender in
the village, Kunjilal by name. Not only has he hurt you, but the
Rajah has heard many tales of his oppression, harsh treatment,
and his atrocities against the poor.

Are you aware for instance that he is in partnership with his

brother in Bombay? They are running a brothel there with over a
dozen girls in it. About half of them are from this very village; the
daughters of poor peasants who have fallen into this villain’s
clutches through being in debt. These poor fathers and mothers
have been compelled to surrender their growing girls to him for
this nefarious purpose.

‘In fact,’ he continued, ‘this Kunjilal is doing the very same

thing that your moneylender, Mohan Lal, did in Sholapur. As their
names indicate, they are from the same accursed stock—the
Marwaris (a caste of usurers).

‘Will you help us then to teach him a lesson?’ and the speaker
came to a stop.

Although the tale of Mohan Lal had been but a figment of

Chota’s imagination, Kunjilal was very real. The weals across his
back that smarted so terribly reminded him of that fact every little
while. And the story about the girls in the brothel at Bombay
shocked Chota. If it was really true, this blackguard, Kunjilal,
definitely needed to be taught a severe lesson.

He found himself wondering what sort of person Man Singh

actually was. If it was a fact that he spent a good part of his time
punishing scoundrels like Kunjilal, Chota felt that he would
genuinely like to make his acquaintance.

Almost with a start he pulled himself out of the reverie into

which he had fallen.
 ‘Most assuredly,’ he returned; ‘in fact, I was just thinking what I
would do to him were he left alone with me for only five minutes.’

Chota caught the faint outline of white teeth before him as the
stranger smiled in the darkness.

‘My name is Sundar,’ he said, ‘the tall man who spoke to you in
the village marketplace is Datar Singh. This other man here who
has not spoken so far is Hyder Khan.’

The last named individual, who was a Muslim as his name

indicated, acknowledged the introduction with a low, ‘Salaam-
alaykum’ (Greetings; God be with you).

Sundar continued, ‘This Kunjilal eats his food in his own house,
but on certain evenings, particularly a Saturday, after dinner at
about nine o’clock, he goes to a cottage that he owns in another
part of the town to spend the night with some unfortunate girl
who has fallen into his meshes, or with one or two of the village
prostitutes with whom he has regular dealings. His wife and
family know about these affairs but are powerless to stop him.

‘We are arranging that a certain very handsome girl of our

acquaintance will act as a decoy. She will be introduced to this
rascal. Of course he will lose no time, thereafter, in inviting her to
his secret villa. On that night his servants, Dehu and Ram, will
open the door of the villa, and the girl will be told to go there in
advance and wait for him. It has always been worked thus,’ he
added.

‘It will be your job to help Datar Singh and Hyder Khan to
overpower these servants—but soundlessly. On no account should
they be killed. You three must knock them out; then bind and gag
them. When that has been done, send Hyder Khan to call me. He
knows where I will be found.
 ‘In the meantime, Kunjilal will hasten to the villa. Datar Singh
and you must secure him also—and again noiselessly. That should
not be difficult at all,’ he added, ‘for Datar Singh is a very
powerful man.’ Once again Chota caught the flash of his smile in
the darkness.

‘About one o’clock in the morning I will come along with Hyder
Khan and we will spirit Kunjilal away. That part of the
responsibility is mine. It should not be very difficult, as the village
“chowkidars” (watchmen) are our friends to a man.

‘You may accompany us after all this has happened as it will

not do for you to remain in the village.

‘Oh, by the way. When the three of you overpower the two
servants, you must also truss and gag the girl, so that no one the
next morning will suspect she was part of the plan. The police
must be made to think it is just one of the many clever raids
executed by Rajah Man Singh and that the woman played no part
in it.

‘Come now; let us revise each detail carefully so that there are
no mistakes.’

Chota was surprised to find himself entering enthusiastically

into this scheme of abducting the village moneylender. He felt he
was killing two birds with one stone. Not only could he look
forward to meeting the far-famed king of dacoits soon; but that
slimy fellow, the baniya, was going to get what was coming to
him. Chota could not help but enjoy thinking of the latter
prospect.

The plan worked to perfection. Two evenings later the stalwart

Datar Singh and the squat Muslim, Hyder Khan, sat talking in the
marketplace till late. Not far away, Chota stood before his
kerchief, spread upon the ground. He was begging.
 Just after 7.30 p.m., when it was quite dark, the girl who was
the pièce de résistance of the whole scheme, and who had the
previous day been secretly pointed out to Chota by Datar Singh,
passed close by the three of them on her way to the villa.

Chota could not help admitting that she was a comely wench.

Datar Singh and Hyder Khan casually followed some distance

behind her. Back of them again, hobbled Chota. Ostensibly, his
begging, at least for that night, was over.

By the time they reached the villa, the girl had already been
admitted by the two servants, Ram and Dehu, who were there in
advance to let her in and prepare the place for their master’s night
of debauchery.

In the darkness, Chota and his two companions stood outside.

Then the three of them approached the entrance door, with Datar
Singh in the lead.

Gripping the handle, Datar Singh tried to open it.

As was to be expected, the door was fast closed.

He knocked loudly upon the panels. There was no reply for a

time. He knocked again.

The door flew open, to reveal Ram on the threshold.

‘What do you dogs want—’, he began.

Datar jammed his foot against the open door to prevent it being
closed again, and the three of them rushed inside.

Chota found himself taking the precaution of closing the door

behind them.
 Datar struck Ram over the head with some small object he had
produced from his pocket, and Ram fell as if pole-axed.

Dehu, the remaining servant, who had been in the next room,
heard the thud of the fall and entered to find out what had caused
the sound. Hyder Khan tackled him from the rear and pinioned his
arms behind him. Chota clapped his hand over the man’s mouth.
And Datar Singh struck him with the same object he had used on
Ram, and with exactly the same result. Dehu sank to the ground
in a heap. Chota saw, for the first time, that the object was a
wooden ball fastened upon a bamboo stick, six inches long.

So far, so good. It had all been very easy.

The girl had been a silent spectator to the whole scene.

As both the servants were unconscious, Datar Singh now

addressed her.

‘Come girl; we will tie you up now, so that when these beauties
recover and see you bound and gagged—and disarrayed, too—they
will think you were as much a victim of the attack as themselves.’

He produced several rolls of cord from his capacious pocket. Not

ungently, they bound her hand and foot; and then gagged her with
a ‘rumal’ (shawl), which he had also brought with him. Finally
they tore her sari and jacket in places to make it appear she had
been molested by them.

Just as they finished, Ram emitted a low groan.

Within the next ten minutes the two servants lay on the floor,
efficiently bound and gagged. And it was Inspector Chota Singh of
the C.I.D. who took particular pains to ensure that the gags and
cords were so thoroughly well tied that the victims could not
possibly escape unaided or make any noise.
 With this part of the proceedings successfully accomplished,
Datar Singh told Hyder Khan to go and inform their leader,
Sundar, that everything had, so far, gone according to plan. It was
a few minutes after eight o’clock and the two men estimated that
the well fed Kunjilal would hardly arrive before half-past nine,
after he had dined sumptuously, to enjoy himself with the girl
awaiting him.

They were nearly right. At about a quarter after nine o’clock

there came a soft knock at the door, and Kunjilal’s voice could be
heard calling, ‘Open up; it is me.’

The two men had thought it wise to keep the oil light burning in
the front room in case the baniya should become suspicious if the
place was to be in total darkness. But, as it happened, this was not
what he had evidently wanted to be done.

Chota and Datar Singh stood to a side as the latter swung open
the front door. The door itself kept them from being seen
immediately as Kunjilal stepped inside the room.

He was annoyed, and he was saying, ‘Damned fools that you

both are. Did I not distinctly tell you to keep the house in
darkness?’

Just then Chota closed the front door softly, while Datar Singh
hit the baniya over the head with his improvised weapon. Kunjilal
collapsed.

The Inspector could not help thinking to himself, and smiling

slightly as he thought, that the wooden ball had indeed played its
part most efficiently that evening in silencing three men in quick
succession.

They were both sickened by the scent of perfume that arose from
the prone man. The baniya had evidently saturated himself with
it before coming to the villa.
 In a few minutes they had him trussed and gagged as efficiently
as the two servants.

Ram and Dehu had, in the meanwhile, recovered consciousness.

Helplessly, and with eyes wide open in fear, they stared at their
master and at Datar and Chota. In the latter they recognised the
beggar they had twice beaten. No doubt he would now avenge the
injuries they had caused him and would cut their throats.
Perspiration poured down their faces at the thought, and they
trembled in their bonds.

But they found themselves still alive as the hours dragged by.
Kunjilal took a long time to regain consciousness. When he did so
he could not speak because of the gag. But tears rolled down the
ash-grey skin of his flabby cheeks.

The girl lay bound and gagged in her corner. Kunjilal and his
two servants noted her torn jacket and sari, and all three of them
concluded that their captors had had her while they had been
unconscious.

Meanwhile Datar Singh and Chota carried on a whispered

conversation at the far end of the room. His tall companion
offered Chota an endless succession of beedies (small cigarettes
wrapped in tobacco leaf), as he smoked them himself.

Datar was speaking. He seemed to be in a talkative mood and

the Inspector let him prattle on in order that he might learn as
much as possible about him.

‘Like you, brother,’ Datar was saying, ‘I was once upon a time a
happy man. I ran a small-scale business. I owned a flour mill in
the town of Bhind. It did not earn large profits, but it kept my
family and me alive; I should say, comfortably alive.

‘Then one day one of the rich men in the town who was,
incidentally the President of the town Panchayat (local
municipality), bought another mill. I was his sole competitor.

‘Actually, the town was big enough for us both to do the same
business and profit by it. He was a “lakh-eer”, and had hundreds of
thousands of rupees to his name, besides lands and houses. The
few rupees, more or less, earned by my mill would have mattered
nothing whatever to him.

‘On the other hand I was a poor man. My wife and two children
and myself were entirely dependent on what our mill brought in
for our day-to-day food. To us it was our vital bread and butter.

‘But this rich man, this president, whose name was Arjun Singh,
could not bear the thought of competition. He determined to
eliminate us and our little mill, entirely.

‘As a first measure, he used his influence with the village

Panchayat members to decree that the building in which the mill
was housed belonged to the Village Council and that it was now
required for other purposes.

‘We were thrown out, and could not operate the mill until such
time as some other building became available for our use.

‘So I rented a small godown and stored the machinery in it,

while I tried to find some other room large enough for setting up
the mill. You must understand that at the moment there was no
other empty place in the village big enough to accommodate the
machinery.

‘One night some persons broke into the godown by removing the
zinc sheeting that formed the roof. They smashed the motor of the
machine and removed the cutter.

‘It was quite plain to me that no ordinary man, however evil he

might be, would have done such a thing without rhyme or reason.
Our machine had obviously been damaged at the instigation of
Arjun Singh.

‘I was hot-headed in those days and I publicly accused him. The

President retaliated by making the Panchayat order me to refrain
from ever operating my mill in that town again, even if I was able
to repair it, and rent a building to house it. Thus this evil and
greedy man succeeded in his purpose of removing me altogether
from ever competing against him.

‘Realising the hopelessness of fighting against Fate as far as

running my mill in that town was concerned, I sold the broken
machine as junk and set myself up in business in a petty shop,
vending cigarettes, sweets and a few odds and ends.

‘But Arjun Singh was not content with just wiping me out as his
competitor as far as the flour mill came into consideration. He
now set himself the task of eliminating me altogether. I really
could not tell you why, as I had done him no harm. Possibly he
bore me a grudge for publicly accusing him of being the instigator
behind the persons who had damaged my machine.

‘Be that as it may, he started harassing me directly and

indirectly in a hundred different ways. It culminated one night
with the premises of my petty shop being completely gutted by fire
and all my stock destroyed. Inside the shambles, next morning we
found a two-gallon petrol tin, twisted and blackened by the
flames, but still recognisable as a petrol tin. Somebody must have
entered through the roof and set fire to the place after pouring
petrol over it. It had burnt to cinders.

‘I was ruined entirely and for life.

‘Then the landlord who owned the room which had been burned
along with my stock, instigated by Arjun Singh, took legal
proceedings against me for damages, saying that I was responsible
for the fire through carelessness.
 ‘In the face of all these troubles there was nothing we could do.
At the dead of night I fled with my family from that accursed
town.

‘But disaster dogged our footsteps continuously. Exactly six

months after the day of the fire—to the very date—the ferry boat
in which my family and I, along with several others, were crossing
the river Jamuna, foundered in midstream. The river was in spate.
Many were drowned, including my wife and both our sons. I was
picked up for dead on one of its banks a mile downstream.

‘From that day, brother, I wandered in this land with hatred in

my heart against Arjun Singh. It was he who was the beginning of
all our misfortunes.

‘All this while stories had reached me about the wonderful

accomplishments of Rajah Man Singh, the gentleman dacoit who
helped the poor. One day I determined to seek him out.

‘How I found this great man will be of no interest to you. But I

found him. Into his sympathetic ear I poured out my sad tale.
Never, to my dying day, will I forget his reply.

‘He said, “Be of good courage, Datar Singh. Maybe God has
chosen you to help me to help the poor. Would you like to join my
band?”

‘I was so happy that I could hardly believe my own ears. That

very moment I joined the great leader, Bapat Rao, as I hope you
too will join him soon. And never to this day have I regretted it.

‘Some months later, Arjun Singh undertook a business journey

across the Chambal River. I happened to be with a batch of Man
Singh’s outlaws when we raided and captured a caravan. I am sure
our chief knew about it and deliberately assigned me to that band,
because among the members of that caravan was my old enemy,
Arjun Singh.
 ‘I took him to the Rajah and said, “Maharaj, remember I once
told you about an evil man who had destroyed me and my family?
Here, before you stands that very man in the flesh. Let me be
avenged and kill him.”

‘“No, Datar Singh, you must not do that now,” he had answered
me, “every man should be given a fair trial and a chance to defend
himself. It is my custom, always, to do this. Then, if the members
of the band who sit in judgement on him pass the death sentence,
he may be executed. But not till then.”

‘So the next day a number of the troupe assembled, to whom I

told my story just as I have related it to you. Arjun Singh was
asked to defend himself. He did so by flatly denying he had ever
seen me before.

‘Man Singh kept him a prisoner after the trial and sent some of
his agents to the town of Bhind to inquire which of us was telling
the truth. Those agents came back with ample proof that what I
had said had been true, while Arjun Singh was lying.

‘The outlaw band passed sentence against him. He was to die.

And I was to kill him in whatever manner I deemed fit.

‘Bapat Rao, the old rage and hatred that had burned within me
for years against that accursed man, Arjun Singh, who had blasted
my home and was indirectly the cause of the deaths of my wife
and two sons, surged back into me in an irresistible wave of
hatred. I drew the blade of the knife I was carrying, and before
them all I cut the throat of Arjun Singh from one ear to the other.

‘As his warm life-blood spurted between my fingers, my revenge

was achieved.

‘Among Arjun Singh’s effects we found much money and some

concealed jewellery. All this booty Man Singh handed to me with
the words, “They are rightly yours, Datar Singh, for all the wrong
that you have suffered at his hands. Keep the lot, or give some to
the poor, just as you please.”

‘I returned everything to him with the reply, “Maharaj, I don’t

want one anna of the accursed swine’s belongings. You may give
everything to the poor. I ask only to follow you wherever you may
go.”

‘That was nearly two years ago, Bapat Rao. Since then I have
faithfully served this wonderful leader, nor have I ever regretted
my decision to do so. More and more have I seen his chivalry and
kindness. More and more do I love him. This very night I would
sacrifice my life to save his.’

Datar Singh was silent. He had brought his poignant narrative

to a close.

Chota pondered long and deeply about everything that had been
said. Truly, he thought, the lot of a policeman is sometimes very
hard. He has to make the most difficult decisions as to what is
right and what is wrong.

Exactly at one o’clock in the morning they heard a soft

knocking at the door. Lowering the oil-light, Datar Singh drew the
bolts and opened the door a few inches. Outside stood two muffled
figures whom they recognised as Sundar and Hyder Khan.

Datar opened the door still wider; and they both entered.

Sundar now spoke, ‘Brothers, you have done your part of the
work exceedingly well indeed. A closed car is standing outside. We
will put this lout’—indicating Kunjilal, who was staring at them
with renewed fright—‘inside, and take him along with us. Come
on, let us get going.’

The four of them lifted the weighty figure of the baniya to their
shoulders and carried him outside, Sundar stopping just long
enough on the threshold to close the front door behind them. Then
they bore him down the few steps that led to the level of the
street.

Before them stood a Buick sedan of ancient vintage.

Into the rear seat of the sedan they bundled the trussed Kunjilal.
Then they got in themselves.

Chota noticed a silent figure standing at the street corner. The

man gave no indication whatever of having seen them. He realised
that it must be one of the village chowkidars whom Sundar had
told him were favourably disposed towards the outlaws.

The driver, who had remained seated in the car, pressed the self-
starter and the engine came to life with a splutter. They moved off
and soon had left the village behind.

It was too dark outside to see much, but the headlamps of the
vehicle cut a swath of light before them. Soon Chota noticed that
they were traversing scrub jungle. It was also becoming chill, as
the night air blew in through the open windows of the sedan.

Some hour-and-a-half later the road emerged from the scrub

jungle and turned to the left. A few minutes more and they came
upon the river running parallel to the roadway. They must be at
least 30 miles down the course of the Chambal River from the
point where it touched the village of Dhowd, he reckoned.

Ten more minutes passed. Then the headlights showed men

standing on the road before them. The car drew to a halt.

‘Some owls are wise,’ mumbled the muffled figure of one of the
men on the roadside.

‘So are a few men,’ returned Sundar, without hesitation.

 The driver switched off the ignition.

‘Is all well, brother?’ queried the same voice.

‘All is well,’ intoned Sundar. ‘The guest sits here amongst us.’

The other man chuckled softly.

‘All right, then. Fetch him out and dump him into the boat. It is
right here, at the waterside.’

They hauled the recumbent Kunjilal out of the car and carried
him a few paces to the water’s edge. Floating there was a boat
with a man seated inside.

The four men who had stood on the roadside now joined them.
Between them they lowered the baniya into the bottom of the
boat.

As they all clambered in, the driver restarted the engine of the
car and moved off.

In the boat two men, one on either side, commenced rowing. It

slid silently into the night. They were in total darkness except for
the reflection of the stars, mirrored on the oily surface of the
water that lapped in gentle thuds against the wooden sides of the
craft. For all Chota could feel, they might have been floating on a
placid pond rather than crossing a river.

After a while, a deeper darkness loomed ahead, and Chota knew

they were approaching the opposite bank of the river. With a faint
rustling, the prow of the boat broke through the tall rushes that
grew there, and grounded smoothly on the sand.

Evidently they had been expected, for another group of men

suddenly appeared, their figures but dimly visible in the darkness.
 Leaving the boat, the party waded ashore, carrying the trussed
Kunjilal.

Then they untied his legs but not his arms. Nor did they remove
his gag.

‘Get up and walk, you fat hound,’ said Sundar, prodding the
baniya roughly with the toe of his sandal.

But Kunjilal had been bound for so long that his legs were
benumbed. He groaned with pain and discomfort as the blood
coursed through them, setting up the stinging sensation known as
‘pins and needles’ in his feet and calves. There was nothing for it
but to let him lie there for five minutes or so.

When that time had passed and his captors judged the
circulation had been restored, Kunjilal was hauled
unceremoniously to his feet. With a man on either side,
supporting him beneath the armpits, he was marched ahead,
while the rest of the party which now numbered over a dozen
men, followed in single file.

Dawn was breaking in the eastern sky. They had walked for
almost two hours, up and down over extremely rough country,
crossing what appeared in the darkness to be deep gorges whose
sides rose to towering heights above them. The baniya tottered
with exhaustion, and for the last half hour or so had been
practically dragged along by the two men who supported him.
Chota himself felt dead beat from loss of sleep and his physical
exertions.

Then halfway down the face of the gorge they were traversing,
they turned a corner caused by a spur of the hillock they had just
descended. Suddenly before them loomed the entrance to a cave.

It was quite dark inside as they entered the tunnel, but the party
shuffled along, one behind the other.
 Chota knew they were following a secret passage of some kind,
leading into the bowels of the earth, for he could feel the gentle
but steady decline.

The passage negotiated a double-bend and must have continued

for a couple of hundred yards at least, when they found
themselves in a large amphitheatre, open to the sky which was
tinged with the pink flush of dawn. All around in a circle, stony
crags reared above them, the walls rising almost perpendicularly
from the floor of this natural coliseum.

They stood, as it were, on the inside and bottom of a huge

cylinder, open at the top, whose surrounding sides were of
towering rock, rising to the height of perhaps two hundred feet.
The area of the arena was considerable, and at a rough estimate in
the greying light of dawn, Chota judged it to cover about ten acres
of ground, forming an almost regular circle.

A few trees grew here and there. Spread beneath them, Chota
caught sight of a number of nomad tents. For the rest, the ground
was overgrown with coarse grass interspersed with boulders, large
and small, that had probably rolled down from the top at various
times.

The Police Inspector became lost in retrospection. No wonder it

had proved so difficult to find the hideout of this notorious bandit
when there was such a natural, secret camping ground available
to him. From outside, the terrain would appear to be just an
unbroken range of hills. Even from an aeroplane, the significance
of the valley would be lost unless the pilot was flying very low. It
would appear as normal country in keeping with the surrounding
contour of rolling hills and broken ground that extended along
these ravines, for miles upon miles on end.

At the same time, he thought that if he could only learn the

way to this place and then escape, he would come back with an
armed party who could be hidden among the rocks above and
around, while another party could cover the entrance to the secret
passage. Then the whole outlaw band would be trapped, like rats
inside their own hole, in this natural amphitheatre.

It seemed a wonderful opportunity for him, Inspector Katar

Singh of the C.I.D., to bring about the liquidation of the notorious
Man Singh and his entire gang of dacoits, at one stroke.

They crossed a tiny stream that twined its way through the
glade and approached the group of trees with the tents pitched
below them.

Looking up to the ridges above, Chota could now make out in

the orange rays of the rising sun that bathed them in a golden
glory, the figures of armed men squatting behind boulders.

Sentries no doubt, he mused. Although they were clearly visible

to the people on the inside of that hidden coliseum, from without
they would be unseen.

The glade they were traversing was still cast in shadow as yet
unreached by the rays of the rising sun.

Man Singh had a really marvellous hideout here, Chota

conceded in his own mind. He did not even want for water with
that little stream they had just crossed.

The grove of trees became alive with men who had issued from
the several tents, or had perhaps been sleeping in the open. They
turned out to inspect the new arrivals as they reached the fringe of
the trees.

With a brief word of command, Sundar bid them to halt and sit
down on the grass. Kunjilal tumbled to earth in exhaustion.
Chota sat down gratefully. Sundar continued alone towards the
centre of the group of tents.
 They waited expectantly after that.

Ten minutes or so later, Chota saw three men approaching. He

rivetted his attention on the first one of them.

He was an old man, stately and tall. His abnormally lofty

forehead was streaked with horizontal white chalk marks, from
temple to temple. On his head was a high turban of bright blue
muslin. Glittering, steely-grey eyes, as hard as the metal they
resembled in hue, were topped by shaggy eyebrows. The whole
face was hidden by thick whiskers, a fierce out-jutting moustache,
and a heavy beard, all the hair being snowy-white. The whiteness
set off to advantage the determined profile of his countenance or
such as could be seen of it through the beard, moustache and
whiskers.

That was his first sight of Rajah Man Singh Rathore, king of the
many outlaw bands that roamed the area.

Behind the Rajah was a burly figure armed with a tommy gun
carried in the crook of his right arm, and the curved blade of a
dagger strapped around his waist.

That would be the bodyguard who, he had heard, always

accompanied the leader night and day.

Bringing up the rear of the approaching group, was Sundar.

Chota rose to his feet respectfully.

Man Singh came close, stopped, and gazed at the bound

Kunjilal. Sundar stepped forward and spoke.

‘Maharajah, that is the baniya’ he said, rather unnecessarily.

Man Singh smiled vacuously. ‘I can see that,’ he replied; ‘and is

this the other man, the beggar you told me about?’ indicating
Chota.

‘It is the Maratha beggar, Bapat Rao, your highness,’ confirmed

Sundar, by way of a formal introduction.

Chota salaamed, bowing low before the dacoit leader.

‘Welcome to our camp and to our band,’ Man Singh greeted

him, heartily. ‘I hope you will find here the justice that the world
has denied you.’

With a musing half-smile on his face, he continued, ‘So, we

have the accuser and the accused, face to face, eh? That will make
for a fair trial, indeed.’

They were all silent for a moment.

Man Singh turned then, and spoke to Sundar. ‘Unbind the

prisoner and remove his gag,’ he commanded, ‘the poor devil must
be feeling terrible. Let them both rest and give them food. Tonight,
after supper, the trial of the baniya will be held.’

Chota salaamed again, and the dacoit leader acknowledged it

with a pleasant smile. He walked away after that, but Sundar
remained to untie Kunjilal and remove the kerchief which had
gagged him all this while.

Just as soon as he could speak, Kunjilal came to Chota and fell

on his knees before him, ‘Oh, spare me Sir,’ he implored, almost
grovelling on the ground with terror. ‘After all, I did not beat you.
It was my servants who did it. They are to blame. Please don’t tell
the old man anything against me. Only persuade him to let me go
free. If you will do this, as soon as we get back, I will give you fifty
thousand rupees. I swear it, on my honour.’ The words came
tumbling from his lips in a torrent.
 Chota did not answer him. He just stared at the baniya stonily,
and in that implacable look Kunjilal saw no mercy—no hope,
whatever.

They ate and rested that afternoon.

Just after sunset, they ate again.

Then the bandits gathered around in a circle, a few lanterns

were lit here and there among them, and the trial commenced
under the open sky, with the line of serrated hills around, as
witnesses.

Man Singh sat on his haunches within the circle. His armed
bodyguard with the tommy gun ready for instant use, stood
immediately behind him. To his right side and ten paces in front,
squatted Chota the accuser. To the left, and an equal ten paces in
front, sat the man on trial, the accused, Kunjilal.

Chota could see the sweat break out on the baniya’s forehead
and heavy cheeks and roll down to the tip of his chin in a
successive stream. Kunjilal was so frightened that he never even
thought of wiping his face, but permitted the perspiration to drip
from his chin on to his lap, creating a spreading circle of wetness
there.

Man Singh was speaking and addressing the accused. ‘Your

name is Kunjilal and you are a moneylender, is it not?’ he queried.

‘Oh yes,’ gasped the baniya, ‘but I take only a very small rate of
interest…’

The old dacoit did not wait for him to finish, but put his next
question, ‘Do you know this man here, the beggar?’

‘His face is familiar, your honour.’

 ‘Did he come to you for alms?’

‘Yes, I remember now. He came once, I think.’

‘Did you cause him to be beaten on more than one occasion by

your servants, and also by the police?’

‘My servants may have beaten him, Sir; but how can you blame
me for that?’

‘And why did the police beat him?’

No answer.

‘Did your servants not drag him to the police station?’

‘If they did, I know nothing about it, Sir.’

‘And how come you to be here tonight?’

This question was so unexpected that Kunjilal did not know

what to reply. His jaw hung open and he was speechless for a
while. After that he blurted rapidly, ‘Why, your honour, all these
men came inside my house and kidnapped me.’

‘Where were your servants at the time?’

‘They had already been assaulted and tied up,’ he complained.

‘And was anyone else there, besides you and the two servants?’

No reply.

‘Was there not also a young woman present?’

Still no answer.
 ‘Come,’ said Man Singh, ‘we have ways of making you speak
the truth, but we would much prefer it if you did so voluntarily,
when questioned.

‘How came the young woman to be there?’

‘She was sent to me as a prostitute and I had arranged for her to

come to that house and meet me,’ stammered the moneylender in
admission.

‘That is quite in order and we find no fault in it whatever,’ cut

in Man Singh. ‘If a woman comes willingly to a man, it is entirely
their business, not ours.’

‘But tell me,’ he continued, ‘were you not in the habit of forcing
women, obligated to you or bound by debt, to visit you in the
same house where you would have them all night long?’

Kunjilal remained silent.

‘There are other grave charges against you,’ continued the old
man, ‘which have reached my ears from time to time.’

‘Is it not a fact that, 14 months ago, when a certain bullock cart
driver, Rajendra by name, paid you back the sum of two hundred
rupees for which he had mortgaged his cart and two bulls to you,
having already paid you an enormous interest, you took the
money from his hand, while at the same time you declined to
return the mortgage bond, thereby robbing him of the cart and
bulls and of the two hundred rupees as well, while continuing the
debt?’

‘Is it not a fact that, when this cartman protested and pleaded
with you on bended knees for what was his own property, you
ordered your two servants to beat him soundly although he had
fully repaid you all the money due to you, both as regards
principal and interest?
 ‘Is it not a fact that, in the course of the beating, one of your
servants struck that poor man on the skull with a heavy bamboo?

‘Is it not a fact that he fell unconscious at your feet?

‘Is it not a fact that you bribed the police to say that he had
been knocked down by a motor car which had caused severe
injuries to his skull?

‘Is it not a fact that he never regained consciousness, but died in

the village Local Fund Dispensary two days later, from concussion?

‘Are these charges true, or not, baniya Kunjilal?

‘Are you not guilty of the robbery and murder of an innocent,

inoffensive, poor cartman for no reason, whatever?

‘Do you not possess money in abundance—some hundreds of

thousands of rupees of your own, together with many houses and
much land that you should have coveted that poor man’s bullock
cart and his oxen?

‘And when he repaid you in full for the loan he had taken, both
as regards interest and capital, was it right of you to have refused
to give him back his bond as well as his property, and then have
him beaten up because he begged for it, thereby causing his death?

‘For the last time, I say to you, answer me,’ thundered the old
man’s voice inexorably, ‘what have you to say? Why did you do
these things, oh most wretched among men?’

But Kunjilal could make no answer. He fell on his face and

grovelled on the ground and said, weakly, the one word,
—‘Mercy’.

‘You beg for mercy yourself,’ said Man Singh coldly, ‘but did
you extend it to that poor cartman; or to Bapat Rao the beggar,
here, when he asked for alms; or to those unfortunate girl-children
whom you raped when they begged for mercy from you, and
whom you later sent to a brothel in Bombay when you had done
with them?’

Kunjilal began to wail aloud in a high-pitched, hysterical voice,

just like a woman.

‘For the very last time, I give you the opportunity to answer and
defend yourself,’ continued the dacoit leader relentlessly. ‘It is our
custom at these trials of wicked men like yourself, to afford them
a fair chance of speaking in their own defence. So, speak up. If you
remain silent, it will mean you have no defence to offer.’

But how could Kunjilal put up any defence to those awful

charges; especially as all of them were true?

Therefore he continued to say nothing.

‘Oh children,’ Man Singh addressed his band, ‘you have heard
the charges. We have given the accused an opportunity of
defending himself. He has not done so, which appears to indicate
he has no defence to offer. What say you, my sons? Be quite fair
now. Is he guilty, or not? In your opinion should he be punished or
not? And how?’

There was an unanimous roar of the one word, ‘Guilty!’

followed by desultory shouts of ‘burn him’, ‘bury him alive’, ‘cut
him to ribbons’, and so on.

Kunjilal rolled on the ground, howling ever louder for mercy.

‘Let the beggar-man beat him first and then cut his throat,’
counselled a voice.

Man Singh turned to Chota and said, ‘Do you agree to carry out
the verdict of this gathering?’
 Chota felt that he was in a predicament now, and in right
earnest. If he refused, the outlaws would think him a weakling.
They might even grow suspicious of him. Whereas, if he accepted,
he would be compelled to murder the baniya in cold blood. As
much as he detested Kunjilal, he could not possibly do that.

He thought fast, and inspiration came to him in a flash.

He said, ‘Great Maharaj, you are a just man yourself. For me to

beat him, as he had me beaten, would be nothing but right and I
will gladly do it. But for me to cut this baniya’s throat, when he
has not killed any of my kith and kin would, I fear, respected sir,
make me commit an unjust and unwarrantable action myself
which I will have had no excuse whatever for performing.’

‘Spoken like an oracle, Bapat Rao; shabash! (well done)’ agreed

Man Singh readily, ‘I perceive you are a man after my own heart.
Therefore I will not ask you to do what your conscience forbids. I
will not ask any man to do that. Pick a stick then, of as near as
possible the same kind of wood and thickness as that with which
you yourself were beaten; if you can remember the number of
stripes you received, so much the better; and lay on. For the
moment we will suspend the latter portion of the sentence.’

And he laughed heartily over that. Chota could understand that

the old dacoit appreciated his viewpoint and sense of justice.

He remembered, and most vividly too, that he had been beaten

with bamboos. So he borrowed one from a dacoit and approached
the cringing Kunjilal.

‘Be a man for once and take your punishment like one,’ he
advised.

Then he commenced to strike the baniya soundly across his

buttocks and his fat thighs with the bamboo. To make things more
realistic, he administered a few, although not too hard blows,
across his back.

Kunjilal screamed with pain and howled yet louder for mercy.
Chota began to feel he rather enjoyed what he was doing.

The encircling crowd of bandits applauded vigorously.

After a dozen well-administered strokes, Chota stopped

abruptly. Addressing the dacoit chief, he said, ‘That was about the
number, Maharaj Sahib, perhaps one or two less in fact than I
received myself; certainly not more. But I find little pleasure in
thrashing this cringing wretch.’

He returned the bamboo staff to its owner and walked away.

‘Not only have you the quality of justice within you,’ observed
Man Singh, ‘but the quality of mercy as well. I like them both,’ he
added.

Kunjilal nursed his wounds and whimpered.

But the encircling gangsters were not satisfied. A voice called

out, ‘Maharaj, he has been suitably punished for the lesser crime
he committed. But what about the death of the cartman? This
stranger, who has just come, talks much about justice. What has
he to say to that?’

All eyes were upon Chota once more. Man Singh was watching
him amusedly, no doubt curious to see how he would extricate
himself from that challenge.

‘Brothers,’ returned the disguised policeman, ‘I merely said

that, as this moneylender had not murdered anyone of my family,
I was hardly the proper one to be chosen to kill him. A relation of
that cartman, if he is here, would be the right person.’
 An impasse had arisen and they were silent awhile.

Just then another figure approached. It was that of a tall man

with a slight growth of beard. He possessed the old man’s features,
and Chota knew he was looking upon one of the brigand leader’s
sons.

‘Tehsildar, my son,’ said Man Singh, ‘here is a curious situation;

what would you advise?’

Then in a few clipped sentences, he acquainted his son with the

position. Chota noticed Tehsildar Singh glance in his direction
once or twice; and it seemed to him those glances were not very
friendly ones, nor were they understanding.

The young man waited till his father had stopped speaking.
Then he said very simply, ‘Father, to my mind the solution is easy.
May I have your permission to end the problem?’

‘You have, my son,’ returned the leader.

Tehsildar stepped backwards two paces till he reached the

bodyguard standing behind his father. Stretching out his hand, he
got hold of the tommy gun and almost pulled it away from the
man. An instant later, four or five shots broke the stillness in
quick succession, and Kunjilal dropped dead.

Tehsildar pushed the tommy gun back into the hands of the
guard, saying to him, ‘Don’t forget to clean it.’

To his father and the other members of the band, he said shortly,
‘That is the solution; vermin and parasites like this are not fit to
live.’

Chota had stiffened as he witnessed the cold-blooded murder of

the baniya. Undoubted parasite that he had been, he had still
been a human being.
 And he had been murdered before his very eyes.

* * *

Nothing of importance happened for the next few days, and Chota
fell in with the routine of camp life with the brigands. The day
after his arrival he was given intensive training in the use and
maintenance of ordinary firearms, such as the gun and rifle, of
which he pretended to be quite ignorant. He discovered, then,
that the dacoit band had their own miniature rifle range, where
four .22 target rifles were in almost daily use in teaching such new
members as himself the fine art of shooting men—and shooting
them accurately.

On the fourteenth day after the murder of Kunjilal, Chota was

given his first assignment to front-line activities with the dacoit
band. It was a tough one, and incidentally it proved to be his last.

A raid on the house of a rich zamindar, living in a village about

30 miles away, was to be staged. This raid was to be carried out
under the personal supervision and leadership of the dacoit chief,
Man Singh himself. Chota learned that it was the old man’s policy
to share the responsibilities and dangers equally with his
lieutenants and ordinary rank and file.

To allow the main body to get away with the booty in the event
of pursuit, a smaller band of dacoits was arranged to fight a
rearguard action, and to distract the police should they come out
in force. It would also be one of the duties of this separate
detachment to stage a counter-attack if necessary and then beat a
retreat in quite another direction to draw the police off the trail of
Man Singh and the actual raiders.

Chota was chosen to be one of the members of this rearguard. In

fact, it was Sundar himself who selected him. He wanted to test
the courage of this new recruit.

The main body of men who were to conduct the raid under the
personal leadership of the Rajah numbered twenty, inclusive of
their leader. The rearguard unit with Chota and Sundar,
numbered six men and was put in charge of Devi Singh, one of
Man Singh’s higher lieutenants.

The plan was detailed to them after sundown two evenings

before the night fixed for the attack. They ate their suppers at
about eight o’clock at night, and at 9 p.m. the combined units
went forth through the secret passage into the outer world.

They marched all that night, and by dawn had covered a

distance of 23 miles. They were now only 7 miles from the village
that was to be raided the following night.

Throughout the day they lay in hiding in the jungle, eating the
baked chappatties they had brought with them; and once more at
nine o’clock at night they issued forth to cover the remaining
distance.

It was not yet eleven o’clock when they reached the outskirts of
the village.

Devi Singh with his six men now deployed in a flanking

direction to the east of the village. The main force, under Man
Singh, was scheduled to attack at exactly midnight. If all went
well, and they didn’t hear much firing, Devi Singh and his party
would understand there had not been much resistance. In that
event, their orders were to wait till the shooting ceased and then
make their own way back over the 30 miles to headquarters as best
as they could.

But if there was heavy firing when the attack was launched,
they would know that resistance was being offered in force, either
by the zamindar’s own people or by the police. They were then to
advance to the outskirts of the village at its eastern limits and
open fire with their weapons to make the defenders think the
dacoits were operating in that direction also.

As soon as the police, or whoever it was that were defending the

zamindar, commenced to attack Devi Singh’s unit, they were to
fall back towards the south in order to draw off pursuit from the
main group, who would retreat northwards as they had come.

Eventually the rearguard was to circumvent the village itself

and then withdraw towards the heavy jungle that grew to the
north. From there on, Devi Singh and his men would use their own
initiative to eventually get back to headquarters.

Devi Singh himself was a fierce-looking Rajput, wearing the

usual martial moustache and whiskers. He was a thin man, very
wiry, and gifted with abnormal powers of endurance and energy.
Above all, he was a daring leader, possessing immense personality
and great courage.

He hid himself and his little squad in a mango-grove, within

two furlongs of the sleeping village, to await events.

Punctually on the stroke of midnight they heard the sound of

rifle fire. It grew rapidly in intensity, and soon they heard the rat-
tat-tat of automatic weapons in use, and the return fire of other
automatic weapons.

That could only mean one thing. There were police or military
patrols in the village; and they were resisting Man Singh’s attack.

Devi Singh whispered, ‘Come along, my brothers; here comes

our chance,’ and led them at the double over the two furlongs to
the eastern edge of the village.

There he halted them, and under his instructions, they fired five
or six rounds each into the air.
 The sound of shooting at the scene of the main attack continued
unabated. It became clear that the battle being waged there was
so fierce as to permit of no distraction.

So Devi Singh advanced with his six men into the by-lanes of
the village itself and worked forward to where the fight appeared
to be raging. The noise of battle grew even louder.

‘Keep together men,’ he cautioned, ‘follow me closely.’

At the first sound of gunfire the villagers had barricaded

themselves inside their houses. There was nobody about and
consequently no danger of counter-attack from the rear or
resistance from the villagers themselves. They might even be
counted upon to render assistance in emergencies. It was only the
zamindar’s own hirelings or the police force defending him, that
had to be taken into consideration.

When the plan had been originally explained to him, Chota had
at first thought of deserting should the opportunity occur while
the attack was taking place. But later he had abandoned that
idea. Of what use would he be to the police now, even if he did
desert? He had not yet discovered the exact locale of the outlaws’
hideout, or even its general direction amongst that maze of
ravines. He would only be able to tell the police that Man Singh
had his headquarters in a hidden grove somewhere between the
hills. And that the police knew already.

So after much consideration, Chota had decided to remain with

the dacoits and go back with them after the attack.

Such an action on his part would bring about three results.

Firstly, the bandits would develop more confidence and trust in
him. Secondly, they might bestow upon him a greater
responsibility the next time which he might then be in a position
to usefully take advantage of to help the police. Thirdly, and what
was most important, the longer he stayed with the dacoits the
more would he be able to find out, particularly facts regarding the
different members of the band and the way that led to the
entrance of the secret passage to the grove. That last was a most
important factor.

These thoughts again raced through Chota’s mind as he

followed Devi Singh and the other five bandits along the village
lanes.

They turned a corner and came upon the scene of the skirmish.

Nobody had noticed them thus far, all being intent upon the
fight. Thus they were able to take stock of the actual position
which soon became clear to them.

Evidently Man Singh and his main body of men had succeeded
in gaining access into the zamindar’s house before the alarm had
been raised.

And, when that had happened, the police had surrounded it.

Now knots of policemen could be identified by their uniforms

and seen hiding behind walls and corners of buildings, firing up at
the windows of the house, from where the fire was being
vigorously returned.

Man Singh and his party were trapped inside the zamindar’s
house!

Again the temptation grew strong within Chota to desert and

join his comrades of the police and lead them into capturing or
killing Man Singh.

But would they believe him at this juncture? His assignment to

penetrate the dacoit stronghold had been kept a top secret. The
police patrol here would not know about it. Would they have time
to listen to his story? In all probability they would shoot him on
sight, thinking he was a dacoit who had been sent to mislead or
entrap them.

In the meantime Devi Singh ordered his party into action. ‘Take
cover men, and open fire on the police. Kill as many as possible.
Then follow me and run back to the mango-grove. Be sure that we
stick together. Ready now—Fire!’

Within the next few seconds the little band had carried out his
orders. They opened fire with a ragged volley. Devi Singh and
Sundar carried tommy guns. Chota could see policemen falling in
all directions, as he himself began to shoot—but at nothing.

Taken in the rear, the police onslaught on the building came to

a stop. At first the policemen were unable to know from where the
counter-attack was coming, and they began to fire at random and
in all directions.

This afforded the marksmen and the tommy-gunners from

among the main group with Man Singh inside the zamindar’s
house, and those who had a bird’s-eye view from the top storey of
the building, of the counter-attack by their small band of
comrades, the opportunity they wanted. They took heavy toll of
such policemen as exposed themselves, caught between the
enfilading fire.

A few minutes later, Chota saw the rear door of the house
suddenly open and the dacoits that had been inside make a run for
it.

A couple fell to the ground as some of the bullets from the police
struck them. But in a trice the rest had disappeared.

That meant that the main body of dacoits with Man Singh had
made good their escape. The rearguard unit had performed its job
successfully.
 Chota could only hope that Man Singh himself had been among
the couple who had fallen.

But now a fresh eventuality developed. No longer supported by

the crossfire of their comrades from the zamindar’s house, the
rearguard party of six dacoits and Devi Singh now had to face the
full brunt of engagement by the policemen. The latter had also
partially recovered from the surprise of the counter-attack to
which they had been subjected and were rapidly becoming
organised.

The police fire increased in intensity as more policemen located

their position. Their tommy-gunners also came into action.

It was soon clear to Devi Singh that his small band was
hopelessly outnumbered and out-gunned, and would be wiped out
to a man in a little while if they did not retreat.

Even as he thought this, one of the dacoits threw up his arms

and crashed to earth with a bullet through his brain.

‘Follow me and run for it—to the mango-grove,’ he shouted

above the rattle of musketry.

And suiting the action to his words, he ran down the village
lane, zigzagging as he went to avoid the hail of bullets that
screamed in his wake.

One by one the others followed.

Chota hesitated for a second. Should he desert now? It would be

easy. Devi Singh would think he had been killed. But then he
remembered he had no information worthwhile to report. And he
would surely be shot by the police, anyhow.

So he turned and ran.

 Towards the end of the lane he stumbled over the dead body of
another dacoit. He recovered himself and continued running.

A little later he found that he had reached the mango-grove.

There were only four of them there—and Devi Singh.

Stray shots followed, indicating the police were in hot pursuit.

‘Come on, follow me,’ said Devi Singh, ‘to the south of the
village.’ They ran after him again, one behind the other, crashing
blindly through the darkness, stumbling against thorny bushes
and tripping over rocks and the ant-hills that abounded.

Torches began to flash behind them as their pursuers sought to

find out which way they had gone.

That was when Sundar made the mistake which was to cost him
his life; and some of them, theirs too.

He stopped running, swung around and fired a burst from his

tommy gun at one of the shining torches.

The torch went out abruptly as the policeman holding it died

violently.

But Sundar had unwisely given away their position and the
direction of their retreat.

A burst of return fire came from the police. Sundar stopped in

his tracks, turned around slowly, and crumpled to the ground.

There were now only three of them left—and Devi Singh.

They stumbled blindly after him as they heard the running

footsteps of their pursuers and bullets whined thickly through the
air. Two tommy guns spat viciously from somewhere behind them
and the dacoit who was running alongside Chota screamed
hideously and collapsed, rolling over and over as he clawed at his
abdomen.

There were now only two of them and Devi Singh.

But he was a good leader, and he kept his head. When they were
directly south of the village, he stopped for a few seconds till his
two companions caught up with him. Then he whispered quickly,
‘Silently now; we will work our way up towards the west of the
village. They will think we have gone straight on. Try to make no
sound.’

Bent double he started running in a northwesterly direction

with his two companions behind him.

As he ran, Chota thought to himself that it was now too late for
him to desert. If he did, and even if he was not shot by the police,
he would have accomplished nothing. Man Singh had, in all
probability, escaped with the main force.

There was nothing for it but to keep with the dacoits and go
back to their headquarters with them, there to find out more.

It took them but a few minutes to realise that the chase had
petered out since they had changed their course at the southern
point of the village. Devi Singh’s strategy had succeeded and their
pursuers had evidently continued on southwards, assuming they
had fled in that direction. No more shots followed, nor did they
hear any sounds to indicate they were still being chased.

Eventually they arrived at the western limits of the village.

Here Devi Singh halted them for a few minutes to regain their
breath. Then he led them north-eastwards. By following that
direction he knew they would eventually rejoin the path along
which they had originaily come when approaching the village
earlier that unfortunate night.
 They were walking now, silently, and still in single file.

It was just after three o’clock in the morning when they at last
met the pathway. Just over three hours ago they had traversed it in
good spirits. It seemed like three days. All of them had been alive
and happy then. Many of their number lay behind dead now.

But the path led directly northwards and to safety.

They now quickened their footsteps. Still another six miles or

more lay between them and the friendly shelter of the forest.

It was 4.30 a.m. and the jungle loomed darkly and directly
ahead, when a sudden shot rang out from somewhere in front of
them.

The dacoit walking second-in-line, immediately behind Devi

Singh, fell dead.

Now only he, Chota, was left alive—and Devi Singh. More shots
rang out and bullets whistled around their heads.

They had been ambushed.

Simultaneously, he and Devi Singh dropped to the ground on

their bellies and waited for what might come.

Bullets continued to whine above. It was dark and they could

see nothing.

Then a voice came out of the blackness, ‘Surrender, or you will

all be shot,’ it ordered.

That voice had come from a little to the right of them.

Devi Singh held his tommy gun ready for action in his hand,
while with his right he groped for the stone upon which he had
fallen. It was hurting his belly.
 Suddenly an idea came to him. Gripping the stone with his right
hand, he threw it as hard as he could to his left. The stone landed
on the earth some yards away with a dull thud.

Immediately flashes of flame stabbed through the night as the

ambushing police patrol opened fire in the direction from which
the sound had come.

Devi Singh pressed the trigger of his tommy gun and kept it
pressed as he swept the muzzle of the weapon in a slow arc at the
spot from which the flashes were coming. There were screams and
cries of pain as his bullets took effect on the hidden members of
the police party.

Once more, lead screamed over their heads and around them.

In the midst of that confusion a strange thing happened.

From quite close by and in the direction of the forest in front, a

horned owl hooted dismally—once, and then again.

And from Devi Singh, immediately to the left of him, Chota was
surprised to hear the answering hoot of another owl, again twice
in succession.

Only then did he understand the significance of the signals.

Man Singh and the main body of outlaws had reached the forest
and had been hiding there. The police patrol had been following
them when Devi Singh and his depleted group had turned up from
the direction of the village. The main party had heard the sound
of gunfire and counter gunfire, and had guessed that their
returning comrades from the rearguard party had run into trouble.
No doubt they had also seen the flashes issuing from the muzzles
of many guns. But in that darkness they had no means of knowing
which party was which.
 So they had signalled by means of imitating the call of the
horned owl, to establish contact. Devi Singh had understood the
message and had replied. Man Singh and the main party would
now know the police were in the other group.

The very next second proved that he had surmised correctly.

Concentrated gunfire from the jungle was opened upon the police
in which Devi Singh joined wholeheartedly with his automatic
weapon. Chota himself began to fire his rifle rapidly, but shot into
the air above the hidden policemen.

Once more, caught by an enfilading fire and this time hopelessly

outnumbered, the policemen in the small patrol began to die, one
by one.

Their return fire had almost ceased when Chota suddenly felt a
terrible searing pain in his chest. Vaguely, he wondered what was
the matter with him. Then he realised the irony of fate. He had
been shot—by a policeman!

Oblivion followed after that.

Once during the following day he regained consciousness to find

himself lying in the jungle. Man Singh sat beside him and was
trying to force some water between his lips. But he relapsed into a
coma before that could be done.

At night he awoke again to a peculiar and not unpleasant

swaying motion. It took him some time to realise that he was
lying in an improvised stretcher which was being carried on the
shoulders of four of the outlaws.

The pain in his chest was excruciating. It burned cruelly, as if a

red-hot knife was being twisted inside. He had high fever and his
throat was parched.
 Chota tried to speak. But the only sound that issued from his
lips was a faint croak.

A hand clasped his and went up to his forehead; while a kindly

voice said, ‘Bear up, son; we shall be home by morning.’

That kindly voice had been Man Singh speaking to him. Before
he could try to answer, he fell into a stupor once more.

Chota awoke for the third and last time. The sun was shining
brightly outside. He was lying on a rasai (mattress) just within
the entrance to a tent.

The dacoits had succeeded in carrying him all the way back to
headquarters. For twenty-three long miles they had borne him on
their shoulders. It must have been a valiant and difficult
undertaking, tired as they were and in momentary danger of
pursuit themselves.

With all that they had not abandoned him.

Chota appreciated what they had done and marvelled.

Of what use was all this trouble, though? For Chota knew that
he was dying.

The pain in his chest was unbearable. Yet he could think

clearly.

‘Call Rajah Man Singh—urgently,’ he said in a feeble voice.

One of the outlaws heard, and bent over him with a beaming
smile. ‘So, you are awake at last, brother? Don’t fret; you will
soon be well again.’

‘Call him, do you hear? Call the Rajah soon—very soon! For I
am dying; but I have something to tell him first.’
 The man disappeared, and in a few minutes, Man Singh stood in
his place.

‘I am glad to find you awake, brother Bapat Rao—,’ he began.

Chota cut him short. ‘Listen to me, Maharaj Sahib,’ he

whispered faintly, ‘there is something—that I must tell you. There
is hardly time—for I am going to die.’

Meanwhile Tehsildar Singh and Devi Singh had also appeared.

They listened curiously.

‘Maharaj Sahib,’ continued Chota feebly, making a mighty

effort to speak coherently, ‘I—am not—Bapat Rao, the beggar. My
real name is Inspector Katar Singh. I am a detective—a police spy
who came—to trap you. Fate has ordained—otherwise. Forgive me
—if you can, O grand old man! But—but I was only doing my duty
—honestly—my duty—my duty…’ Here his voice trailed off into
silence, and his eyes closed tiredly.

Man Singh thought that he had died.

But Chota opened his eyes after a moment and continued to

speak. But his voice was yet fainter now, so that Man Singh had to
bend low over him to hear what was being said.

‘I succeeded in finding your hiding place—but, thank God, I told

nobody about it’. Here he smiled faintly. Then continued.

‘Thank you—for trying to help me—for car—for carrying me all

the way back here. I am—much honoured and glad—to have met
you. You are—a great man. God—bless you—Rajah Man Singh—
Ra—Ra—Rathore.’

A convulsive shudder shook the diminutive Inspector’s frame;

then he was dead.
 Man Singh regarded the little body silently, with its chest
soaked in clotting gore. His eyes were strangely bright.

Then he said, very very softly.

‘Assuredly I forgive you, Inspector Katar Singh of the Police.

And I salute you, for you are a brave man. You did your duty and
you did it marvellously well. May God rest your departed soul.’

But Tehsildar Singh, his son; and Devi Singh, his lieutenant; had
overheard him. They wondered how the fierce old man could yet
have such tender feelings.

And they cremated the little Inspector with all religious

ceremony.

While of the plucky little rearguard unit that had fought so

gallantly, none were left alive now—

Except Devi Singh!

 2

Jhani and Lotibai

ON’T pull my hair, you rude boy,’ said a little girl one day.
‘D Her name was Lotibai, and she was the only daughter of
Kumar, a rich merchant in the town of Bhind. She was hardly 10
years old when she uttered those words, and the place was the
quadrangle in front of the local primary school building, which
afforded the highest education to the children of Bhind that the
large majority of parents could themselves afford to pay for in the
way of school fees.

‘Why not?’ asked the youth, ‘I like pulling girls’ hair so as to

make them cry,’ and he pulled again.

He was a bright looking boy of about 12 years, with merry,

sparkling black eyes. He seemed inordinately thin of body, but
that was because he was growing rapidly, and all boys who grow
suddenly appear thin. His wavy black hair was tousled and hung
over his right temple. There was a glistening display of white teeth
and a mischievious dimple on each cheek.

And his name was Jhani.

‘Don’t think, because you are a boy and I am a girl, that you
can annoy me,’ retorted Lotibai, ‘for I will smack your face for you
just now.’

‘Go on, really,’ laughed Jhani, as his right arm darted out once
more, suddenly, to give her hair another tweak, ‘maybe I like
being smacked by girls.’

But Lotibai had begun to cry.

 The smile died suddenly from Jhani’s face and he looked
wonderingly at the girl beside him.

‘Now that is what I don’t like about women,’ he spoke the

words with all the weight of sagely wisdom behind him. ‘You try
to joke with one and she begins to cry. Thank heaven, I was born a
boy.’

‘Get away from here, you nasty beast,’ answered Lotibai

vehemently, stamping her tiny bare feet on the ground with rage.
‘I shall tell the teacher all about you as soon as class starts.’

‘You sneak’, blurted Jhani, contemptuously.

Just then the school bell rang, breaking in with a discordant

clang upon the jabbering falsetto of the other children’s voices
that came from all around them.

There was a rush to enter the classroom.

For the teacher, old Mulki Ram, a Brahmin, was a strict man,
and moreover very cruel. He would beat children who came late
upon the palms of their hands with a thin cane. Rumour had it
that that cane had been pickled in vinegar.

It certainly hurt terribly.

The children sat down in their accustomed places at the long

desks that traversed the room. Out of the corner of his eye Jhani
noticed that Lotibai had stopped crying, although she snivelled
every now and again.

He also noticed that the tip of her nose, which tilted upwards a
little, was moist and deliciously red, where she dabbed at it and
her eyes with a small coloured handkerchief.

Jhani felt that he would like to tweak that nose too.

 He hoped she would not sneak on him to the Brahmin, Mulki
Ram. If she did, he would surely be given a caning, and a severe
one too.

All the other boys and girls would laugh at him.

The door opened and Mulki Ram entered the room, walking
briskly.

The children stood up in unison and intoned in a sing-song

chorus, ‘Good morning, Sir.’

Mulki Ram had, meanwhile, stepped upon the foot-high

platform at which stood his large desk and chair. Facing the
assembled children, he replied crisply, ‘Morning; boys and girls.’

He was above middle age and had flabby cheeks that sank down
to his jaws and pouches beneath his eyes. He wore horn-rimmed
spectacles with exceptionally thick lenses. From the angle of
vision of the children before him, these greatly magnified the size
of his eyes, which assumed ogre-like dimensions as they glared
balefully around, accentuated by his rather predatory nose and
thin-lipped mouth. He looked very much like an owl, and ‘the
owl’ was the nickname the children called him behind his back.

Mulki Ram was clean-shaven, including the whole of his head,

except far a tuft of long, greying hair which hung from a point
high up at the back. This tuft and the three parallel vertical caste
marks in vermillion powder that had been drawn down the centre
of his forehead between his eyes and up to the bridge of his nose,
proclaimed to all and sundry that here was a Brahmin indeed, of
pure untouchable lineage.

‘I will take roll call,’ he announced, ‘and then we will begin our
history period. I hope you have all brought your textbooks?’
 Again those ogre-like eyes looked around, and Jhani fancied
they wore an expression of eager expectation. Woe betide the boy
or girl who had forgotten.

Once again Jhani looked sideways across two rows of desks at

Lotibai. Now was the time. If she was going to tell on him, she
would have to do it now.

Lotibai appeared to become conscious of his gaze. She looked up

slowly, then turned her head slightly and glanced backwards in
his direction. Their eyes met.

There appeared the faintest trace of a smile at the corners of her

mouth, and Lotibai did not sneak upon Jhani.

Thereafter, their eyes were rivetted upon their history books.

* * *

Seven years rolled by, but they seemed like seven days.

Lotibai was seventeen now, and she was the apple of her father’s
eye.

Indeed, she was a beautiful girl.

Of medium height and with raven-black hair which she

invariably wore in two long tresses falling down her back, her face
was symmetrically oval, her skin as smooth as velvet and of a
creamy, chocolate tint. Her eyes were large and lustrous, and
appeared to look out upon the world with the innocence and
much of the surprised wonder of a startled doe. They were a very
dark brown, had beautifully long, curving eyelashes, and
naturally arched eyebrows. Her tiny nose, slightly up tilted as a
little girl, had become provocatively pugged. Her warm, luscious
pale pink lips set off the pointed chin, dainty yet determined,
below it. A pretty red ‘bottoo’ (dot), glistened on her forehead
between her eyes—the religious adornment of Hindu ladies.

Her figure had assumed the full proportions of budding

womanhood. The sky-blue silk sari she was wearing bulged
gracefully to reveal a black chiffon jacket that clasped the twin
mounds of her breasts in a tight embrace.

Lotibai was in love; very much in love.

The object of this affection was the same Jhani; yes, the very
same boy who had pulled her hair before school had commenced
that far-off morning.

Somehow, they seemed to have just naturally grown into lovers.

They had been playmates throughout their schooldays and had

passed out together.

Thereafter, Lotibai did not see much of Jhani in the mornings for
he was kept busy, working in the fields with his father, old Balaji.

Jhani was Balaji’s only son, just as Lotibai was Kumar’s only
daughter. But there the resemblance ended. For Balaji was a poor
man, a farmer, who toiled with his son to plough the fields and
scatter the seeds on the 12 acres of dry land they owned and from
which they were just able to eke out a poor living provided the
monsoons did not fail, or did not descend upon the land out of
season, or in superabundance. When any of these calamities
happened, old Balaji and his son, Jhani, had to live on borrowed
money and hope for a good crop the next year.

Kumar, however, had prospered. Everything he touched had

turned to gold. Not only did his business as a merchant flourish
and increase, but he had taken up a new line—that of a contractor
to the Government—who supplied all the military garrisons and
the local police detachments in the area with their everyday
wants, from food to safety pins. This had brought him in enormous
profits, and he was now the owner of many hundreds of thousands
of rupees.

Every evening—or nearly every evening—Lotibai and Jhani

would meet at the marketplace, or sit on one of the small benches
in the public park, talking.

(The boys and girls of India, unlike those of western countries,

are not encouraged into developing pre-marital friendships
between the opposite sexes. Normally and invariably, marriages
are pre-arranged by the respective parents and only during the
ceremony do the boy and girl see each other for the first time.

So, Lotibai and Jhani were doing something quite unusual in

meeting each other, even if it was but to chat for a few minutes in
the open marketplace, or on a bench at the park, in broad
daylight.

Any such thing as going to the movies together, or for a picnic or

even a stroll outside the village precincts was not to be thought of.
In fact, they themselves never dreamt of it.)

Somehow, their friendship with each other became to be looked

upon by their respective fathers as an accepted, harmless thing.
For had they not known each other for more than seven years?
Were they not in school together; even in the same class?

Indeed, the townsfolk of Bhind thought the same thing and did
not gossip about it; at least not overmuch. Such few of the old
hags as did whisper with heads together and sidelong glances, as
the young couple passed by, were known to be frustrated old
scandal mongers anyhow; and nobody paid much attention to
them. Frustrated people do not attract sympathy all the world
around.
 Even Jhani and Lotibai themselves did not recognise they had
fallen in love with each other. If they had, they would probably
have been very frightened about it. They were just good pals—
buddies since their schooldays—who still got along well together
and enjoyed each other’s company. It was all very innocent.
Neither of them had ever thought about themselves or each other
in terms of sex.

That is, until the day the storm came.

‘Jhani, it is going to pour with rain in a minute,’ said Lotibai,

seated next to him on their usual bench in the park one evening.
‘Come, let us go. If we walk quickly, there may just be time for me
to reach home.’

‘But it is only five o’clock and we’ve just met,’ answered Jhani,
glancing up at the darkening sky, resentfully. ‘Hang the odds; let
it rain. We can always take shelter in the old ‘moosafarkhana’
(travellers’ bungalow) across the road.

‘And suppose it doesn’t stop?’ Lotibai put in, apprehensively.

‘How silly. It must stop sometime. Probably by six o’clock or so.

It will still be daylight.’

Lotibai was not so sure of the wisdom of remaining, but her

liking for the wavy-haired young man seated next to her overcame
her sense of caution.

For Jhani, now 19 years old, was no longer the lanky youngster
he had been as a schoolboy. Tall, well-proportioned and muscular,
the last two the result of his daily toil in his father’s fields, he had
grown into a strikingly handsome youth. The unruly hair was now
naturally wavy, although one end of it yet persisted in falling over
his right temple in the same way it had done so many years ago.
The mischevious smile was yet there, to reveal the same gleaming
white teeth. His dark eyes still sparkled with the joy of living.
 But he no longer pulled her hair or tweaked her nose.

‘Well, if I get drenched, you will be responsible for it, and I

shan’t meet you tomorrow evening,’ Lotibai pouted, a softness in
her tone quite belying the threat her words had been intended to
convey.

Jhani knew they would meet the next evening; and every
evening after that.

A growl of thunder issued from the black cloud above them,

increasing in crescendo as if a giant drummer above beat a bass
drum of titanic proportions.

‘Here it comes,’ said Lotibai, looking heavenward with her

frightened, doe-like eyes, ‘do you think there is enough time for
me to get home before the rain starts?’

‘What a scared little puss you are,’ was Jhani’s only reply.

Then the thunder came again; but now it was as if the heavens
themselves were rent asunder. And the thunderclap was followed
by the first few drops of rain;—not the small raindrops one sees in
temperate climes, but large blobs that fell to the earth
ponderously, to leave a splash of moisture on the sun-baked
surface of the dry, hard land.

‘Come on, let’s run for it,’ said Jhani lightly, springing to his
feet and seizing her small hand in his large and powerful fist, ‘let’s
see how fast you can move.’

And with the words he set forth at a trot in the direction of the
old moosafarkhana standing across the road at the other end of the
little park.

Lotibai tried to keep up with him, but the tightness of her sari
around her thighs and calves prevented her from taking long
strides. Each of her paces was forcibly short and Jhani felt that if
he pulled her any harder she might trip and fall.

Halfway to the old bungalow there came a vivid flash of

lightning which made itself seen in the gloom around them, cast
by the clouds that had piled themselves together overhead and
now covered the whole sky under an ashy-grey pall. The lightning
was followed by another resounding thunderclap, and then the
reservoir of the heavens, pent-up for the past six hot, thirsty and
waterless months, opened itself fully upon them. The rain
descended in a solid sheet of water, enveloping everything in its
opaque shroud.

The bungalow, was but 50 yards ahead, directly across the road.
But they were both soaking wet by the time they reached its
sheltering porch.

For a moment they halted underneath to watch the wall of rain,

and the trees in the park bend under the force of the sudden gale of
wind that had come with it.

The smell of the moist earth seemed indescribably refreshing to

Jhani’s nostrils. A farmer himself, and descended from a long line
of agriculturist ancestors, he knew that the rain meant life,
growth, sustenance and the means of existence to the millions of
square miles of land and the teeming millions of people, that were
India. Without uttering the words aloud, he breathed them, ‘God
be praised.’

Then, in an exuberance of childish glee and gratitude, he

suddenly ran out into the rain, pirouetted around twice, and
rushed back beneath the porch.

‘Jhani, you ass, what are you doing?’ asked Lotibai, now all
attention, once again stamping her feet upon the ground in anger
just as she had done seven years ago. That was a little habit of
hers in registering displeasure.
 Before he could say anything, she continued, ‘Sometimes I think
you will never grow up. You will always remain the little
schoolboy I knew.’

But once more the expression of her eyes belied the severity of
her tone. There was an infinite tenderness in them. A softness that
almost cried aloud in its very silence the words, ‘Oh Jhani; you
will always remain the schoolboy that I know, and love so well.’

Jhani, however, was in no mood for sentiment just then. He

shook himself, as does a wet spaniel, spraying water from his
soaked clothing all around him, and over Lotibai.

She was all concern. ‘Get inside the verandah this instant,’ she
commanded, the mother instinct, pent up inside every woman,
showing itself spontaneously, ‘you will catch your death of cold
and probably die of pneumonia. Here, wipe your face and hair
with my hankie.’

Jhani grinned hugely at the diminutive handkerchief she offered

him, a mere six-inch square of prettily coloured material. He
solemnly took it from her hand and commenced to wipe his face
with it and run it through his hair.

In no time the tiny handkerchief was saturated. With pretended

seriousness Jhani rung out the sodden wisp of cloth between both
his hands and then started wiping his head once again.

Together they walked up the four stone steps from the porch—or
portico (as it is commonly known in India)—to the verandah of
the building.

The moosafarkhana had been a popular construction in its time.

Built by the British over seventy years ago, it had been the one
Travellers’ Bungalow in the area for many, many miles around.
Hence it had been a haven and an oasis for weary officials on their
rounds of tour and inspection. These officials had hailed from all
departments of Government Service; Military, Police, Excise, Land
Revenue, Forest, the Survey Department, and such like; who had
taken advantage of its existence to break journey for a few hours
and camp in relative comfort before, once again, becoming
exposed to the many discomforts and vicissitudes of tent life.

Rumour had it that a Viceroy had once stayed there. Certainly

many Governors had, as the old bungalow registers would have
proved had they been in evidence.

But those registers had long ceased to exist. Some of them had
crumbled to dust; some been eaten by termites and mice. Perhaps
a few had gone to light the kitchen fires of the chowkidars, who
had still been kept in service to guard the bungalow long after it
had stopped being used.

Now even the chowkidars had been withdrawn and the old
moosafarkhana was crumbling into ruin.

Somebody had discovered that the building was unsafe due to

an architectural or constructional fault—or so that somebody had
said. In a great hurry Government had selected a fresh site and
built a brand new bungalow. No one could tell how much pains
had been expended, if at all, in considering whether the old
building had been thought worth repairing.

The fact remains that the new building had mushroomed into
existence while the old one was fading, slowly, into oblivion—
like a weary old man, abandoned by the roadside and left to die
peacefully of old age.

The wooden doors and windows, with their frames, had long
been removed; then had followed the sky-lights, and then the
wooden beams and rafters in many rooms, causing the roof to cave
in. But the main walls of the old building still held firm, and the
roof yet covered two or three of the silent, deserted rooms, striving
against the hopeless task of defying the inroads of time and the
elements.

Part of the verandah roof had collapsed, part remained.

Jhani and Lotibai took shelter under the roofed portion and
stood there to watch the play of the elements without.

Forked lightning streaked the ever-darkening clouds with veins

of phosphorescent silver, momentarily depicting in the sky above
the giant tracings of a river, mapped in the heavens, that flowed
towards the earth. Then the picture vanished, to be followed in a
few seconds by the ear-splitting explosion of a thunderclap. They
felt the walls of the old bungalow shiver as if from an ague. The
rain that had been descending in torrents, poured even harder
entering through the fallen portion of the verandah roof and
flooding the stone flooring on which they stood, inches deep in
water.

It beat in directly through the open front; it saturated them in

the form of spray. Rain, and yet more rain. Even Jhani felt the awe
of the elements.

Then the wind began. They heard the banshee howl of it in the
distance, coming ever closer. And it was upon them. The row of
‘neem’ trees that lined the road in front of the old bungalow
suddenly bent double with the impact of it; branches and leaves
were wrenched off and sailed completely out of sight. It tore
through every gaping door and window opening, and through the
holes and crevices in the walls and roof. It cut through their
saturated clothing, numbing them with the cold so that their
teeth chattered.

‘Let’s go further in,’ shouted Jhani to make himself heard above

the howl of the wind and the hiss of falling rain outside, suiting
the action to the word by seizing Lotibai above the elbow and
piloting her before him.
 They passed through the open doorway into what had once been
one of the main rooms of the old moosafarkhana.

The roof here was in place, but the water flowed in through
many cracks and ran down the walls in streams of moisture.

‘Across there,’ indicated Jhani, still propelling the girl by her

elbow, ‘through that doorway. Perhaps that room leaks less.’

They entered and found themselves in some sort of anteroom. It

was almost dark inside, because there were no windows, and the
only way in was through the doorway they had just come. For the
same reason the room was less draughty and not leaking much.
They huddled against the wall together for mutual warmth,
Jhani’s arm protectively around Lotibai, and held tightly.

Again and again thunder exploded overhead as the storm spent

its fury. The old building quivered with each impact.

Suddenly there was a rending crash as the roots of one of the

neem trees, strained to the utmost by the force of the cyclone that
bent the trunk and branches above, were torn out of the earth,
allowing the tree to heel over and topple to the ground.

The noise startled Lotibai, who thought the roof had fallen in.
She threw both arms around Jhani’s neck and hid her face in his
breast.

‘Jhani, oh Jhani,’ she whimpered.

And at that moment time seemed to stand still for Jhani. In a

flash, as rapid as the flash of the lightning outside, there was born
within him a new conception of the girl who clung to him so
tightly.

Gone was Lotibai, his schoolgirl friend and companion, and pal
of so many years.
 In her place stood Lotibai, the woman. The woman whom he
now desired beyond anything and anyone else in the world.

Her wet blouse and his soaked shirt were inadequate to prevent
the feeling of warmth and pressure upon his chest as the firm
hardness of her breasts bore against him. Her face was upturned to
him, the hair plastered to her wet skull. Her eyes were closed, and
her full, moist lips were temptingly close.

A wave of passion, as fierce as the tempest outside, shook Jhani.

Impetuously he threw both arms around her and crushed her yet
harder to him. His lips met hers hungrily in a long and passionate
kiss.

‘Loti darling, I love you,’ he whispered tenderly, ‘I don’t know

for how long it has been thus. But now I know it. I—I want you
dearest. Now.’

‘Jhani,’ she replied tenderly, ‘I love you too. I have always loved
you, but I hesitated to show it. I was waiting for so long, just for
you to tell me.’

They kissed again and again.

Instinctively the man in Jhani knew that the resistance of the

woman he held in his arms was rapidly weakening, and
relentlessly, almost cruelly, he pursued his advantage.

Loti’s lips opened partially, and her breath came in little gasps
of passion and increasing desire.

Jhani kissed her, long and lingeringly, forcing the tip of his
tongue into her mouth, where it met hers trembling with eager
desire.

Still holding her tightly against him with his left forearm, Jhani
removed his right hand from behind her, gently sliding his fingers
down her bare side and across her abdomen. Then he ran it over
her blouse and forced it down from above and under the wet cloth,
to finally cup her breast within his palm.

Exultantly he felt the tautening of her nipple as her body

quivered with mounting lust.

‘Oh Jani, we musn’t,’ she breathed feebly, ‘it’s wrong; we

musn’t.’

But there was no conviction whatever in her tone.

He knew he had almost conquered, and pressed home to

complete the subjugation.

His hand tightened around her bare breast, and his tongue
forced itself upon hers. A moan of surrender issued feebly from
between Lotibai’s parted lips.

Then active lust played its part, unrestrained.

Petulantly, shamelessly, she pressed her lips more tightly upon

his—lips wet with exultant submission. Her tongue slid itself past
his, and into his mouth.

As if glued together, they sank silently to the ground.

Time passed, and the ecstasies of passion, as they spent each

other over and over again, gradually wore away. Lotibai was the
first to become aware of it. ‘Good gracious, darling,’ she breathed,
‘what must be the time?’

It was pitch dark inside the room now.

Jhani looked at the luminous dial of his wristwatch. ‘Good

gracious,’ he exclaimed, ‘it’s five minutes to eight.’
 They scrambled to their feet together. All sounds of the storm
had abated outside. They had been entirely oblivious to
everything but themselves.

Arm in arm they splashed through the pools of water that had
formed in the driveway of the compound, and came out on to the
road.

‘Father will be worried,’ said Lotibai, ‘he will wonder what has
happened to me. I have never been so late.’ Then, and only then,
did the full weight and significance of what they had just done
forced itself into her memory.

She looked up into his face with a frightened expression in her

eyes. Almost pleadingly, she asked, ‘Oh Jhani. Jhani, what have
we done? Why did we do it?’

At that moment Jhani was asking himself exactly the same

question.

But he made a brave show at trying to calm her.

Taking the palm of her right hand in both of his, he squeezed it

reassuringly, comfortingly.

Then he replied, ‘I am very very sorry, Loti darling. Please

forgive me. I don’t know what happened, but I just could not
control myself.’

‘Don’t blame yourself entirely, Jhani dearest,’ she answered

forthrightly, ‘I was as much at fault myself’; adding lamely, ‘it
takes two hands to clap, you know.’

They walked on a few paces, each lost in thoughts of their own.

Then Lotibai asked, somewhat apologetically, ‘What do we do

now?’
 But Jhani had regained his usual high spirits. He laughed lightly
at her question.

‘How silly! What do you think? We will get married of course.’

Loti thrilled to his words, and hugged his arm tightly against her
breast.

‘Tonight won’t be advisable,’ continued Jhani, ‘but first thing

tomorrow morning I’ll come across to your place with my dad and
tell your old man I’m going to marry you.’

Loti was delighted.

A few minutes later they had reached her home.

Lotibai was a bit anxious as to how her father, Kumar, would

look upon her late return. The clock on the wall in the drawing
room showed it was exactly 8.20 p.m.

But Fate had decided to be kind to the lovers, at least for that
night. The servant who opened the door informed her that her
father had gone out in a car with a friend who had called for him
just before the storm started, and had not yet returned home.

Breathing a sigh of thankfulness that they had crossed the first

hurdle, the lovers kissed each other quickly as soon as the servant
had gone inside, and Jhani turned to go home and convey the good
news to his father.

* * *

Balaji was happy; he was gloatingly happy.

 He was delighted because the rain had not only watered his
twelve acres of land plentifully, but had filled the small pond he
had dug at the further end of it.

That water would be a boon to the hundred or so domestic ducks

he kept. They would swim in it all day, and lay eggs in the grass
on the banks at night.

And he would sell those eggs.

Sitting on the floor in the verandah of his little home, with his
feet folded crosswise and tucked beneath him, he closed his eyes
and gave himself up to reverie.

At the age of fifty-nine, Balaji could by no means be considered

an old man. Tall and well-boned, the strenuous and healthy life he
had led since a lad, when his own father had died suddenly from
cholera while the epidemic had raged and left this farm in his sole
charge, had kept him fit and busy and happy.

Thrown so unexpectedly upon his own resources, he had

manfully shouldered the burden and worked hard upon the land
since that very day.

Often indeed had the wheel of fortune doled out hardships and
calamity to his lot. The water in his well sometimes dried up. The
rains had failed; or had come out of season. Occasionally there
had been too much of it. Twice a crop-pest had visited his land,
killing the harvest before it was ripe in front of his very eyes.

But not for nothing had his father endowed him with a square,
determined jaw; hazel-brown frank eyes; a jovial pleasant, face;
an overflowing, optimistic nature; and an indomitable
determination to win through. Not only did he look to have these
qualities; he possessed all of them abundantly.
 Early in life he married the rather thin girl his father had chosen
for him, but had not lived to see him marry. She had been the
daughter of another farmer, and so she had fitted perfectly into the
hard life led by those who till the soil in India. She had proved
herself to be the very best life-mate, companion and wife a man
could ever have wished for.

In times of trouble and misfortune she comforted, consoled and

encouraged him. At other times when things were going well, she
praised him for the hard work he had done on the land, while she
put something by for a rainy day.

Jhani had been their only child, and they had stinted themselves
to educate him at the best school in the village.

One night, almost exactly four years ago, Fate had struck old
Balaji the cruellest of blows, and incidentally the first and only
one to which he had nearly succumbed.

His wife, Meerabai, had gone outside the house to answer the
call of Nature and had trod upon a cobra with her bare feet. The
cobra had promptly bitten her.

There was no doctor nearby in those days who knew the value
of antiserum treatment. Neither was there any anti-venine serum
available.

It had happened in the dead of night.

He had summoned the village magician, or ‘mantram-man’ as

he was called, who claimed the powers of a witch doctor and
assured Balaji that he could, and would, shortly cure the patient.

The magician had seized one of Balaji’s fowls, plucked off the
feathers from around its anus, and applied the vent itself to the
two fang-marks made by the cobra near her ankle, in turn.
 He claimed this treatment would draw out the venom.

Then he said he noticed the fowl was turning black about its
head owing to the snake poison it had absorbed. He cut the fowl’s
throat. He said that by sacrificing its life the gods would spare the
woman’s.

He muttered mantras.

He set fire to a white powder that had flared up in a glaringly

bright flame. That was to frighten away the evil spirits.

But nevertheless Meerabai, his wife, had died.

That was the time Balaji had lost interest in the farm, in his son
and himself, and with life altogether for some months. He had
contemplated throwing himself down his own well.

But his dominant nature reasserted itself. He won through,

overcame his despondency, struggled on.

Now things were a bit easier. His son, Jhani, had grown up and
helped him on the farm every day. Balaji was pleased that the boy
had taken to farm life voluntarily. So many of the lads of his age
these days were averse to it. They clamoured to migrate to the big
cities and work in some industrial concern there.

They had said it brought in more money. Balaji knew for a fact
it brought in more leisure—and more trouble and evil habits with
that leisure. But his Jhani had not done these things. On the
contrary, he had shaped himself admirably to life on the land.

Balaji was very proud of Jhani. He thought the world of him.

The old man continued his reflections, eyes closed tightly to

concentrate his thoughts and keep them from going astray.
 Jhani was nineteen years old now. High time he got married.
He, Balaji himself, would have to look for a suitable wife for the
boy.

And, by God, she would have to be really worthy of his Jhani.

For one thing, she would have to bring a big dowry of money
and jewels with her. The former would be used for remodelling the
farm and digging another well.

For another, she would have to be the daughter of a farmer

herself, just as his beloved Meerabai had been. Then only could he
ensure that the girl would be able to adapt herself to this life of
toil and sweat. No woman from a city; no daughter of some
worthless, white collared town man would he permit Jhani to
marry.

For only too well did Balaji know the uselessness of a town-girl
when she was brought face to face with hard manual labour on
the soil of the land.

Footsteps splashed suddenly through the mire and water

outside, and a cheery voice called through the darkness, ‘Hello
dad; are you asleep?’

Balaji opened his eyes. There was the ghost of a smile of pride
upon his face.

For that voice was Jhani’s.

A moment later his son took the three steps leading up to his
verandah in a single stride and came to a halt, smiling happily,
before him.

Balaji thought his son was happy because of the rain.

He said, ‘A lovely downpour, eh, Jhani?’

 To which Jhani replied spontaneously, ‘Hang the rain; I have
wonderful news for you.’

Balaji frowned noticeably.

‘Hang the rain!’ he exclaimed incredibly. ‘Why, this downpour

is the best thing that could have happened today.’

‘Not on your life,’ returned Jhani promptly, ‘I have much better

news for you—and far more important, too. I am going to be
married.’

‘Married did you say?’ asked Balaji, not believing his own ears.
And then again, openly dubious, ‘Married?’

‘Yes,’ burst from Jhani exultantly, ‘to the sweetest and best girl
in all the world; Lotibai.’

Then Jhani continued excitedly, and before his father could put
in a word. ‘Do you know, dad, a wonderful thing happened today?
I have always loved this girl, yet I didn’t know it myself until
tonight.

‘It came down to rain, and we took shelter in the old

moosafarkhana. Then suddenly, I—I—; well, I discovered I loved
her, and am going to marry her soon.’

‘That’s rather unusual,’ said his father; unfolding his legs from
underneath himself and slowly rising to his feet, ‘what led up to
causing you to make such a sudden discovery?’

Jhani blushed beneath his brown skin. How could he possibly

tell his own father what had happened.

‘I—I really don’t know myself, dad. You see, as I said, we had
been talking in the park when it suddenly came down to rain. We
rushed into the old moosafarkhana, as it was the closest building.
There we remained till the storm had passed. In the meantime, we
were just—well, talking. From the things Lotibai and I said to
each other, we discovered we are deeply in love and wish to get
married.

‘Tomorrow I want you to come with me, dad, to ask old Kumar
for his consent to marry Loti. It will be just a formal request of
course as he is bound to agree. But we would like both our fathers
to meet and to give us their blessings.’

‘I see,’ said Balaji, thoughtfully, ‘in my time a boy and girl did
not suddenly decide to get married while they were sheltering
from a storm in a deserted building.’

He glanced up. Jhani thought he detected a knowing smile at

the comers of his father’s mouth. Could the old man have guessed
what had really happened?

‘Their respective parents arranged the match before ever they

met,’ continued Balaji.

‘Nevertheless, I for one realise the times are changing. Nor am I

bigotted or narrow-minded. I do not object to you choosing your
own mate.

‘But the vital question, Jhani, is just this. I know Lotibai is a

pretty girl and a nice girl, and a decent respectable girl.

‘I also know your marriage to her will bring in a considerable

dowry. Her father, that merchant-contractor, Kumar, is a very
wealthy man. I for one will bargain most rigidly for a large dowry,
you may be very certain of it.

‘But the all-important question, my son, is just this.

‘Will Lotibai prove to be a good wife to a farmer-boy, like you? Is

she not just a town-bred girl; rich, lazy, indifferent and probably
unfaithful, too, along with it? Will she be able to stick the hard
life by the side of her husband?

‘Like your dear mother of ever-blessed memory endured it, along

with me.’ Then he added in an undertone, ‘May God rest her soul
in eternal peace.’

Jhani had listened to his father’s words with growing

impatience. To him it appeared ridiculous, if not sacrilegious, for
old Balaji to even entertain such thoughts.

‘Oh don’t be so silly and old-fashioned, dad,’ he cried

petulantly, ‘I have known Lotibai for years. For one thing, she is a
plain, simple girl with no pretensions whatever. Surely we are not
going to imagine faults in her just because her father happens to
be a very rich man?

‘Besides, we love each other too deeply for either of us to ever

think of being unfaithful.’ He uttered the words with an air of
finality and as if the last word on the subject had been spoken.

After that they ate their evening meal of vegetable curry and
the chappatties which Balaji had prepared, almost in silence, each
engrossed in his own thoughts.

The old man was thinking to himself: is this going to be for the
better or the worse?

After mother died we both managed the farm more like pals
than like father and son. There was perfect understanding and
never discord. Jhani would work on the land while I attended to
the household chores. Occasionally we would change over; and he
would do the cooking while I pottered about on the land. Either
way, there was always time between us for both duties and a chat
when they were done.
 Now this woman is coming along. She will claim his time and
his attention both day and night. I will have to attend to the farm
all by myself—and I am growing old. It may be too much of a
burden for me at this age. The work may prove too hard.

If I call my son away from her, this woman will not like it. She
will whisper sweet nothings in his ear and he will hurry back to
her arms.

Worse still, this Lotibai is the offspring of one of the ‘higher-set’

of human beings—the hated rich—who never seem to work by the
sweat of their brow like we have to work, but to whom money
appears to come nevertheless—just like that, as if attracted by a
magnet.

Would she make a good wife for his Jhani? Would she be able to
accustom herself to sitting on the floor of their little home, and
not on chairs, as she was wont to do in her father’s mansion?
Would she sleep on the ground, or would she want her spring-cot,
probably equipped with a mattress of silk-cotton, gathered from
the pods of the silk-cotton trees that grow in the jungle not so far
away? Above all, would she soil her beautiful sarees and her
prettily-manicured fingernails, toiling in their kitchen, or sitting
on the floor grinding the ‘curry-stuff’ between the flat stone and
the elongated oval stone roller which went with it, and with
which the kitchens of the poor in India are equipped?

Would she do all these things?

Balaji doubted it; and in his heart he found himself resenting

the advent of this Lotibai, or for the matter of that the intrusion of
any woman into the home for his son as a wife.

But then, another thought came to him. In his memory, not

clouded by the mists of forgetfulness but wondrous clear as if she
stood before him at that very moment, appeared the face of a
woman; rather lean of countenance but with lustrous, frank,
honest brown eyes; a tiny, rosebud mouth, topped by an equally
tiny nose and a delightfully rounded chin with a dimple in it.

The face was that of his beloved Meerabai as she was on the day
he had married her.

His old eyes misted with tears as he allowed himself to float on

the tide of memories. The sweet memories of what had been; those
days of long ago that were so dear, so tender to him; days that had
gone forever; that could never come back; but that brought with
them recollections as if of yesterday; precious moments he relived
and treasured and would keep sacred with him deeply hidden till
his span of life ran out and he would once again be with his
darling; this time reunited, never to part.

Old Balaji thought of those days.

He remembered that, far from hindering him with his work on

the land, Meerabai had actually helped him with her own hands
to plough to sow, and to reap the harvest. She had inspired him in
everything he did.

And he also remembered the nests of the birds that were built in
almost every tree and bush, on and around his boundaries, at the
coming of summertime. The females would hatch the eggs while
the males fed their mates. When the ‘bacchas’ (young) were out
of their shells, both father-bird and mother-bird would feed the
little family.

How sad had been the two bulbuls one day, years ago, when a
sparrow-hawk had raided their nest and gobbled up their young.
They had shrieked shrilly for help—when none had come. Their
screechings had mingled with the wails of the last of their
fledglings as it had been carried away in the cruel talons of the
hawk. That incident had been a reminder of life—and sudden
death.
 He remembered that Meerabai had heard those sounds. She had
seen the little tragedy enacted. Too late, she had rushed out of the
house in an effort to drive away the predatory hawk. Then she had
wept bitterly.

Even the hated crows showed love for their young and for each
other at nesting time.

Then Balaji realised that it was the way of life—the rule of

creation. The male and the female would meet; court each other;
procreate their species; and die themselves. It had been happening
since the world began. It would continue to happen, till the world
ended.

Who was he, Balaji, stupid selfish old fool, to resent his son
finding his own mate? Had he not fallen deeply in love himself
with Meerabai?

Balaji snivelled, slyly wiped the comers of his eyes with the
back of his gnarled right hand when Jhani was not looking, and
munched his curry and chappatty, almost happily.

He had made up his mind now. Most certainly he would do his

best to help Jhani to marry this girl of his choice. As for the rest, it
lay in God’s hands.

Father and son lay awake that night till a very late hour, their
beds spread on the floor of their little living room.

The frogs sent up a cacophonious croaking from the many pools

of water that had filled every depression and hollow in the land
after the storm that had come earlier that evening.

It was a chorus hideous to listen to. The ululations of individual

bullfrogs attained a pitch of noise that made them heard above the
vibrations of the refrain, voiced by hundreds of the slimy creatures
as they sat on their little haunches, half-buried in the mud by the
waterside. The sound rose to a crescendo; fell in pitch and then
rose again.

The humble creatures were thanking their Creator for the rain
and the water that fell with it and in which they were enjoying
themselves so happily.

Balaji, as he fell asleep, was thankful too.

But Jhani could not sleep. He had no ears for the chorus of the
frogs, nor any thought for the rain.

All he could think of was Loti’s beautiful face, almost unseen in

the darkness of the old room in the moosafarkhana; her water-
soaked hair; the passion of her kisses as her lips had clung to his;
the plump mounds of luscious flesh that were her breasts under
the pressure of his eager, questing, demanding hands; the upright
tightness of her erect nipples; and the little bites she had given his
lips and ears and cheek as she had attained each orgasm in her
lustful passion.

* * *

It was nine o’clock the following morning when Jhani and his
father reached the gate before the mansion-like building that was
Kumar’s residence. The sun was shining brightly from a cloudless
sky. The leaves of the trees looked green and fresh after their
recent washing in the rain. Even the earth smelled fragrant, and
seemed alive with the promise of growth to come.

The farmer instinct, inborn in Balaji, told him that such a

cloudless sky and the bright sunshine would probably bring with
them another downpour of rain the following night. He was
delighted at the thought.
 The ‘mali’ (gardener), who was busy digging among the flower-
beds saw them, opened the gate and asked whom they wanted.

Loti saw them too; through the iron bars and glass panes of the
front windows that were always closed in her father’s house—
closed, for fear of thieves coming through them.

Like Jhani, she had lain awake long into the previous night,
exulting in the love she had so suddenly discovered but now knew
she had always entertained for him since that day years ago, when
Jhani had pulled her hair before schooltime and she had not
sneaked on him.

Over and over again during the night she had relived those
hectic moments of passion they had experienced together the
evening before, oblivious to the violence of the storm and the
threat offered by the tumbling roof of the old moosafarkhana.

Her eyes gleamed with welcome, love, and lust too, as she
opened the front door for Jhani and his father and waved them
into the living room.

‘Dad, this is Loti, whom I have been telling you about. The most
wonderful girl in the world that I am going to marry.’ Jhani spoke
simply to his father, but his gaze was only for his sweetheart.

(It is considered very immodest and is against Indian custom for

a boy and girl, or husband and wife for that matter, to embrace
and kiss each other in public or before their elders; even their own
parents.)

The old man acknowledged the introduction with an

inclination of his head and an expansive smile. Loti returned it,
demurely, with both hands folded, palms together, before her face.

Then she said, ‘Be seated, please; I will call my father.’

 With a flitting smile for Jhani and a bewitching glance at him,
she drew aside the brocaded silken curtain hanging at the
entrance to the door leading to the next room, and disappeared
from sight.

Jhani waved his father to a chair and sat in another himself.

Balaji sat down very slowly and cautiously on the edge of the
chair which Jhani had indicated to him, as if he feared that the
act of sitting on it was sacrilegious, or that it might collapse with
his weight.

Very obviously old Balaji was quite unaccustomed to sitting on

chairs.

He was plainly nervous, too. He fidgeted and moved himself

about and glanced alternatively at the large Japanese wall-clock
hanging on the opposite side of the room and at the doorway
through which the girl had just passed.

The room in which they were seated was a lofty one, with a
ceiling of wooden panels, betraying the style of architecture in
vogue in India about a century ago. From external appearances at
least the remainder of the house had been renovated and
modernised. But this room, for some reason, had been allowed to
remain untouched except for the flooring which had been changed
to one of polished white tiles.

There was a settee covered with green velvet at the further end
of the room; a sofa and two padded chairs beside it, all in green, at
the opposite end. Three comfortable armchairs made out of
Singapore cane and painted green also, occupied intermediary
positions. Jhani sat on one of these and Balaji on the other.

A heavily ornamented table, with top of brass and legs of

mahogany, from Travancore, stood in the centre of the room. On
the table was a brass vase crammed with multi-coloured zenias
from the garden. A radio, worked by an automobile battery, stood
in the corner near the brocaded curtain.

Nearly ten minutes dragged by, and then they heard the sound
of approaching footsteps. Abruptly the curtain was pushed aside
and Kumar entered the room. Lotibai followed silently behind
him.

Of medium height like his daughter, Kumar carried his age—

which was forty-eight years—well. His step was firm and brisk, his
frame thin but well-set, his shoulders squared under his tightly-
fitting black silk coat with its neat row of buttons in front
reaching from knee-length right up to the close-set, ‘dog collar’ at
his neck.

His head was covered with carefully-brushed black hair, parted

in the middle and mottled at the temples, where it was greying.
Sharp eyebrows were raised, a trifle interrogatively above his
keenly-piercing slate-grey eyes. An aquiline nose; thin-lipped,
rather tight mouth; and a determined chin gave his clean-shaven
face a terse, business-like expression.

His brightly-polished brown shoes creaked audibly below the

tight-fitting, white-cotton jodhpurs that bulged above his knees.

Lotibai stepped forward and said in her musical voice, ‘Daddy;

this is Jhani’s father, Shri Balaji; and of course, Jhani.’ And then to
Balaji and Jhani, she said formally, ‘Please meet my father, Shri
Kumar.’

Balaji and Jhani stood up from their seats with their palms
together before their faces and bowed slightly in respect. Kumar
acknowledged their greeting with a wave of his right hand in the
direction of the chairs they had been occupying.

‘Please be seated and be comfortable,’ he said graciously. Then,

addressing Jhani, ‘You, of course, I know young man, as my
daughter’s schoolboy friend. She often speaks of you, and of how
you both meet and chat every evening in the marketplace. Don’t
you ever grow tired?’

He smiled slightly and in almost the same breath, addressed

Balaji.

‘It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Shri Balaji. A real

pleasure.

‘Would you both care for a cup of tea?’

Father and son hesitated to accept the invitation. They were

unaccustomed to society manners, being just farmers.

Kumar apprised himself of the situation at a glance. Turning to

his daughter he asked, ‘Lotibai, will you make us and yourself four
cups of that delicious tea that only you can make?’

He was smiling fondly and proudly upon her as she left the
room.

A rather strained silence fell upon the three of them after that.
Kumar glanced expectantly at his visitors. It was apparent they
had come to tell or ask him something. Otherwise they would
never have called at his house. Perhaps they were going to ask for
a loan.

Jhani looked at his father. It was clearly Balaji’s duty, as his

parent, to announce the purpose of their call.

Balaji had been preparing himself, since early that morning and
all along the way to Kumar’s house, as to what he would say. Now
he was tongue-tied, however. He did not know quite how he
should begin.
 Noticing the glances between father and son, Kumar coughed
discreetly. Then, to ease the tension and help them to start
talking, he asked politely, ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this
visit, gentlemen?’

Balaji looked flustered. Both Kumar and his own son were
gazing expectantly at him. He would have to say something.

So he said, ‘I—er, that is to say we, er—came to ask—rather to

tell you—,’ and then he broke off into silence. A few seconds later
he asked, apologetically, ‘I hope we are not disturbing you or
keeping you from some engagement?’

Kumar smiled tolerantly. He knew the old man wanted to say

something important but he did not quite know how he should
commence. Well, let him take his own time. Rather unusually, he
found himself not very busy at the moment and could spare the
few minutes it would take these two country yokels, seated so
obviously ill at ease before him, to sort themselves out and gain
sufficient courage to come out with whatever it was they had in
their minds.

But when old Balaji eventually did blurt out the purpose of the
visit Kumar received the rudest shock of his life.

With the true style of direct talk which is the stock-in-trade of

all people who live in the country and on the land, Balaji said
slowly and distinctly.

‘My son, Jhani, wishes to marry your daughter and I have come
here to negotiate the terms of the marriage with you.’

Kumar jerked himself bolt upright in his chair. There was an

expression of profound astonishment on his countenance and in
his voice, as he asked incredulously, ‘What is that you said? Say it
again?’
 Balaji looked a little disconcerted. Perhaps he had not spoken
loud enough for this man to hear.

So he repeated what he had just said, and this time sonorously,

‘My son wishes to marry your daughter. I have come to negotiate
terms and make arrangements.’

Kumar looked thoroughly startled. He glanced from father to

son. In Jhani’s forthright countenance he saw confirmed the
statement that his father had just made.

As if speaking to himself, Kumar repeated flatly, ruminatingly.

‘You have come to negotiate terms and make arrangements.’

And as if he had been asked this question, Balaji replied with

alacrity, ‘That’s right. That is what we have come for.’

Kumar glanced at each of them in turn, his face becoming

confused with rage. Were they really mad? Were they trying to
have a joke at his expense?

Perhaps the fools were actually in earnest.

He hesitated another couple of seconds. Then made his decision.

Whether they were mad, joking or serious, the sooner he set

these country bumpkins right and made himself clear to them, the
better.

Kumar leaned forward in his chair and commenced to speak,

plainly and deliberately. ‘If you really mean what you are asking
and this is not a silly joke, the answer is very emphatically,
“NO”.’

It was now the turn of father and son to register surprise. Before
they could recover, Kumar went on, speaking with devastating
frankness.
 ‘In the first place, on the very face of things, the idea is absurd.
My daughter comes of a respectable family—of genteel folk if you
understand what I mean—she is a lady. Your son and yourself are
just—well, just farmers.

Secondly, my daughter is accustomed to living in luxury. She

does no work herself. The servants attend to all that. If she was to
marry below her status—into a poor family of farmers—she would
have to break her back working all her life. She was not born to
enter into a future of that sort.

‘Thirdly, I have high ideals and big plans for her. It is my

intention to marry her to some rich zamindar, or big merchant or
businessman, who will not only maintain her in the standard of
luxury and comfort in which she has been brought up all her life,
but who will be of direct assistance to me, through his influence
and his money, to further expand and increase my own business in
this town and elsewhere.’

Kumar stopped talking to take a deep breath. He was distinctly

ruffled. Then, as deliberately as he had addressed them, he
recommenced speaking as if to himself.

‘I looked upon this friendship as a merely platonic

acquaintance. A schoolboy and girl comradeship. Never did I
suspect there was anything more behind it.’

Then, addressing Jhani, he asked, ‘Since how long have you

both come to be in love?’

‘Why, since last night,’ answered Jhani truthfully, ‘the storm…’

‘Tell me, what happened last night? What had the storm to do
with it?’ In his anxiety, Kumar leaned forward in his chair.

‘The storm broke and we took shelter in the old moosafarkhana.

We—well, we were just talking and—and we—we discovered we
were in love with each other, had always been as a matter of fact,
and wanted to get married.’

‘So,’ Kumar almost hissed the words, ‘it took the storm and the
old moosafarkhana to make you know you were in love, eh?’

He sprang to his feet and strode up to Jhani, standing defiantly

over him.

‘Tell me, young man; and tell the truth. Else I will kill you.
What else happened between the two of you in the old
moosafarkhana last night.’

Balaji had been listening to the dialogue between his son and
this man, without quite grasping what was happening. But when
Kumar strode up to Jhani and said something about killing him,
the old farmer, complacent till then, lost his temper.

He also leapt up and faced Kumar, their angry countenances but

inches apart.

‘Did you say something about killing, O feeble little man?’ he

asked with contempt. ‘When it comes to killing, only men can do
that. Men like farmers. Men like us. Not stinking little rats like
you, who hide in rich houses and fight boldly—with the pen and
tongue.’

Just then Lotibai re-entered the room, carrying a tray on which

were set four inlaid silver cups brimming with steaming tea.
Taking in the scene at a glance, she came to an abrupt halt.

Kumar swung on her.

‘What did this young brat do to you in the old moosafarkhana

last night?’ he thundered.
 How did her father come to discover what had happened, Loti
wondered to herself in amazement? Had Jhani really been so
shameless as to tell him what he and she had done last night?

She released her hold on the tray and it crashed to the polished
floor, throwing the cups in all directions with the hot tea that was
inside them.

‘Tell me,’ shouted Kumar inexorably.

Lotibai raised both her hands to cover her face that had
crimsoned in shame. Then she turned and ran out of the room
abruptly.

Kumar guessed what had happened to his daughter the previous

evening, and guessed correctly.

He knew that she was no longer a virgin and that her

marketable value as a bride with which to attract a rich and
influential husband who could directly help him—Kumar—to
expand his business still more, had dropped to zero.

Turning to Balaji and Jhani, Kumar gritted between his

clenched teeth.

‘Get out, the pair of you. You have ruined my daughter’s whole
future. You will never see her again.’

They turned and left the house without a backward glance.

* * *

That evening Jhani waited in vain for his sweetheart. She was
neither to be seen at the marketplace, nor did she come to their
trysting-bench at the park. All day he had been disconsolate. That
night he was like a madman.

Early the following morning Kumar took his daughter away. He

himself drove the car that carried her. Where they went nobody
knew. But when he returned after a full week, he came alone.

During this period Jhani had grown more and more morose. No
longer did he do any work on the farm as he was wont to do
previously. No longer was he interested in anything—not even in
himself.

Old Balaji had made several attempts to console him. It was

quite useless.

‘Jhani, why do you fret so? Did I not warn you to have nothing
to do with these high-class people? The rich are proud because of
their money. Never content with what they have got, they always
try to get more. Not caring for a home nor happiness, they engage
themselves in torturous schemes to make more money. They do
not know the pleasure that is to be derived from honest, hard
work, nor the place of a woman in the home.

‘Come, cheer up Jhani. There are as many fish in the sea as ever
came out of it. I will find a fine, buxom country-born lass for you
who will make you a good wife and a faithful companion.
Moreover, she won’t be afraid of hard work.’

‘But dad, my Loti was all those things and more,’ Jhani had
argued, ‘Now that she has gone and I don’t know where, I love her
more than ever, nor do I want to look upon any other woman.’

A full month passed during which he hardly spoke. For hours in

the evening he would sit on the front step of the verandah of their
little home and gaze into space as the velvety shades of night fell.
Where can my Loti be, he was thinking. It was with the greatest of
difficulty that old Balaji could get him to give a hand towards
doing any work on their land. Nor would he help with the
cooking.

One day there was a great hubbub in the town of Bhind. There
came the tramp of marching men and a whole company of armed
police entered the market square. That night they camped under
the large banyan trees that grew beside the bund of the tank to the
north of the town and less than a mile out.

As was to be expected, the little township was agog with

rumours and conjectures as to the reason for their presence. Little
by little the story came out.

The notorious dacoit, Man Singh, had again raided and

captured a prominent zamindar who lived about nine miles out of
town. He had demanded a ransom of fifty thousand rupees for the
captive’s return. The money had been paid and the zamindar had
been sent back, safe and sound.

Soon after another dacoit, whose name was Charna, and who
was one of Man Singh’s chief lieutenants, ambushed and captured
a landowner while returning from his extensive estates with the
rents he had collected.

Not content with looting all the rent money, Charna had held
the landlord to ransom and had demanded thirty thousand rupees
from his family for his safe return.

The family had hesitated to pay, and the stipulated time and
place found the ransom unpaid.

Next morning a ‘dhoby’s’ (washerman’s) donkey was observed

grazing placidly in front of the landlord’s house. Tied to the back
of the donkey was a bundle.

Passers-by noticed a repulsive smell coming from whatever was

in the bundle, and they commented among themselves about it.
By eventide the stench became unbearable.

Somebody with a stronger stomach than his neighbours,

removed the bundle from the donkey’s back and opened it.

Out fell the landlord’s head. It had been skilfully severed with
one blow from some sharp instrument.

A platoon of police had been sent out to try and capture this
Charna. But not for nothing had he been called Charna, the
‘Ferocious’.

The platoon had been surrounded and attacked as they slept by

the riverside at night, after the sentries had been overpowered.

Everyone of them had been killed and beheaded after that. The
corpses had been thrown into the river. The heads of the
policemen, impaled on pointed bamboos, had been arranged in
two ranks with their sergeant in front.

Consequent upon these atrocities, there had been a panic on the

part of the wealthier class of people, nearly all of whom fled the
area. Batches of armed police had been stationed at strategic
outposts to act as spearheads for the all-out drive against the nest
of bandits that was to follow.

But in the marketplace, and in the wretched hovels of the

poorer people, the talk was always the same. On every hand one
heard words of sympathy and of praise for the dacoit bands.

‘By Krishna,’ a Hindu said, ‘if only there were more like Man
Singh and his merry men in this land of India, groaning as it is
under oppression from these rich landlords. Such bastards would
be eliminated and there would be plenty of land available for the
poor.’
 ‘By Allah,’ returned a Moslem, ‘this Man Singh is a just man—
and a brave one. Last month he made fifty thousand rupees as
ransom on the fat zamindar from the Kohlibad area, and last week
he sent half of it in donation to the new school for the blind, at
Alipore’.

Jhani heard the stories in the marketplace and his whole

attention became rivetted by them. They caused his blood to
tingle. Here were men who hated the rich—just as he now hated
them! Men like Kumar, who had blasted his life—and Loti’s life!
What if he could join such men. He would cheerfully devote the
remainder of his days to helping to punish these monied classes
who behaved so mercilessly towards the poor.

Well, why shouldn’t he join them?

Hundreds had done so already. That was what had enabled the
outlaw bands to grow so greatly in numbers. And if others had
done it, why could not he?

That very evening Jhani made up his mind. He would seek out
the bandit leader, offer him his faithful services, and devote the
rest of his lifetime to killing the rich.

After their meal of wheat-gruel, cheese and chappatties, with

boiled cauliflower, and washed down by tea, Jhani said to old
Balaji, his father.

‘Dad, I am going away for sometime. I cannot tell you where. I

don’t know myself. Nor can I tell you when I will return; that is, if
ever I do return.

‘I am sorry to leave you all alone, dad. I know I am not worthy

to be called your son after letting you down like this. But I just
have no interest in life after Loti went away. If I remain any longer
in this place, every nook and corner of which holds such dear
memories of her for me, I feel I shall go mad. So, dear dad, it’s best
I go.’

Like all people who live close to nature, Balaji had understood
perfectly. He remembered his own feelings when his wife,
Meerabai, Jhani’s mother, had died. He had been inconsolable.
Now Balaji thought Jhani was going away to search for his lost
sweetheart.

‘Go son; and may God be with you,’ he had replied. ‘Take the
hundred rupees which I shall presently give you. It will help you
on your journey. Only think of me and the old farm, sometimes.
Remember we will be always waiting for you to return, son. And
till that day, look after yourself, my boy. Trust in God, and He will
not fail you.’

After that the old man had broken down and wept bitterly. So
had Jhani.

Nevertheless he was up with the dawn next day. He rolled a few

clothes into a bundle and took the solitary five-rupee note he had
been saving up. It would suffice for his wayside expenses until
such time as he could contact the dacoits.

With a brave face and dry eye, albeit his hand shook terribly,
Balaji held out the hundred-rupee note he had hidden away for so
long against a rainy day.

Jhani smiled, but declined to accept it.

‘No, thank you dad. You need it and the farm needs it. I am
young and strong and can work for my living.’ And then the final
moment of parting had come. They embraced and kissed each
other on both cheeks.

Resolutely Jhani picked up his bundle of clothes, slung it over

his shoulder, and walked away never once looking back. For if he
did, the sight of the old farmlands so familiar to him since the days
of his youth, and of his grief-stricken father standing weeping at
the boundary of the fields—his own fields—and the thousand-and-
one recollections of the town that held such precious memories to
him of his beloved Loti, might cause him at the last moment to
weaken and abandon his plan of adventure and revenge.

That must never be. He would devote his lifetime to punishing

the rich, to scourging them, to robbing and torturing them, and to
killing them; as many of them and as fast as he could, and in the
most horrible manner possible.

For had not one of them taken away his Loti?

Jhani wandered for days after that, working where he could for
his living and begging when there was no work to be had.

He crossed the Chambal River one morning and turned towards

the ravines.

‘Brother, whom do you seek?’ asked the boatman curiously, as

Jhani set foot on the further bank.

‘I seek Man Singh and his men,’ Jhani had replied briefly.

The boatman held his breath in amazement. Then he asserted,

‘You are either quite mad, which I think to be ‘the case; or you are
very foolish; or you are very brave. I really don’t know which.’

Then he pushed his long pole into the muddy bottom of the river
and commenced the slow journey back.

Not knowing his way, Jhani moved forward in a direction at

right angles to the river.

It was long after nine o’clock when something struck the ground
in front of him, releasing a spurt of dust, before it sped onward
with a vicious, twanging whine. Split seconds later, he heard the
report of the rifle.

Jhani knew he had been fired at, undoubtedly by some dacoit

sentry.

He did not hide or attempt to take cover. He just stood still and
raising both arms, extended them high above his head, calling
aloud in Rajasthani, ‘Do not shoot me. I am a friend who comes in
peace, voluntarily. I seek Man Singh.’

Another bullet hit the ground at precisely the same spot as had
its predecessor.

Jhani knew that the marksman who could accomplish the feat
of placing two bullets in exactly the same place, would not have
missed hitting him—unless he had really intended to do so.

No doubt the hidden sniper had meant him to understand

exactly that, which was the reason for the second shot.

He continued to remain quite stationary with arms held aloft

and extended, while he went on shouting the same message that
he had already yelled.

From somewhere ahead a voice hailed him, ‘Keep advancing

with your arms aloft. If you attempt to lower them, you are a dead
man.’

Jhani did as he was told. He couldn’t see anyone.

After a time his arms began to ache, but he knew he dared not
drop them. The sniper no doubt had him covered all this time and
would not hesitate to fulfil his threat if he attempted to put them
down.
 The ache increased, and Jhani was on the point of shouting
aloud that he could no longer keep his arms aloft when, from the
middle of a bush a little to his right stood up an unkempt figure,
with a rifle to its shoulder pointed directly at him. The man had
on a black skullcap and was wearing a torn khaki shirt and shorts.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ the man called.

‘Friend, I will tell you everything. Only permit me to lower my

arms awhile. They are paining terribly and I cannot keep them up
any longer,’ pleaded Jhani.

‘How do I know you are not carrying a “pocket-bundook” (a

revolver)?’ asked the ruffian.

‘I am unarmed and come in peace. I seek Man Singh to offer my

services to him. But please let me lower my arms while we talk. I
am suffering agony holding them up like this.’

‘Alright,’ conceded the wild-looking sentry, ‘but before doing

so, remember this. One false move and the vultures will feed upon
you this very day and the jackals tonight.’

But Jhani had already dropped his arms to his sides. He sighed in
relief.

‘You are a police spy, no doubt,’ asserted the man flatly. ‘That is
why you are asking me to direct you to Man Singh. Do you think I
am such a fool?’

‘No brother, you are quite mistaken. I came here to join the
dacoits because I want to wreak vengeance upon the rich who
have done me a great wrong.’

‘You will have to tell that story to my chief,’ rejoined his

captor. ‘You cannot meet the Maharaj now, but I will conduct you
to my leader.’
 ‘I shall walk behind you with this rifle cocked,’ he continued.
‘Try any tricks and it will go off, immediately. Do you understand?
Now, get going.’

So Jhani walked ahead with the bandit behind him.

They crossed two ravines and then a voice hailed them from the
summit of the third nullah. ‘Halt,’ it commanded, ‘and give the
password.’

‘Snakes come out at dusk,’ shouted his companion promptly,

from behind.

‘Advance slowly,’ advised the second sentry from the hilltop, at

the same moment showing himself for the first time.

They climbed to the top of that hillock, intersected the next

depression, and went up the fourth hill.

As they reached its crest they looked down on an encampment

of some three dozen men who were squatting or lying on the open
ground. Jhani noted that it was evidently a mobile unit that he
saw before him, as there were no signs of tents or other equipment
to indicate the dacoits were camped there for any length of time.

A big man with a black beard, the usual twirled moustache but
no whiskers, sat a little apart from the main group. He wore loose
white cotton trousers and a dirty grey shirt. On top of his head,
appearing rather out of proportion in its smallness to the rest of his
size, was a tightly-wound turban of brown cloth.

Prodding him with the end of the muzzle of his rifle, the sentry
directed him towards the big man, who stood up as Jhani
approached.

He was a hefty, muscular brute, standing well over six feet and
a little taller than Jhani himself. He had cruel eyes, a long,
predatory nose, and lips that were compressed into practically a
straight line.

‘What do you want?’ His voice was loud and hard, and had that
imperious note that indicated its owner was accustomed to
implicit obedience.

Before Jhani could reply, the man with the rifle behind him, no
doubt anxious to justify the capture he had made, chipped in.

‘I saw this man wandering towards the ravines from my post,

Charna Sahib. So I fired a shot to warn him. He started shouting
back that he wanted to see our Maharaj and join us. So I brought
him in.’

The big man so addressed did not answer the sentry, but
continued to glare at the prisoner.

Jhani had heard the name by which the giant had been
addressed and knew he stood in the presence of the much dreaded
Charna, called the ‘Ferocious’; the most terrible of all Man Singh’s
lieutenants; a man credited with superhuman courage, but no
qualities of mercy whatever. He began to feel afraid.

‘I have come, Sir, to offer my humble services to the great Man

Singh. I have suffered a grevious wrong at the hands of a rich man,
and I want to wreak vengeance against him and all his class.’
Impetuously Jhani had uttered the words while he met the cruel
glance.

‘What if you are a police agent?’ asked Charna.

‘Then you may kill me, at once,’ returned Jhani promptly.

The dacoit chieftain looked him up and down for a few minutes.
Then he asked, ‘What is your name, and what is your trade?’
 ‘My name is Jhani. I am a farmer. My father is Balaji and we
own twelve acres of land close to the town of Bhind.’

‘Be seated and tell me your story,’ invited Charna, reseating

himself, cross-legged, upon the ground a couple of yards distant.

Jhani accepted the invitation and then embarked upon a

detailed account of his problem.

The dacoit listened till he had finished, and then smiled

expansively, at the same time clapping his hand upon Jhani’s
shoulder in a friendly gesture.

‘Silly boy,’ he said, ‘is that your only trouble? Why, it is no

problem at all.

‘That is what I like about farmers as a class of people,’ he

continued, ‘they are simple and straightforward. Fancy getting so
upset about all this! Why, the solution is easy. A good looking boy
like you can get himself any number of girls.’

But Jhani shook his head, defiantly. He blurted out, ‘I love this
particular girl and want to marry her. Then he asserted in a tone
of finality, ‘I like no other woman.’

The dacoit laughed aloud at hearing this. ‘So, because you have
lost her, you want to become a dacoit like me?’ he asked.

‘I do,’ asserted Jhani, ‘and to kill the rich.’

‘Well, that is fair enough with me,’ conceded Charna, ‘but let
us see what the Maharajah has to say. We will be seeing him
tomorrow.’

Jhani was given food and rested that day, and at dusk went with
the band of men into whose company he had fallen, on a trek that
led them some ten miles eastwards. They entered scrub jungle,
and at about 10 p.m. came to a halt where the jungle gave way to
ploughed fields. There they hid themselves in silence.

Charna called him a little after midnight and announced the

band was going into action. He was told to remain in hiding until
they rejoined him at this same place till about two hours time.

Soon after that the men disappeared and Jhani was left alone.

Sometime later he heard the sound of firing. This continued for

a short while and then died down, to be followed by a reddish
glow on the horizon about a mile away. Undoubtedly a fire, Jhani
guessed.

A half hour or so passed, and then the dacoit band came back,
walking stealthily and in single file. Jhani noticed that several of
the men were carrying two and three rifles apiece. Three or four of
them had tommy guns which had not been in their possession
when they had set out. A number of the others staggered under the
weight of boxes which they bore between them.

Rightly, he guessed that they had just made a raid on some

military outpost or police chowki, and were returning with the
booty they had captured. Doubtless the red glow he had seen had
been occasioned by flames when the dacoits had set fire to some
building or shed.

After they rejoined him the band continued in another direction

which appeared to penetrate deeper and deeper into the jungle.

The raiders had evidently chosen their time well, as in a short

while a late-rising moon helped them to grope their way among
the trees and bushes as the jungle became more dense.

A little over an hour’s walking brought them to a glade in the

forest. At the border of this glade, Jhani heard a voice challenge
them softly, to which Charna answered in his gruff tone. They
then moved on, and soon found themselves in an encampment
where many people lay, or sat beside dimly-glowing fires. At the
further edge of the glade Jhani could make out the dim outline of a
half dozen or so conical tents.

The party with which he had just arrived halted in the centre of
the glade, and the men who carried two and three firearms apiece
stacked them in a neat pile before one of the fires. There was
whispered talk and hushed laughter as the newcomers recounted,
in undertones, their recent adventure.

A little later Jhani noticed a fresh group of figures approaching

them from the direction where the tents were pitched. An old man
headed the party, closely followed by another with a tommy gun.
Two more younger men brought up the rear.

When the light fell upon the old man, Jhani noticed his
abnormally high forehead and the grey beard, whiskers and
enormous moustache.

Charna addressed the newcomer, ‘Salaam, Maharajah-Sahib.

The gods have been good to us this night and we have seized
thirteen service rifles, three tommy guns, a revolver and some
boxes of ammunition without the loss of a single man. We caught
the policemen playing cards by the light of their lanterns instead
of keeping a careful watch, and wiped out both the sentries and
the main body of men who were asleep, before they knew what
was happening. Finally we set fire to the chowki.

‘Good work, Charna Sahib; my congratulations,’ replied the old

man heartily, in a melodious voice. ‘You have never failed me.’

Then with a chuckle he dug his lieutenant playfully in the ribs

and said, ‘The gods are always particularly good to you, eh? You
rascal!’
 Charna acknowledged the compliment with the happy smile of
a flattered schoolboy.

Man Singh and Charna examined the booty together, and

commented for some time after that on the quality of the present-
day service rifles and their ammunition. Suddenly Charna looked
around and his eye alighted on Jhani.

‘Maharaj, I almost forgot,’ he said apologetically, ‘we found a

boy wandering in the ravines who said he is looking for you. He
wants to join us in order to kill the rich, because a rich father took
away his daughter from this farmer boy who has fallen deeply in
love with her.’

And Charna chuckled again at the thought of the foolishness of

the thing called ‘true love’.

Man Singh’s piercing steely-eyes appeared to bore into Jhani.

‘Come over here, boy,’ he ordered softly, ‘and tell me your story.’

Jhani stepped forward and poured out his tale in detail, while
the old man listened sympathetically. Unlike the gruff Charna, he
did not scoff or make fun of him after he had stopped speaking, but
remained silent and thoughtful. There was a faraway, reminiscent
look in his eyes.

Then he spoke, ‘This old man, your father,’ he asked. ‘Tell me

more about him and your farm. What did you say his name was?’

‘Balaji,’ answered Jhani. He went on to relate all about his

father and the twelve-acre farm of which he was so proud, to the
dacoit leader. Warming to his subject, he also spoke about his
mother, Meerabai, and of how she had helped his father right up
to the day of her untimely death after having been bitten by the
cobra.
 Charna turned away, while Jhani was speaking, and started
examining some of the captured weapons. Obviously, being a man
of action and of blood, he was not interested in such sentimental
tales.

But Man Singh listened to him attentively throughout, and only

after he had finished did the dacoit-king comment, ‘What a sad
and beautiful story.’

Then he patted Jhani on the back.

‘Come with me, lad,’ he said, turning towards the row of tents,
‘I will give you a cup of tea, and at the same time, talk to you.’

Jhani followed him.

Man Singh led him inside the tent he occupied, accompanied by

the bodyguard with the tommy gun. A lantern was burning dimly
there.

The dacoit-leader clapped his hands and a retainer appeared.

‘Bring ‘cha’ (tea),’ he ordered briefly.

Then he sat on the ground and invited Jhani to be seated also.

The man with the tommy gun remained standing. Not for a
moment did he take his eyes off Jhani.

‘Now Jhani,’ said the old man with surprising tenderness, ‘I am

going to talk to you, not as Man Singh, the thief, but as a father
and as if you were one of my own sons.

‘For I have four of them and a daughter, too, you must know.
Hence I understand what the love of a father is.

‘You have asked to be allowed to join my band of villains,’ and

here he smiled good-humouredly, ‘because you want to make war
upon the rich.

‘Jhani, you flatter me by volunteering your services to me.

Never have I refused anybody who so offered himself to me, with
but one exception.

‘And that exception is you, Jhani. Because I am not going to

allow you to do it.’

Jhani started in surprise as the old man turned and looked him
full in the face. Words failed him in his great disappointment. Had
he heard aright?

Man Singh’s hand patted him on the knee as he added, ‘Don’t be

upset, Jhani. I understand how you feel about matters. I will tell
you why I won’t allow you to join us, and I will also try to advise
you what would be the best thing to do.’

Their talk was interrupted by the entry of the servant bearing a

kettle of tea and two aluminium mugs. As he turned to leave, Man
Singh ordered him to bring a third mug for his bodyguard.

The old man filled Jhani’s cup, followed by his own.

Just then the servant came back with a third aluminium

tumbler. This Man Singh himself filled and handed to his
bodyguard, who sipped it, standing.

‘Now Jhani, try to understand me,’ he continued. ‘You are a

good boy, untainted by any evil, except that you have fallen in
love, and that is not an evil thing. On the contrary, it is very
natural.

‘If I allow you to join us, you will grow into a thief and a
murderer; a common dacoit like the rest of us here. No doubt you
will fulfil your desire for revenge by killing a few rich people, but
where will that get you?
 ‘There will be a price upon your head, Jhani. It will be the price
of violence and of spilt blood. It lies upon each of our heads, now.

‘Eventually you will be killed, or you will be caught and put

into prison.

‘That would break the old man—your father’s heart. Your

beloved farmlands will never see you. What’s more, you can never
hope to meet your sweetheart, Lotibai, again.

‘If I agreed to let you join me, Jhani, I would be making a

murderer out of an innocent boy like you; while I would be
breaking both your father’s and your girlfriend’s hearts. That I
don’t want to do, I had an old father once and I know what
heartache he suffered when I took to this life of murder and
violence. I, too, was a farmer like you. I can still picture my
farmlands in my memory and long to be back on them if only for a
few minutes. But that is denied to me, because I have made myself
a fugitive and an outcast, forever.

‘That is why I refused you, boy. Now do you understand?

‘But I can advise you what to do, if you care to listen to me.

‘Be a man, Jhani. Shoulder your responsibilities. Don’t try to

run away from them, or drown them in a bloodbath of revenge.

‘An old saying tells us, “Revenge is sweet”. But don’t you ever
believe it, Jhani. Revenge is a very very bitter thing, and brings
only bitterness and frustration in its wake—forever!

‘I know what I am talking about, Jhani. It was with motives of

revenge and hatred in my heart that, like you now want to do, I
left my father and farm and home and became a dacoit. I don’t
think God made me to hate and kill my fellow men. I think He
wanted me to love them. That is why love still glimmers in my
heart today, like it glimmers at this moment for you.
 ‘But in my hot-blooded youth there was nobody to advise or
restrain me like I am now advising and restraining you. I gave
away to these feelings of hatred and vengeance. Just like you, I
wanted to kill my enemies and take revenge upon them.

‘And I did just that.

‘What has it brought me, Jhani? Yes, I killed them it is true. But
did their murder bring me any lasting satisfaction? No; and I
repeat, a thousand times NO! It has brought the blood of a
hundred men and more on my hands and the death penalty on my
head.

‘I have no house, no home, no father, no land, no farm, now, to

call my own. I lay my head down to sleep on a stone at night
never knowing but it may be my last, or hide in some hole or
jungle or burrow. I am like a human jackal, forever on the watch,
forever on the run!

‘People think I am happy; but I am not, my son.

‘It would be very wicked for me to assist you to follow in my

footsteps, Jhani. Indeed it would be but another murder to my
account. Your murder!

‘For that reason I won’t have you as one of my band.

‘But listen to me a little longer, boy. Be a man! Fight your

troubles, don’t run before them!

‘Go and join the army as soon as you get back. Be a soldier of
free India. It is an honourable profession.

‘Maybe God will grant your prayers at some future date. You
may meet your sweetheart, Lotibai, again. Then you will be
holding a respectable station in life. You can marry her without
caring about anyone. She will be proud of you. Your father and
your lands will be proud of you. I, for one, if I live to hear of it,
will be very proud of you.

‘That is my advice, Jhani. I, Rajah Man Singh Rathore, have

spoken.’

Jhani was silent. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes as he

wondered. Could this man, who spoke to him thus, be in reality
the dacoit-king who was wanted in four states for murder, robbery
and violence? Why, he had uttered words of infinite wisdom,
spoken with a tenderness far surpassing the rough speech of his
own farmer-father, Balaji.

Jhani’s mind was made up. He would follow the old man’s
advice.

He jumped up, to bend low before the bandit-leader.

‘Maharajah-Sahib, you have spoken as no father or mother yet

spoke to me, and I cannot but follow your counsel,’ he said simply.

‘Good boy,’ said the old man, getting up himself, ‘I shall arrange
for two of my men to accompany you this very night, by another
route to the outskirts of the nearest village, six miles away.

‘I know you will not tell anyone that you met and spoke to me
or any of my band here. You are not that kind of boy.

May you be a soldier soon and perhaps a general in a few years.

Who knows? Then perhaps it will be your duty to shoot this old
dacoit, Man Singh, for the many evil deeds he has done.’

And he laughed heartily at his own joke.

But Jhani murmured, ‘God forbid, your excellency. I could never

do that.’
 * * *

Kumar had taken Lotibai, his daughter, a long distance away. He

took her to the city of Ahmedabad where lived his two sisters.

They had themselves married two brothers, both the owners of

large cotton mills on the outskirts of the city. They had palatial
houses and a steady revenue from the profits.

But both of them had no children.

In course of time the two brothers had died, leaving the two
sisters very comfortably off. Being without children, ownership of
the mills had reverted to their husbands’ family (in accordance
with Indian custom), while the two sisters continued to reside in
Ahmedabad on very substantial monthly incomes from capital in
the bank previously invested in their names, and a separate house
for each of them.

It was to these two sisters of his that Kumar took Loti. He knew
he could fully entrust them to not divulge the secret of the
disgrace that had fallen upon him. He also felt they would be able
to find a way of getting rid of the wretched farmer-boy’s spawn if
there was to be any, before it was born. Thirdly, as Lotibai was a
stranger to Ahmedabad, he hoped that with her two aunts’
backing and considerable influence, some man might be found,
among the rich mill owners of the city, who would volunteer to
marry her despite the fact that she was no longer a virgin; which
would anyway have to be told to him in advance.

In the small town of Bhind where he lived and was so well-

known, such a match would be impossible to arrange. On the
contrary, the scandal would spread like wildfire and his name
would become the laughing stock of the marketplace.
 The two aunts, like Loti’s father Kumar, their brother, were
severe-looking individuals, much resembling him in angular
features and compact, well-set build. The elder of the two,
Kumari, who incidentally was older than her brother Kumar by
two years had always bossed her husband one of the mill owners
at home. This had caused the poor man during his lifetime to
develop tyrannical characteristics at his mill where he had been
most unpopular with his subordinates and the workers in general.

Fate had ordained that the younger sister, Parvati, who was
junior to Kumar by three years should marry the more assertive of
the two mill owner brothers, with the result that she had not been
the ruling member of her household.

Now with the two brothers dead, Kumari had automatically

adopted an almost parental if not distinctly dictatorial control
over her younger sister, Parvati.

Soon after Kumar and Lotibai arrived at his elder sister,

Kumari’s residence, Parvati was called and in a conference
between the three of them from which Loti was pointedly
excluded, Kumar revealed the dark secret of Loti’s condition.

Kumari, who had never been blessed with an offspring of her

own, was most indignant.

‘What were you about, Kumar?’ she queried angrily, ‘you

should have horsewhipped the young blackguard.’ Parvati, who
was mildly thrilled by the romance of it all, asked. ‘Is he a good-
looking boy?’

Kumari pounced on her like a kestrel swooping on its prey. ‘I do

wish you would not ask such a silly, irrelevant question, Parvati.
Is he good-looking; forsooth! The very idea! And suppose he
happens to be? What has that got to do with it?’
 ‘Won’t that explain why Loti was tempted?’ She put the
question with matter-of-fact simplicity.

‘Oh, do shut up, Parvati. As you grow older you appear to be

getting more childish.’

With that rebuke Kumari turned to her brother, ‘Let us have Loti
in, so that we may talk to her.’

Lotibai was accordingly summoned, and Kumari did not lose

any time in unburdening her contempt and feelings upon her
unfortunate niece.

‘You shameless girl,’ she asserted, ‘how could you allow a

common farmer-boy to do this to you?’

Loti had begun to cry.

Kumar had left in his car the next day, with the strictest of
instructions as to what was to be done with Lotibai.

The two sisters kept her under close surveillance; Kumari with
critical watchfulness and Parvati with expectation, mixed with a
secret sympathy she dared not confide to her austere sister.

Two months passed, and it was evident that Lotibai was

pregnant.

Kumari summoned the family doctor, an old man, and asked

him in the strictest confidence, as to his opinion.

The doctor examined Lotibai, and declared she was in the

family way.

Parvati was rather excited when she heard the news. Oh; if only
such a thing could have happened to her!
 But Kumari spoke to the doctor in a low tone and for quite a
long time at the corner of the verandah before he left.

Then she called Lotibai.

‘As you must know yourself by now, girl,’ she began, speaking
with withering scorn, ‘you are going to have a baby. This is the
most disgraceful and shameful thing that has happened in our
family, particularly when the father of the child is nothing but a
farmer. At all costs the child must be destroyed. I have spoken to
the good doctor and he has agreed to arrange for this to be done,
but only as a very special favour and because he has known our
family for so many years.’

This time Loti did not cry. On the contrary, she listened to her
aunt with cold and calculated patience.

Then she spoke, and her tone was low and defiant.

‘Listen, aunt Kumari,’ she said, ‘I love the father of the child
that is to come and he loves me. He came the very next morning
to marry me honourably, but dad prevented it. So it cannot be said
he let me down.

‘For that reason, I am going to have this baby, whatever dad or

you may think, say or do to the contrary.

‘And if you attempt to coerce me into causing an abortion, I

shall go to the Commissioner of Police this very instant and tell
him what you and your family friend, the good doctor, are about.

‘You may have forced many people, many times, to do what you
wanted them to do, auntie Kumari. But this time you cannot force
me to have an abortion. What’s more, you know it.’

Loti ceased talking and there was a poignant silence.

 ‘Well said, Loti.’

A quiet voice had uttered the words. The voice of mild Parvati.

Aunt Kumari was furious. She trembled from head to foot with
suppressed rage. Like all people accustomed to having their own
way, she could not face a reversal, for she knew instinctively that
this time, for once, she was up against it.

The girl had beaten her at the eleventh hour.

Then the floodgates of her wrath burst in full force.

‘If you do not do as I say, you shameless slut, you can get out of
my house at once. And I mean, today.’ The words came in a
torrent of fury.

‘I will do that now, aunt Kumari,’ answered Loti, and turned to

leave the room.

‘Just a minute, Loti.’ It was the quiet voice of Parvati that spoke
again. Turning to Kumari, she continued, ‘This is our own niece,
Kumari. Remember that. She is our own flesh and blood. I for one
will not throw her into the streets.’

But Kumari was beside herself with rage. She leapt to her feet
and her voice became shrill and vibrant with rage.

‘Then get out, the pair of you, and never set foot in my house
again.’

Within fifteen minutes Loti had gathered her few possessions;

and then, her arm around the waist of frail, sweet Parvati—the
little Parvati who had taken a beating all her lifetime till this day
—they left the building together.

* * *
Lotibai had her baby. A bonny boy.

As she gazed upon him, lovingly, she saw in those sparkling eyes
the same expression she had seen, and loved so much, in the eyes
of his father, Jhani. Nor did the little man appear to have a care in
this world, for without any urging, he turned instinctively to
clutch her full breast in his tiny hands. He snuggled and sniffed till
he found the nipple with his little mouth and applied himself
assiduously to his first meal.

Parvati smiled contentedly as she looked down upon him. Even

if God had not ordained that she should have her own baby, she
was thankful to Him for giving her the courage that day to stand
up to her sister, Kumari, who would have so heartlessly destroyed
this little infant life in cold blood on the altar of their family
pride.

* * *

Nearly a year passed after that, and little Jhani, as Loti had
insisted upon calling her baby, was growing up to become a very
precocious little boy.

Even at that young age he was bursting with mischief, and Loti
condoned all his naughtiness because it reminded her of his dear
father, the mischievous little schoolboy who had insisted upon
pulling her hair.

Aunt Parvati doted on little Jhani, too. The child filled the gap
in her life that had always been there until his coming. Indeed,
she looked upon him almost as her own son, and was at times
jealous that she had to share his infant affection with his mother.
 Lotibai had much to thank God for, and her auntie Parvati. Had
it not been for the mercy of the Almighty and the courage and
kindness of her frail little aunt, she would have been thrown on
the streets.

But Lotibai had been thinking seriously within herself, also. She
felt it was not right that she should continue to sponge upon this
good woman who had stood by her at a time of need, for the rest of
her lifetime. Now that her troubles were over, it would be but
right that she should think of earning for herself so that she could
support the little fellow independently.

The more she thought, the more determined did she become
that she should do something about it.

And then Fate ordained the second circumstance that gave her
the opportunity.

A Film Company from Bombay came to Ahmedabad to shoot

some scenes in a picture about Gujarat, and were staying there for
some time.

A girlfriend, whom she had come to know, was related to one of

the producers of the company. One day this girl had said to her,
‘Loti, you are so beautiful. Why do you live cooped up in a filthy
hole like Ahmedabad? Why don’t you become a filmstar? Any of
the film companies will jump at you if you would only apply to
them. If I was not the ugly wretch that I am I would have done
this myself long ago.

‘Look, my uncle is a Producer of the Bombay Associated Pictures

Corporation. He is now in Ahmedabad in connection with this
Gujarati picture they are shooting. If you agree, I shall fix up an
appointment with him one of these days and introduce you
myself.’
 The idea was too thrilling for Loti to decide about there and
then. Did she have any chance of success? Was there even a hope?

Lotibai promised her friend to think the matter over seriously

and to let her know the next day.

That evening Lotibai had her bath as usual. Coming out of the
bathroom, she stood before the full-length mirror on the door of
her almirah, the Turkish bath towel still wrapped around her wet
body.

Was she as beautiful as all that to stand a chance of being taken

on in a film company?

Searchingly, Loti studied her own reflection as it gazed back at

her out of the mirror.

Boldly, almost shamelessly, she allowed the bath towel to drop

to her feet while she appraised the naked girl who now stood
before her.

The breasts were as full and as firm as ever. Almost lovingly she
lifted them together, one in each hand, noting with satisfaction
the mulberry-hued nipples set against their slightly darker-
coloured areolae that crowned the mounds of her firm flesh.

She saw with satisfaction the supple shoulders that narrowed,

gracefully and symmetrically down her chocolate flanks to her
compact waistline, which bulged in turn, sharply and broadly, to
the contours of her hips.

She saw the round firmness of her thighs, and pinched them
with her fingers to test that firmness. How prettily they bulged
also, and then tapered commensurably down to her knees, only to
swell again into a beautiful pair of calves that showed-off an
exciting pair of legs.
 Lotibai raised her eyes to appraise her face. Was there really
anything pretty there or had her girlfriend only been flattering
her? Perhaps there was; perhaps there wasn’t. Anyhow, as she saw
her face several times each day in the mirror, she really could not
tell.

Nor did she sleep that night. She was thinking about the thrill of
becoming a film actress.

Early next morning Loti sought out her friend and asked her to
arrange the interview with her uncle.

The Producer sent word to say he would be glad to meet her the
following evening at his office at 4 p.m. sharp.

Loti spent a long time in dressing the next afternoon. After some
thought she decided to wear her white chiffon sari, bordered in
blue and gold. It would not be too loud. At the same time, she
knew it suited her well. Aunt Parvati and her friends had told her
so.

Loti looked very very pretty as she stepped into the canary-
yellow autorickshaw which would take her to the house of her
girlfriend, Surendra. Then the two of them would go on together
to the office of her friend’s uncle, the Director-Producer.

Sathe, who was one of the producers of the Bombay Associated

Pictures Corporation, prided himself upon being what he boldly
termed, a self-made man. He had risen from one of the lowest
positions in life to his present exalted status and wealth.

His father had been a bank clerk before him and Sathe had
followed in father’s footsteps. But Sathe loathed banking.

At home in the evenings he wrote novels.

 Many of them were rejected by publishers to whom he sent
them. But he would not be discouraged. He persevered and wrote
and submitted more novels.

And one of them caught on.

It was such a good story that it was snapped by a film company.

Sathe was offered a contract as an assistant to the Director who

had been commissioned to shoot the picture based on his novel.
He made so good a job of it that the Company retained him on its
payroll as a sort of roving assistant.

Then the depression hit the film companies of India. This was in
their early years, before they had become properly stabilised or
recognised.

Many of them tumbled, and the question of closing down the

concern in which Sathe worked came up for careful consideration.

That was the time Sathe stepped in and directed the picture of
his lifetime. It was the best picture that had so far ever been made
by an Indian film company.

It gave new life to the concern in which he worked. Fresh

capital poured in from fresh shareholders and the organisation was
formed that came to be known as the Bombay Associated Pictures
Corporation. In recognition of his timely services, Sathe was made
a Director-Producer in the company.

He was a short man, aged about forty-five years, always dapper,

always neat and well-dressed. Filled with dynamic energy, his
assistants knew him for a tireless worker. He did not appear to
have ever heard of the word ‘Cannot’; nor did he seem to know
the meaning of failure. He would just go on and on and on, till he
finished what he had set himself to do, and completed it
successfully.
 He had a bullet-shaped head of iron-grey hair that was turning
bald at the top. Hazel-brown eyes, a sharp nose, a neat toothbrush
moustache and rather full lips, went with a sharp jaw that ended
in a slightly pointed chin.

Mr. Sathe flattered himself that he could tell at a glance

whether the man or woman he interviewed was fit for the job for
which they had applied and could make the grade, or not.

He looked up and smiled as his niece, Surendra, entered his

office on the stroke of four o’clock that evening, followed by a
very pretty, shapely girl of medium height in a white sari which
contrasted, sharply, against her raven-black locks.

‘Uncle, this is Lotibai, the girl I told you about,’ introduced

Surendra simply.

Sathe stood up and waved the two young ladies towards the half
dozen or so chairs that faced him, across his table.

After they were seated, he looked at Loti searchingly. She could

feel his gaze travelling up and down, exploring her. It almost
seemed as if he was looking through and through her.

Then he spoke and his words had a searching frankness in them.

They came straight to the point. ‘What prompts you to want to
join the films, Miss Lotibai? What makes you think you can act?’

It was a double-barrelled question, and it all but floored her.

Impulsively, she answered.

‘I will be quite truthful, Sir, and hide nothing,’ she said.

‘Necessity to earn my own living makes me want to join. I have a
good voice and am fond of music. And I feel I can act if I am given
the chance.’
 Sathe pouted his lips before he put his next question.

‘Have you ever acted before?’

‘No Sir,’ answered Loti, truthfully, tears of disappointment

forming in her eyes as she appreciated the unsatisfactory nature of
her own replies, ‘but please, please give me just one chance.’

Sathe pouted his lips once again.

What did these girls think film companies were, he wondered.

Charitable institutions? Fancy having the audacity to want to join
the movies without ever having acted before! It was a piece of cool
impertinence, or nerve if you liked to call it that.

But Sathe liked nerve. He admired it. Did he not have nerve
himself? Once a bank clerk, what the hell had he known about the
films himself before he had joined? Sweet damn all! It was only his
nerve and determination that had taught him after that, and built
him up to his present position as a Producer.

Yes, he liked nerve and determination. For he had plenty of both

himself.

And apparently this girl had, too.

Besides, she was a very pretty little thing and very prettily built,
too. There was no denying that. He had already noticed the
charming figure beneath the white chiffon sari.

And she was about to cry. He didn’t like that. Were the tears put
on, or genuine?

If they were put on—well, she was it bloody fine actress to make
an artful old codger like himself wonder if they were real or not.

If they were genuine—well, what the hell!

 Did it matter much, anyhow? Somebody had once given him a
break in life, and he had taken it.

Why should he not give this pretty young thing a break now?

‘Okay, Miss Lotibai,’ he said, ‘you’re hired—as of tomorrow.

Report for work here at nine o’clock sharp. We’ll see what we can
make of you.’

Loti stammered out her thanks. And this time there was no
acting. Tears of sheer joy flowed down her cheeks. Unrestrainedly.

After dinner that night, Loti and aunt Parvati tucked little Jhani
into bed together. Then they went to the dining room for a last
cup of coffee.

‘Auntie, there is something I must tell you,’ began Lotibai,

hesitatingly. ‘I have kept it a secret all day, and I hope you won’t
be angry with me.

‘You have been a darling, auntie Parvati. Kinder than a father

and mother to me.

‘But I just cannot go on living like this on your generosity, and

be a burden to you, both in person and as regards the upkeep of
myself and little Jhani any longer.

‘So today I applied for a job in a Bombay film company—and got

it. I start work tomorrow morning.’

Parvati was shocked. At first she felt annoyed with her niece for
having kept all this a secret from her.

But she also thought she understood the reason behind it. If she
had been in Loti’s place, she herself would feel bad about living on
somebody else’s bounty indefinitely. She would have sought
employment, just as Loti had done.
 Aunt Parvati was an understanding soul.

Looking up, she smiled at Loti kindly. ‘Congratulations, my

dear,’ she said warmly, ‘may you become a famous film actress.
But there is one compensation I demand. You must let little Jhani
remain with me for some months at least, till you can establish
yourself.’

Loti knew she could not refuse this kind-hearted soul who had
stood by her for so long, although it would break her heart to leave
the little chap behind.

* * *

After Man Singh’s two henchmen had left him on the outskirts of
the nearest village, Jhani had worked his way by slow stages to
Poona, where there was a Recruiting Centre for the Army.

He filled in the necessary forms and duly stood before the

recruiting sergeant.

The sergeant gazed at him in the way all recruiting sergeants

the world over, no matter to what army, nation, creed or colour
they may belong, gaze at raw recruits from civilian life. There was
open disdain in his eye.

‘Now what the hell makes you think you will be a good soldier?’
he asked.

‘Because I want to be one,’ Jhalli had replied.

‘That’s a hell of an answer,’ commented the sergeant. ‘And

what were you in civilian life?’

‘A farmer,’ came the frank response.

 ‘A farmer, by Lord Krishna!’ breathed the sergeant, sourly,
‘what next? Why don’t you join the navy or the air force, and give
those buggers the trouble of turning you into a soldier. A hell of a
time we are going to have, teaching you your right foot from your
left. A farmer! Oh hell!’

Jhani frowned. What the devil is wrong with this fellow, he

wondered. At all railway stations and street corners, I see posters
urging young men to join the army. Yet when I come here, this
clot makes me feel unwanted. I must ask him.

And Jhani proceeded to put his thoughts into words.

‘Look soldier,’ he said, ‘everywhere there are posters to be seen,

inviting young men to join the Army.

‘Yet when I come to do so, you ask me why I want to join the
Army. May I ask why you put up such posters?’

The reply caused the sergeant to turn an ashy-grey beneath his

dark skin. ‘Wise guy, eh?’ he commented. ‘Okay; go through the
door over there. The doctor will put you through the medical
examination.’

Jhani was found physically very fit.

Next day he was sworn in and had become a sepoy or ‘jawan’

(private soldier) in the Indian Army.

Two days later he was given a railway warrant and ordered to

proceed to Jubbulpore, where he was to join the regiment to which
he had been posted for service. It was the 1st Battalion, the
President’s Light Infantry.

The next few days were hectic days to the farmer-boy.

Accustomed to the routine of working on the land, getting up
early to do it, and being his own master throughout the rest of the
day, he found army life for the rookie very different; that is, in all
ways except the ‘getting up early’ part of it, to which he was well
accustomed.

Whereas the crow of the roosters would awaken him at home,

here the strident notes of the bugler’s reveille began the routine of
the day; a routine far more exacting than any on the old farm.

Here everything was done to order, to time, to discipline. It was

a case of hurry—and be quick—all the time, and any time. It
started with brushing one’s teeth and washing in the morning;
rushing to the latrine; rushing to breakfast; rushing to don full kit
and get on parade. These parades were endless and of varying
sorts. Marching drill, arms drill, musketry drill. The training was
complete. Small arms training, automatic weapons training,
tactical training, field training. The inspections very many. Kit
inspection, barrack-room inspection, weapons inspection, and
even health and physical examinations. Then there were duties to
be performed. Barrack duties, camp duties, guard duties.

It was all very very different to the simple life of the

agriculturist to which he had been brought up.

Jhani did not like army life at first. But there was one thing to
be said in its favour. It did not give him much time in which to
recriminate. Fleetingly he would think wistfully of Loti. Where is
she at this moment, he would wonder?

Sometimes he thought of his old dad, Balaji, and of the twelve

acres of hard ground that were his fields and farmlands.

He had been in the regiment one month when he wrote a letter

home, informing dad he had joined the Army. As he wrote it,
Jhani was thankful that the old man had spent the money to have
him educated so as to be able to write that letter. He also
wondered how his father was going to read it. For he was
illiterate.
 Then he remembered old Pushtoo. Yes, without doubt he would
take the letter across to old Pushtoo, his neighbour. Pushtoo was
considered a ‘wise guy’ in the locality. People would often come to
him for help in reading or writing letters for them; and for advice
on problems of a personal, family or other nature. The old man
made some money out of this practice, also. He would charge half
an anna for reading a letter; from one anna up to eight annas for
writing it, according to subject-matter, length and the importance
of the personage to whom the letter was addressed. Advice cost
from two annas to perhaps two rupees. Minor problems were rated
low. Advice on how to bargain to get—or to avoid giving—large
dowries, might run from one rupee to three rupees. Weightier
words of wisdom, on how to dodge the Revenue Tax Collector, the
Income Tax Officer, and even the Police, required strenuous and
deep thinking on old Pushtoo’s part. That kind of advice would
cost quite a lot.

Back came the reply to Jhani’s letter within a fortnight. He

smiled reminiscently to himself as he made out the village scribe’s
handwriting.

Dad said, ‘I am very proud to hear you have joined the Army,
son. Since the day you left, and not hearing from you, I have been
worried to death over your silence, wondering where you were
and what you were doing.

‘The wheat crop is coming up fine this year and the well is full
of water. The vegetables are not quite up to the mark, however,
especially the carrots. Some underground insect seems to have
attacked them. Perhaps the manure we put last year was not
enough. The ducks are doing well, although I lost four of them
lately. A civet cat burrowed its way in under the fence, and bit the
heads off four of them, drinking the blood thereafter. All in the
same night, too!
 ‘So I borrowed the retired Police Jamadar’s muzzleloading gun
and sat up for the bugger the following night, hiding in the hay-
rick. Along he came by eight o’clock, intending to kill more ducks
no doubt. That muzzleloader is a good weapon. It blew him to
bits.

‘Look after yourself, son, and don’t ever forget God. Try to avoid
being sent to the wars if you can. But if you are sent, acquit
yourself bravely and gain glory.

‘And lastly, son, try to come back to the farm soon, please.
These aged bones of mine creak at times, and I feel the work too
strenuous. When I am gone there will be nobody to look after it
and all the ducks will be killed. It is all for you, Jhani my boy. So,
finish your soldiering and come back soon.’

There was a very, very painful lump in Jhani’s throat when he

finished reading that letter, and the lashes of his eyes were moist
with tears. It brought the farm and his old father back to him so
closely, and he felt very homesick.

Dad must have paid that versatile Pushtoo at least four annas
for writing it, he soliloquised.

A year passed. Jhani was now a Lance Corporal. Liked by

officers, sergeants and men, he had fitted in perfectly with Army
life.

Six months later he took his first leave and travelled home on a
warrant to see dad and the farm. Balaji wept for joy as he
embraced his soldier-son, looking so smart in his khaki uniform.
Proudly he showed him off to the neighbours and old Pushtoo.

Jhani noticed his father had turned more grey, and there was a
slight stoop now in the sturdy, rustic figure. But it was only slight.
 The farm appeared moderately prosperous, but as Jhani walked
around the well-remembered boundaries later, his eye that had
lost none of its skill, could tell that in places it was becoming
unkempt and overgrown with the ever-encroaching thorny weeds
that infested the area. He knew that the hard work was
undoubtedly getting too much and too strenuous for his aging
father to do all by himself, nor could he spare the money to hire
help.

Jhani returned to his regiment after that and passed another

fifteen months at its headquarters, in Jubbulpore. Now three
chevrons on his upper arm indicated that he had risen to the rank
of a Sergeant.

There was a cinema at Jubbulpore, known as the ‘Garrison

Theatre’, which catered almost exclusively to the military
personnel stationed there. During the days of of the British Tommy
it had been a popular resort and means of passing away an evening
when most of the local bars had been placed ‘out of bounds’.

Then the Tommy left India for good, and was replaced by the
Jawan. The cinema continued to cater to the military, but English
pictures were rarely shown there now, giving way to the ever-
increasing demand for the Hindi product, with films in that
language.

Jhani himself was not over-fond of the movies and was only a
periodic customer. But when he became a Sergeant, his social
contacts expanded, and he went more frequently, in the company
of other sergeants.

There was a young fellow in the regiment, also a sergeant, who

had become a particular pal of his. This youngster’s name was
Moogan.

One evening Moogan said, ‘Let’s go to the “flicks” this evening,

Jhani. There is a picture called ‘Rath ki Rani’ (the ‘Queen of the
Night’) showing. It stars Battliboi and that new actress, Lotibai. I
have seen her but once before, and she is quite a peach, I can tell
you.’

Jhani’s eyes took on a faraway look. ‘Lotibai’—his Lotibai—

where could she be? If only he could see her in the flesh, just once
more.

‘Well, what about it?’ asked Moogan, ‘will you come?’

But Jhani did not hear his voice. He heard only, instead, the
swish of the rain and the crash of thunder. The barrack-room in
which they were standing faded from sight, to be replaced by an
old, ramshackled construction, without windows and with the
moisture running down its decaying walls in streaks. It was almost
dark in there—and growing darker each moment with the shades
of approaching night.

In his arms he held a lovely creature, her hair and clothing

soaked by the rain, her beautiful face with eyes closed upturned to
his, the lovely lips half-opened as the heavy breathing of her
lustful passion came in gasps and low moans of surrender.

‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ asked Moogan in

surprise, ‘you’re daydreaming!’

Jhani shook his head as he forced himself to return to the

present.

‘Yes, I was dreaming,’ he said, ‘and it was a beautiful dream.’

Then he added, simply, ‘My first sweetheart’s name—and

incidentally she was my only sweetheart—was Lotibai.’

Moogan laughed, a little surprised at his friend’s serious

demeanour.
 ‘Do you mean to say you had only one girl? Hell, I’ve had half-a-
dozen, and I’ve forgotten most of their names. However, we’ll go
to the flicks then. While you look at the actress, Lotibai, you can
think of your old girl, eh? By the way, what happened to her?’

But Jhani did not answer that question. They arrived at the
cinema a few minutes before six o’clock, when the show was
scheduled to start. It was 6.05 p.m., though, before a bell rang
somewhere and the lights went out.

The first item was an advertisement for Tata’s 501 soap. The
cakes of soap did battle with, and conquered the universal enemy,
dirt, to the accompaniment of strains of the most martial music.

Then came an Indian newsreel, depicting the industrial

expansion of the country, and showing the new Railway Engine
Construction Plant, at Chittaranjan.

There followed a ‘Mickey Mouse’ cartoon, and two ‘trailers’ of

pictures that were going to be shown at this theatre for the next
change of programme, and the week after.

The bell rang again to announce to all and sundry that the main
picture of the evening was about to commence.

It was heralded by a loud throbbing of tom-toms, accompanying

the twang of Indian stringed instruments, followed by a fanfare of
trumpets as the name of the main feature was thrown on the
screen.

‘Rath ki Rani’.

Jhani saw the Film Censor’s certificate indicating the film had
been passed for public exhibition. Next the words, ‘Starring: B.
Battliboi—and Lotibai’.
 The sweet name struck another chord of memory as the first
scene in the picture opened.

It was that of a woman arranging flowers in a vase.

Jhani looked very intently then.

For, the woman’s face was—Lotibai’s!

He gripped the arm of his chair as he stared at the screen before

him. Could it possibly be true?

The girl on the silver screen spoke for the first time. She said,
‘Prasad—is that you?’

It was his Lotibai’s voice.

Jhani sprang from his seat, so that it’s bottom fell back into
place with a resounding ‘clack’.

He made for the exit while still looking at the screen, with the
result that he tripped over the legs of the other people seated in
the same row.

‘What the hell!’ said one, angrily.

‘Easy, Sarge, easy,’ advised the regimental wit, a corporal.

Once out in the lobby, Jhani made for the Manager’s office.
Unceremoniously he flung open the door and butted in. The
Manager—a portly man—was leaning back in his chair with his
feet on his table, complacently smoking a cigar.

‘Tell me something, please,’ asked Jhani in a rush, ‘this picture

that is now showing—where does it come from?’

‘What do you mean—where does it come from?’ countered the

fat Manager, in surprise.
 ‘I mean—what studios produced it? What is their address?’

Jhani’s impatience was so great that he felt like shaking the

bulky man.

‘Oh, I see,’ replied the Manager, taking his feet off his desk,
‘why, the Bombay Associated Pictures Corporation of course.
They are at Malabar Hill, Bombay. Why?…’

But the sergeant had already disappeared. It was something

awful what too much drink could do to a man, the Manager
mused.

Within twenty minutes Sergeant Jhani sprang to attention and

saluted smartly as he entered the Orderly Officer’s room.

‘Sir, there is something I want. Urgently. I want one week’s

leave, beginning right now, to go to Bombay. It is a very important
matter.’

The Orderly Officer looked at the young sergeant before him. He

knew Jhani well. The man had a spotless record. But why all this
urgency?

‘What’s happened?’ he asked, kindly. ‘Any bad news? I hope

not.’

‘I—I can’t tell you, Sir. I—I mean I would rather not—if you
don’t mind, Sir,’ said Jhani, swallowing hard. ‘But please, Sir; I
need it urgently. Please grant it.’

The Officer looked him straight in the face. The sergeant was
actually trembling from head to foot. He was much agitated—
there was no doubt about it.

All this was very irregular in the army. Leave had to be applied
for through proper channels in advance, and sanction obtained
from the O.C.; unless of course it was something extremely
unforeseen.

But Captain Ratna was very human beneath his officer’s

uniform. He read the note of pleading in the sergeant’s eyes, and
he responded.

‘Alright, sergeant. I will sanction it as a very special case. But

be back at the end of the week. No extension, eh!’

‘Thank you, thank you, Sir,’ said Jhani fervently. Then he

saluted, turned quickly, and made a dive for the doorway.

‘Come back, man,’ called the Captain, ‘what the hell is the
matter with you? Here, take this piece of paper and write out an
application at least. And do you want a travel warrant?’

‘There is no time for that, Sir,’ said the sergeant.

Jhani borrowed the captain’s pen and wrote the application

hastily.

Ratna looked at him, slightly worried.

Once more Jhani saluted and was out of the door within the
next second.

I wonder what has upset the man, thought Ratna. He is almost a

nervous wreck.

The giant wheels of the ‘X. B. Class’ locomotive that drew the
mail train to Bombay that very night did not turn nearly fast
enough for the impatient Jhani. The morning of the day after
found him at the Victoria Terminus station at Bombay.

Almost running out of the building, he took a taxi to Malabar

Hill, and within the hour stood at the entrance to the palatial
studios of the Bombay Associated Pictures Corporation. The place
had not opened for business yet, the time being just 8.15 a.m.

‘Tairo! (wait),’ he ordered the taxi driver, who was a Sikh.

Then he bounded up the front steps to the main doorway.

It was closed.

The night chowkidar, who was a Gurkha, was just going off
duty. Being an ex-soldier himself, he appraised the sergeant’s
chevrons on the visitor’s uniform.

Jhani turned to him almost pleadingly and asked in Hindi, ‘The

actress—Miss Lotibai—where does she live?’

The Mongolian features of the Gurkha creased in an

understanding smile. He replied, ‘Somewhere in Santa Cruz; but I
don’t know the address.’

Jhani bounded down the steps again, dashed back to the taxi,
and shouted ‘Santa Cruz’ to the driver.

It took a little more than an hour to reach the suburb. Jhani

made frantic inquiries at the little post office. There he was given
the address.

Ten more minutes, and he was pressing the doorbell of a little

villa.

It seemed like an eternity before he heard the sound of the bolt

being drawn on the inside. The door opened at last.

Before him, in the flesh, stood Lotibai—his Lotibai.

‘Loti,’ he cried, ‘it’s you; thank God.’

 ‘Jhani, oh Jhani, my darling,’ she responded, receiving him
fondly into her wide-open arms.’

The Sikh driver of the taxi had never read classics. But as Jhani
paid him and he slipped his vehicle into gear, he quoted a very
famous text:

‘Much ado about nothing.’

When they were through kissing and caressing each other, Loti
told Jhani all about his son in Ahmedabad, and of how she had
come to join the films.

He in turn told her how he had met Man Singh, and that it was
the dacoit-leader’s good advice that had kept him from turning
into a murderer, to become a soldier instead. Then Jhani related
how he had gone to see the picture! ‘Rath ki Rani’, which lead
him to tracing her.

They were very happy all that forenoon.

After lunch Jhani asked, ‘But what will we do now, Loti? I have
to be back in Jubbulpore within the week, or I will be court-
martialled.’

His sweetheart’s eyes looked at him adoringly. Then came her

tinkling laughter; the laughter he knew so well and had missed so
much.

‘Silly Jhani. Remember the answer you gave me that rainy

evening on the way home from the moosafarkhana? I give you that
same answer now. There is only one thing to do. We will get
married tomorrow or the day after, at the Registrar’s Office, by
special licence.’

‘But what about your film career?’ he asked, dubiously. Loti

grimaced. ‘It gives way to the career I have always yearned to
lead,’ she said simply, ‘as your wife.’

They were in time that afternoon to submit their application

before the Registrar of Marriages, with a special fee, to be married
as soon as possible. The wedding was fixed for the morning of the
day after the next.

That evening Loti took Jhani with her to call on Mr. Sathe.

Shri Sathe received her graciously. He had never ceased

congratulating himself on the very successful outcome of the
gamble he had taken that evening at Ahmedabad by employing
her. It was evident he was quite unprepared for the shock that he
was to receive.

‘Mr. Sathe,’ said Loti in her direct manner, ‘I have come to

thank you for all you have done for me, and at the same time to
beg of you to please release me from the remaining term of my
contract. I want to get married to Jhani here, and join him in
Jubbulpore.’

‘Then she sketched their association briefly, ending up with

how Jhani had found her.

Mr. Sathe tried to find a way out.

‘Do you mean to tell me that you are gong to sacrifice your
whole career on the screen, which promises to turn into a very
brilliant one, just to marry a…a sergeant?’ He could not help being
so blunt, even rude in what he said. He wanted Lotibai to realise
she was about to destroy the brilliant future that lay ahead of her
as an actress.

‘You must remember, Mr. Sathe,’ Loti reminded him

unaffectedly. ‘He is the father of my son.’

Shri Sathe thought he understood, but was not too sure.

 As he lay in bed that night, with Loti’s fragrant hair spread in
abundance over the snowy whiteness of her pillowcase, and the
creamy chocolate-tint of her completely nude body clasped tightly
to his own naked and slightly darker form, Jhani felt for the first
time after many years, that it is good to be alive.

Noon on the third day found them man and wife. The ceremony
at the Registrar’s Office had been a brief one, and there had been
only two witnesses.

One of these was Mr. Sathe, still not quite recovered from his
disappointment. The other was her maidservant, whom Loti had
brought along with her from her villa in Santa Cruz for the
purpose.

That very night Loti left from the Bombay Central Station
aboard the Gujarat Mail of the Western Railway, for Ahmedabad,
from where she would bring young Jhani to Jubbulpore to meet his
father for the first time.

And the same night ‘big’ Jhani—as Loti now fondly called her
husband—left Victoria Terminus by the Central Railway to rejoin
duty at Jubbulpore and quickly arrange accommodation for his
wife and son.

* * *

The meeting between ‘big’ Jhani and ‘little’ Jhani was something
that Lotibai would remember for her lifetime. It had made her cry
openly with sheer joy.

She had told the little fellow when she had brought him from
aunt Parvati’s home, that she was taking him or a long journey by
‘chook-chook train’, at the end of which he would meet his daddy.
 Little Jhani had often heard his mother mention his daddy as a
big man and a sweet man, but had never seen him. He was agog
with excitement and anticipation throughout the trip.

Finally the train clacked over the points in the yard, and began
to slow down as it drew into Jubbulpore Railway Station. The
smooth flagstones lining the platform slid by gently. Then, with a
slight jerk of binding brakes it came to a halt.

Loti opened the compartment door eagerly. There, almost

opposite her, scanning the windows of the carriages anxiously,
stood ‘big’ Jhani—her Jhani.

‘Jhani,’ she hailed.

‘Loti,’ came the joyful answer.

Next minute, regardless of the curious gaze of the coolies and

people jostling past, Jhani had leapt into the doorway and had
Loti in his arms. Then it was that he felt a shy tugging at the knee
of his trousers and a small voice asked, ‘Daddy?’

Suddenly she remembered.

Loti looked down at the diminutive figure beside her and said,
‘Beloved, there is your son.’

‘Big’ Jhani bent and scooped the little man to his breast. He
kissed him on his cheeks and forehead as he said, ‘Son—sonny boy
—my son!’

The little chap said again, ‘Daddy.’

There were tears of joy in the sergeant’s eyes. They trickled

down his rough cheeks and into the sides of his mouth.
 Loti was crying openly—there had to be an outlet for her
gladness. There just had to; for it was too great. The coolies and
the people jostling by, stopped and stared.

* * *

They lived happily in the little cottage that Jhani had rented for
themselves for eight months after that.

But Fate, untiring of the drama she had already enacted with
these two people—this man and this woman—elected to spin the
wheel of fortune and circumstance and weave the web of
coincidence, yet once more, just to see what would happen.

The activities and fame of Rajah Man Singh Rathore, king of

dacoits, had spread by this time far beyond the fastnesses of his
ravine hideout on the farther bank of the Chambal River.

It had reached to the four quarters of India. Man Singh was

spoken about in England, the U.S.A., and even Europe.

In India, thousands of policemen had been deputed to try to stop

him; catch him; kill him.

They had all failed.

Now the military were called upon to take a hand in the game.

The yearly festival at the Bateshwar Nath temple was due to be

held in exactly ten days’ time. The police knew that it was a
function the dacoit-king had never failed to attend, year after year
in various clever disguises. Year after year they had been there in
force themselves. They had scanned the pilgrims almost
individually; questioned hundreds of them. Man Singh’s
description had been broadcast circulated, studied and learnt by
heart by the thousands of policemen searching for him. Yet they
had not caught him.

And there was a reward of fifteen thousand rupees on his head!

This year the police knew that Man Singh would attend the
temple on the festival day as usual to have darshan (puja;
worship). They determined to try once again to catch him.

Some Big Brass thought it would be a good idea to call in the

military to help the police to do this.

No. 1 Company of the 1st Battalion, the President’s Light

Infantry stationed at Jubbulpore, was chosen for the duty and
were entrained with the temple as their destination, a week in
advance.

Sergeant Jhani belonged to No. 1 Company.

The day of the festival dawned bright and cloudless. By nine

o’clock in the morning the sun beat down mercilessly from a clear
sky.

The vicinity and outskirts of the temple were thronged with

thousands upon thousands of pilgrims who had come from distant
places to attend the festival. They walked about; or sat, ate or
slept in the blazing sun. Vendors of sweetmeat, fruit, and cold
drinks—mostly coloured water of red, green and blue hues with
sugar added to it—were doing a roaring trade.

A thin pall of fine dust covered everything and everybody,

raised from the parched sand of the earth by the moving feet of the
restless thousands. Pariah dogs ranged among the throng, singly
and in packs, snatching at morsels thrown to them in charity by
the people who were hungry themselves. Occasionally two dogs
would grab for the same small piece of dried chappatty. Then a
dog fight would start. Other curs in the immediate vicinity would
join in. A seething pack of half-a-dozen rending, biting dogs would
run hither and thither, snapping at any moving thing; man,
woman, child or other dog, that came in their way.

Over all and everywhere, myriads of blue bottle flies hummed

restlessly, settling with impartial disregard on sweetmeat, fruit,
chappatties, people, dogs—and even on the armed policemen and
soldiers as they moved about among the crowds.

In addition to the policemen and soldiers mingling with the

pilgrims and whose business it was to scan every face closely and
talk to every and any suspicious character, there was a far-flung
circle of armed police and military pickets that surrounded the
whole area in a ring of steel.

Man Singh’s description had been dinned into his head, and into
the heads of all the men in No. 1 Company. But Jhani remembered
it well enough.

Because Man Singh had been his benefactor.

For once in his service, and for the first time since his days as a
rookie, Jhani hated soldiering.

He had taken an oath to be faithful to his duty. Yet could he

betray his benefactor if he should meet him? The man who had
actually given him a fresh lease of life.

As a sergeant, it was Jhani’s task to be on the alert all the time.

He had to check the pickets and be with those others on his men
who were moving among the crowd. He was also expected to keep
a sharp lookout himself for anyone remotely resembling the
dacoit-leader.

And so it came to pass that, towards midday, the sergeant

wended his way towards one of the public latrines that had been
put up to meet the exigencies of the occasion.
 It was just a ‘tattied’ affair; meaning by that that the four walls
were of temporary erection, being of bamboo matting.

Each of the latrines had two sections; one for men and one for
women.

As most of the pilgrims would be illiterate, this differentiation

of the sexes was indicated to all and sundry by crude paintings in
green and white; that of a man in white shirt and dhoti, with
green turban, being tied to the bamboo mat at the entrance to the
latrine for men; and that of an ogre-like female in a green sari, at
the entrance to latrine for females.

The passage and flooring of both enclosures had been hastily

cemented for the occasion to prevent swamping of the earth by
water and excreta. Large zinc pans were installed in the closets for
the latter.

Jhani entered the men’s latrine.

He came out after ten minutes. And then an accident occurred.

Someone had thrown a banana skin on the cement flooring, just

outside the entrance.

Jhani was wearing army regulation boots (somewhat

disdainfully referred to in India as ‘ammunition’ boots, or
‘kuttaks’).

And anyone who has ever worn ‘ammunition’ boots will know
that the heel is shod with a U-shaped, horse shoe-like iron piece
surrounding its outer edge, while hobnail studs are hammered into
the soles.

He trod directly on the banana skin.

 The very next second, Jhani slipped violently, all but falling
upon the floor on the broad of his back.

To recover his balance he flung out both arms violently, and

skidded obliquely, to crash head-on into an aged crone, almost
bent double and tottering on a wooden ‘ staff, who had just come
out of the adjacent latrine for women.

The brass badge on Jhani’s right shoulder caught in the thin

piece of sari cloth covering the old hag’s head and part of her face.
As his weight lunged him against her the badge went with it, to
wrench off the cloth and leave the old woman bare-headed.

Recovering his balance, Jhani turned around to apologise.

He found himself gazing into the piercing, steel-like eyes, of

Man Singh.

The sergeant’s jaw dropped in amazement. No; there was

absolutely no doubt about it whatever. The eyes held that same
merry twinkle of challenge; that subtle expression of apology for
fear of being misunderstood; that expression that begged no
offence be taken; that expression that radiated kindness and good
will.

There was no beard, moustache, or whiskers; but without

shadow of doubt it was bis benefactor, Rajah Man Singh Rathore
who stood before him, disguised so perfectly but for that
unforeseen accident that had given him away.

Jhani recovered himself quickly.

There were no pangs of conscience whatever to becloud his

mind now. His spoken oath gave place to the far greater moral
oath that bound him to this man in its firmer, much more sacred,
grip. This man who had saved him from becoming a murderer; and
had made it possible for him to rejoin Loti and his son,
honourably.

‘Maharaj Sahib; go in peace. I shall not betray you,’ Jhani

breathed the words, ‘no; not for any reward in money or all the
gold on this earth.’

‘Thank you, Jhani my son. Did I not know I could trust you?’
Man Singh had whispered back. ‘Congratulations on becoming a
soldier—and a sergeant, too! I am very very proud of you.’

Jhani could not restrain himself from adding a few hurried

sentences. ‘I have found her, Maharajah Sahib. We are now
happily married and have a son. And one thing more, oh
benefactor to whom all three of us owe our present happiness, and
for which we are humbly grateful to you. My father has written a
letter inviting us and in a fortnight’s time we are going to the farm
to spend two months with him.’

‘I am so glad to hear it; God bless you all,’ came the reply. ‘And
tell Balaji your father—see how well I remember his name—that I
am so happy to have saved him from the pangs of sorrow that I
caused my own father. Give him this as a personal message to him
from Rajah Man Singh Rathore, the dacoit.’

The old hag rejoined the pilgrims; and the sergeant his
company.

‘The great man recognised even humble me. He remembered my

name, even dad’s name. He said he was very proud of me. He said
he was very happy over all that had happened.’

These thoughts sang joyfully in Jhani’s mind.

While the authorities were again greatly disappointed on that

festival day. For once more they had not caught Rajah Man Singh
Rathore.
 3

The Policemen who Sought a Reward

HIND is an area of land comprising some thousands of square

B miles in the state of Madhya Pradesh, the most extensive state
in renaissant India. Its largest town, the capital, bears the same
name. The district itself is mainly covered with thick jungles, and
human habitations are few and far between. It is a land of legend
and folklore, fables and ghost stories told by the dancing flicker of
firelight; most nearly approaching the India of bygone days. Men’s
wants are few and simple, because money is hard to get. And due
to its absence in too-large quantities, people are free and happy.
Moreover, they are guileless and untainted for the most part by
the vices of civilisation.

The men of Bhind require but few material possessions to make

them contented. In the hot summer nights when people gasp for
breath and perspiration trickles in rivulets between the breasts of
a sleeper and bedews his forehead where, one drop uniting with
another forms sufficient to drip down upon, and sodden his hard,
dirty pillow, the canopy of the star-studded sky above may be the
only roof over his head, a free gift to all her sons from Mother
Nature for a shelter. When the rains come and the frogs croak in
millions in the surrounding swollen streams and ponds; and wood-
crickets chirp in their thousands; and fire flies scintillate and
synchronise their elfin lamps to bejewel the night with a
throbbing, pulsating phosphorescence; and snakes crawl out of
their flooded holes to swallow the frogs and seek for drier abodes;
and mosquitoes buzz and hum and dive and sting in hundreds; a
man requires a little hut built of wattles with grass thatched roof,
to afford some protection from the weather and the snakes.
 But be the season dry or rainy, a man needs the presence of a
woman, wife or concubine, to cook his food, be a companion to
him and administer to his creature wants.

Then he will require a few annas a day to buy wheat flour for
making his ‘chappatties’ (these are flat, circular cakes, a foot or so
in diameter by perhaps one-fourth of an inch thick). It is the only
form of bread known to the people of the area and comprises the
staple diet and item of food.

Clothing is a simple matter and presents no problem

whatsoever. A long cotton shirt, hanging over a cotton dhoti
which is tied around the waist and passes between the legs; a
length of cloth loosely wound around the head to form a turban;
and a pair of rough, leather sandals to keep the sharp thorns from
penetrating his feet; are the only articles worn by a peasant
throughout the year. A coarse black blanket is an extra item, used
in the chilly winter months from November to January.

Cultivation is scarce, the monsoon unreliable, and farming

difficult. People are sometimes desperately poor, but everyone
devoutly believes in a God that will supply all his daily
necessities, and perhaps throw in a few extras as well.

But luxuries in any form are mostly quite unknown.

Occasionally, God would appear to have grown angry with His
poor people. A monsoon would fail and the subsequent drought
kill all the standing crops. Then there would be no grain, no
money, and consequently, no food. Or an epidemic of sickness
would ravish the land and thousands would die beneath its spell.
At such times of misfortune, even the stoutest hearts quailed from
fear and people would sometimes wonder why they had ever been
born.

To make matters worse would come the landlord or the servants

of the local zamindar, demanding rent for the land that had
yielded nothing, with threats of eviction if the money was not
paid at once.

How could they pay money when they had none to pay? Their
crops had failed and they had nothing to sell. A good number of
them were already in debt, for they had not paid for the seed they
had sown or the manure they had put down, all for no purpose, in
their fields. Surely the landowner understood their plight?

But the landlords and the zamindars and their servants would
molest and beat them, threaten to evict them; perhaps even throw
them out physically, by force. They would face dire starvation by
the roadside, for no man would give them anything, even if they
begged.

Yes indeed; often would a poor peasant wonder why he had

been born. Famine and pestilence would sometimes stalk the land
and make them think like that, and despair. They would lift up
their eyes to heaven and weep, and hope that God had heard their
supplications.

But say; was there not one last hope of deliverance left to them
on this earth? In the name of Rajah Man Singh; lover of the poor,
the down-and-out and needy; benefactor and guardian; deliverer
and saviour in time of need and distress. Beloved Man Singh,
leader of his dacoit band and succourer of the benighted and
starving.

Last year the little hamlet of Rampur had been on the verge of
famine and starvation, its crops withered and parched and died
beneath a merciless sun without a drop of rain to even moisten
them. The rent-gatherers had been more than ever petulant and
demanding. Life had held out no hope, and the people of Rampur
had called on God to take them away swiftly, and spare them from
the pangs of slow starvation and torture and death.
 Then suddenly into the village one morning had rumbled eight
bullock carts, their oxen tugging and straining under a top-load of
gunny bags that reached right up to the elliptical grass roof of
each vehicle. The bags were filled with wheat and the leader of
the cartmen delivered them to the villagers of Rampur together
with a simple message, ‘A gift from Man Singh’.

That gift had saved the village from disaster. Before it had been
exhausted relief came from the Government in the form of
abundant supplies of food. The situation was now well in hand,
and the subsequent monsoon had been as plentiful as its
predecessor had been scanty. But the inhabitants of Rampur never
forgot Man Singh and his timely aid.

There was a reward of Rs. 15,000 offered by the Government for

the apprehension of this notorious individual, who was charged
with over two hundred murders and dacoities untold. Yet nobody
claimed it. Because, nobody gave information against beloved
Man Singh, or betrayed him.

The eight cartmen were closely questioned. They stated a man

had hired them a week earlier to drive their carts to a railway
station 40 miles away and load bags of grain that would be
waiting there in a goods wagon. He had paid them Rs. 160 for the
double trip at the rate of Rs. 20 for each cart. He had also
whispered the name of Man Singh to them, and had said that, if
they did not complete their part of the bargain and deliver the
bags of grain to Rampur within the week, none of them would live
to see the sunset on the first day of the following week. So they
had delivered the bags on the sixth day.

The cartmen also added that when they reached the wayside
railway station to which they had been told to go, the
stationmaster there had affirmed that a goods wagon had arrived
two days earlier, laden with bags of wheat, and had been kept on a
siding awaiting their arrival to unload.
 The wagon had been booked in the name of some individual
calling himself Man Singh. After all, it was quite a common name
in that district.

One summer evening the sun dipped itself in a ball of blood-red

fire behind the serrated tops of the tall sal trees that stretched to
the western horizon. A narrow, dusty roadway ran through the
dense forest, hemmed in on both sides by the close array of the
trunks of sal trees. One could not see far between them because of
the gathering dusk. The still air yet throbbed with the heat of the
day that was done.

Two men who had been striding rapidly along the road, came to
a halt beneath a large tree bordering the wayside. One was a tall
man, having a beard. The other was of normal height and well-
built. They both wore khaki tunics and shorts, putties, service
boots and khaki turbans. And they both carried .303 service rifles.
For they were policemen.

There is hardly any dusk in the tropics, and there would be none
in this densely-forested area. In a few minutes heavy darkness
would descend upon them, leaving only the twinkling stars in a
slate-blue sky above.

A ball of something soft and brown sailed overhead, flitted

around for a moment on silent wings, but soon settled soundlessly
before them to be lost to sight in the dust of the roadway. It was
quiet for a minute, and then emitted a queer sound, resembling a
pebble being thrown and bouncing along the surface of a flat rock.
It sounded like ‘Chuck—chuck—chuck—chuck—chuckooo’.

The policemen recognised the sound and the bird that was
making it. It was a ‘night jar’. Indeed, darkness was upon them
and they were very apprehensive.

And they had every reason to be. For they were in the very heart
of the domain of the notorious dacoit and bandit-leader, Man
Singh Rathore. In fact, they were but one of many groups of
policemen who had been sent out armed, and in pairs, to try to
collect information about and, if possible bring in that infamous
brigand.

What was worst of all was the thought that large numbers of
policemen had been shot, stabbed or had their throats cut by this
fearsome character and his followers in the past. Just last week,
nine constables and a sergeant had been ambushed while asleep
on the riverbank, decapitated, and their bodies thrown into the
river. The ten heads had been left behind by the dacoits at their
last encampment as a gift to the posse of police that were pursuing
them.

The taller of the two policemen unslung his rifle from his
shoulder and resting it against the tree trunk, addressed his squat
companion. ‘Arre bhai! rath hogya’ (meaning, ‘Oh brother; night
has fallen!). Continuing in Hindustani, he said, ‘We had better
climb into the branches of this tree. There we will be safe from
wild animals; and if we hide ourselves well, should the shaitan
(devil) Man Singh and his gang of robbers pass this way they will
not see us. What say you?’

The shorter of the two policemen looked up to assess the height

and comparative safety afforded by the overhanging boughs of the
big tree. With the rapidly falling darkness, its leaves and branches
clustered blackly against the steely-blue of the sky above, in
which he noticed the stars had begun to twinkle one by one.
Withal he was not impressed. He commenced to quarrel with his
taller companion.

‘This is what comes of listening to you, you fool,’ he stated

bitterly. ‘When I advised camping at the last village you assured
me that the town of Kampampoli was but three or four miles
further, where we could get a good night’s rest, food, and perhaps
a woman to share between us. Since that time we have walked at
least ten miles, and this blessed road seems to have no end.
Nothing but jungle, everywhere; not a signpost or hut of any kind.
And now you want me to spend the night in a tree, like a monkey.
Idiot that you are!’

The tall constable appeared momentarily taken aback by his

companion’s vehemence. Then he started to remonstrate.

‘Come brother,’ he placated, ‘why do you quarrel with me? Such

hardships are but part and parcel of our lives as policemen. I only
suggested it is safer at night in a tree.’

‘Not nearly as safe and as comfortable as we could have been at

that last village,’ retorted the squat man. ‘If Man Singh or his
band finds us now, our heads will join those of our ten colleagues
who lost theirs last week.’

‘Don’t be afraid,’ rejoined the tall man, whose name was Dass.
‘Man Singh is nowhere near us. Even he would not hang out all
night in the midst of a forest like this.’

His speech irritated Hariram, the shorter of the two still further.
He mouthed an oath as foul in Hindustani as its English
translation.

‘Who is afraid, Dass?’ he almost shouted. ‘You, or me? Who first

suggested climbing into this blasted tree? You, or me? Who spoke
about wild animals and Man Singh? You, or me? You can climb the
tree yourself. As for me, I am going on. This damned road must
lead us to some place, eventually.’ So saying, he reslung his rifle
across his shoulder and made to proceed.

Dass lost his temper. As with most men of his nature when
foiled, his ire vented itself in personal abuse and invective.

‘You short, fat pig,’ he hissed, ‘I have listened enough to your

arrogant words. We are both constables, but as the senior in
service, I order you to remain here with me till daylight. After all,
if anything should happen to you, I will be held responsible,
although as a matter of fact even the jackals would not touch
your carcass, far less Man Singh.’

‘You be damned,’ retorted Hariram, who appeared to feel that

what he lacked in height he made up for in weight and muscle,
‘you are just an ordinary constable like me, and not my senior. I
am going on, and I would like to see you try to stop me.’

Their plight had filled both men with apprehension; terror of

the jungle, the darkness, wild animals and of Man Singh. The
quarrel that had just broken out had been a diversion to keep their
minds off their real problem, which was fear of what might
happen to them.

They faced each other, breathing hard and with set faces in the
manner of angry men. It was quite dark now. The stillness and
gloom around them seemed to scream a message of warning, as if
from a thousand muted tongues.

Then they heard the sounds. Footsteps padding along the dust of
the road before them; drawing nearer to them, ever nearer.

Could this be the dreaded dacoit and his band of followers? But
the footfalls denoted there were only two or three men
approaching them, and not a large band.

By now it was too late—and too dark—to attempt climbing into

the tree in a hurry. As if by mutual consent, the policemen stepped
behind its trunk and waited anxiously. Nor had they long to wait.
In a few seconds two figures loomed in the murkiness and came to
a halt almost opposite them.

‘Why do you hide behind the tree, brothers. Come out, we will
not harm you.’ The words were uttered in a soft tone by a
melodious voice that seemed to carry with it a hint of sarcasm and
of amusement.

Dass had been angry before. Now he became furious. He strode

forth from behind the tree and approached the two figures.
Hariram followed a pace or two behind him.

‘What the hell do you mean by saying we are hiding and are
afraid,’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘We are policemen and
are afraid of nothing!’

‘I see,’ answered the same voice quietly. ‘Then why do you

stand behind the tree trunk?’

Dass sized up the two men before answering. It was difficult to

make out details in the gloom, but as far as he could see, the man
who had spoken must be a fairly old fellow. His flowing beard and
heavy moustache and whiskers could easily be made out, and
even in the darkness they appeared to be completely grey. He was
dressed in the usual manner, in a long shirt and dhoti, while an
enormous turban enveloped his head. His companion was
younger, very straight and tall, and appeared to possess a
distinctly military bearing. With all that, Dass felt that he and
Hariram could deal with the young fellow if occasion arose. The
old man was not worth taking into account should a fight ensue.

‘Stop your insolence,’ he grated, ‘we heard footsteps

approaching and hid behind the tree trunk to see if they were
caused by the man for whom we are looking. And…’

‘And for whom are you looking?’ the old man inquired, mildly.

Dass swallowed hard. This old devil was annoying him, and
would have to be taught a lesson.

‘Never mind,’ he snapped, ‘and who are you both?’

 ‘Farmers,’ came the quick answer.

‘Farmers?’ interjected Hariram incredulously; ‘in the middle of

the jungle; at night! Funny sort of farmers, indeed. You appear to
me to be more like suspicious characters. Farmers, forsooth!’

At hearing these words the old man shook with laughter, while
a wide grin spread from ear to ear over the erstwhile stony
countenance of his sturdy companion.

‘That is a good joke indeed,’ he cackled, ‘you calling us

suspicious characters, while you go hiding behind trees yourselves!
Ha, ha, ha.’ He fairly bounced with merriment.

‘Enough of your insane laughter,’ broke in Dass sternly. ‘Have I

not just told you that we hid ourselves thinking you might be the
man we are looking for?’

‘And who may he be?’ wheezed the bearded old man.

‘That rascally dacoit, Man Singh.’

‘And why do you want him? Has he done you any harm?’ asked
long-beard querulously.

‘What a stupid question to ask,’ broke in Hariram. ‘Are you

blind that you cannot make out our uniforms: We are policemen,
while Man Singh is a dacoit. Every policemen in these four states
is looking for him.’

‘Besides,’ added Dass, ‘what is more to the point is the fact that
there is a reward of fifteen thousand rupees for his capture, dead
or alive, and I want that money very badly. Say, can you give me
any information about this rogue?’

‘Do you need this money so much that you would give away
this Man Singh for it, provided you came to know where you could
find him?’

For the moment Dass was nonplussed for a ready answer. He

never imagined that anyone could be as dull as this old fool. Then
he blurted out, ‘Look here, old man; I cannot stay here all night
answering your silly questions. For the last time let me assure you
that I would give away Man Singh and even my own superior
officer in exchange for fifteen thousand rupees. I need the money
badly. I have a daughter who has matured, and I must find a
husband for her. No husband will agree to marry her without
dowry money. And I am a poor man who has no money. If I get this
reward I will be able to offer a reasonable dowry to whomsoever
agrees to marry my daughter and have a good sum left over for
myself.’

‘I understand,’ said the old man, apparently satisfied.

He was silent awhile, then added, ‘Folk round about here say
this fellow, Man Singh, has helped many people in straightened
circumstances with money. I wonder if you should ask him.’

‘Now I know you are really mad,’ Dass replied contemptuously.

He took a beedi from the pocket of his tunic, put the end in his
mouth, lit the other end with a match and inhaled the smoke into
his lungs gratefully.

As a joke he said to the old man, ‘Perhaps you will be good

enough to tell me where this character hangs out, in order that I
might ask him. In any case, it is all a pack of lies. I don’t believe
these stories one hears about that devil’s supposedly good actions.
Personally, I think he is a crafty, murderous pig, and that’s about
all.’

To add emphasis to his denunciation, Dass spat scathingly on

the sandy road.

‘I am Man Singh.’
 With a mighty start the two policemen straightened themselves.
The hitherto feeble-looking old man looked feeble no longer. He
appeared to grow before their very eyes both in height and girth.
His companion, who had been a strapping-looking individual
seemed to assume the proportions of a giant.

There was a faint gleam in the starlight as the giant whipped

the naked blade of a footlong wicked-looking dagger from his
waistband, and held it menacingly in his right hand, its point
resting against the pit of Dass’s stomach.

Man Singh remained nonchalant. The two policemen were too

thunderstruck to be able to speak. They just stood inarticulate.
Slowly an expression of abject terror came into their eyes. They
sweated and trembled in fright.

‘Give me your name and address, constable, and I will teach you
what kind of person Man Singh is.’ The words were spoken quietly
and without anger. But there was a peremptoriness in them that
brooked no delay.

‘My name is Ganga Dass, police constable No. 451 of the Bhind
town police. I live in Block No. 276 at the Police Lines there.’ The
words came tumbling out of the policeman’s mouth, almost
mechanically.

‘Go home, Dass, and find a husband for your daughter. Three
thousand rupees will be paid to you before this week has ended at
your very door in the Police Quarters. It will suffice for a dowry
and none of it is to be kept over for yourself, do you hear?

‘Tell your friends that Man Singh is sometimes merciful. Your

heads and your bodies might have otherwise suddenly parted
company.

‘And one thing more. The whole amount is to be spent for your
daughter’s dowry. None of it is for you. I will inquire later, and if
you have broken this injunction you will surely die! Goodnight.’

Turning to his younger companion, Man Singh said, ‘Come, son,

let us be going. Our suppers will be getting cold.’

The next instant they were no longer in sight. Three or four

seconds later and their footsteps had faded from hearing in the
powdery dust of the roadway.

The two constables remained petrified. Their service rifles hung

across their shoulders, suspended by their slings. In their pouches
each man carried 20 rounds of live ammunition. Yet the idea of
firing at Man Singh or trying to arrest him had never even
occurred to either of them once.

At last the spell was broken. ‘Shaitan ka batcha!’ (spawn of the

devil!) ejaculated Dass, as he took to his heels in the opposite
direction.

Hariram followed suit. But in spite of his best efforts, he could

not catch up with his running companion. Perhaps that man’s legs
were longer, because he was taller.

Or was Hariram just a bit too fat?

* * *

There were two days left and the week would be over. Man Singh
had not yet fulfilled his promise. The money had still not been
paid.

When Dass and Hariram had eventually reached a village after

running what had seemed to be endless miles that memorable
night, unthinkingly they had both gasped out to various and
astounded audiences garbled versions of what had happened.
 They had altered the facts considerably, though. According to
them, they had been waylaid by a dozen members of the gang,
overpowered, tied hand and foot, and then questioned by Man
Singh. They stated they had boldly admitted to the bandit that
they were searching for him in an attempt to gain, and share, the
reward offered. Dass had said he needed his portion of the ‘reward
money to offer as a dowry for his daughter’s marriage, when Man
Singh had undertaken to send him 3000 rupees within the week, to
his address at the police quarters.

The tale spread like wildfire and next day reached the ears of
the Commissioner of Police.

That Officer knew that Man Singh had hitherto never failed to
keep his promises and would therefore assuredly attempt to pay
the money within the stipulated time at the given address.

He determined to catch him when that happened.

An armed guard was placed, night and day, at the entrance to

the Police Lines, while pickets surrounded it with instructions to
shoot to kill any person entering or leaving under suspicious
circumstances, or who did not answer a sentry’s challenge. Passes
were issued to the residents of the police quarters.

The armed cordon was soon complete. For the next week it
would be impossible for any unauthorised person to enter or leave
the vicinity without being closely scrutinised.

P.C. Dass was in a bad mood.

He had enjoyed the publicity that had come with all these
events. But now he had begun to realise he had been a fool to have
mentioned anything about it. Maybe Rajah Man Singh had really
meant to keep his word and give him that much-coveted amount
of Rs. 3000. But now it would be humanly impossible for him even
if he had meant to do so.
 If only he had kept mum about the whole incident.

Of course he blamed P.C. Hariram for letting the cat out of the
bag. Hariram had done most of the talking even if he, Dass
himself, had been the first to speak about it upon reaching the
village that night.

Then another day passed and there remained but one more. If
Man Singh did not pay the money by midnight that night, he
would have failed to keep his promise.

Excitement was keyed to fever pitch.

The Commissioner decided to be on hand himself in the event

the dacoit-leader should determine to be bold enough to try to
carry out his word and come in person.

So he sat in his office long after working hours that evening

hoping that something would happen. Hardly a furlong away was
the entrance to the Police Lines.

Police Constables Dass and Hariram had been strictly ordered to

remain in their respective quarters all day and not to attempt to
stir out until further instructions had been given them.

Dass’s 13-year-old daughter, Laxmi, who had recently matured

and who had been the cause of all the trouble and excitement,
although quite unwittingly, was not as happy and excited as she
otherwise might have been. The reason was that her pet dog,
which answered to the name of ‘Tiger’, could not be found since
noon. Indeed, he had not come for his midday meal; something he
had never missed all his lifetime.

He was only a nondescript, black mongrel, with straggling long

hair. But Laxmi was devoted to him and the dog had never left her
before. That morning he had followed her as usual to the
marketplace and there he had mysteriously disappeared. She was
anxious and began to cry.

At 8.30 p.m. the telephone on the Commissioner’s desk shrilled

loudly. He grabbed the receiver and placed it against his ear. A
pleasant voice spoke in Hindustani. ‘Police Commissioner Sahib,
this is Man Singh speaking. Hasten quickly in your jeep to Quarter
No. 276, in order that you may be there to witness the payment of
the money I have promised to constable Dass.’

Then the line went dead at the other end.

With a loud oath the Commissioner banged the cradle of the

telephone and then yelled to the operator at the Exchange, ‘Trace
that call, immediately.’

Then he sprang to his feet and made for the doorway of his
office, grabbing his leather belt from the peg in the wall from
which it was hanging. Fixed to that belt was his holster
containing his .38 revolver which he had loaded earlier that very
evening.

Outside was the jeep with his orderly-driver lounging at the

steering wheel. The glowing end of a beedi dangled from his lips,
the acrid taint of its smoke reaching the police officer.

In three strides the Commissioner had arrived at the jeep and

was clambering into the vacant seat to the right of the driver, who
had just time to throw away his beedi.

‘Drive quickly to the Police Lines,’ he shouted, ‘and stop at the

entrance.’

A couple of minutes later they were there.

Seeing the Commissioner suddenly arrive, the sentry had no

time in which to ‘turn out’ the guard. But he hastily sloped arms
and then came to the ‘present’.

‘Never mind the bloody drill formalities,’ shouted the irate

Police Chief, ‘why the hell don’t you challenge me and ask me to
show my pass?’

The sentry was taken aback and did not know what he should
do next. Stoically returning his rifle to his shoulder at the ‘slope’
position, he demanded almost casually, ‘Halt! who goes there?
Show your pass please,’ adding as an afterthought a rather
timorous, ‘Sir’.

‘Oh, go to hell, growled the Commissioner, and then to the

driver of the jeep, ‘Drive like blazes to quarters No. 276.’

His orderly let in the clutch and the jeep bounded forward.

Hazily, the sentry wondered whether or not he should obey

orders now and shoot the Commissioner dead. For he had been
definitely instructed to shoot to kill anyone who entered or left
the lines without showing his pass on demand. And the
Commissioner had just done that.

The Chief himself suddenly remembered his own orders and

involuntarily flexed the muscles of his back, momentarily
expecting to feel the sentry’s bullet in that region. It was just the
sort of thing a dim-witted sentry, like the dolt he had left standing
there, would do—shoot his own Commissioner—he mused.

But fortunately nothing happened and the jeep arrived in a

cloud of dust at No. 276. The Commissioner bounded through the
open front door, shouting, ‘Police Constable Dass; where are you?’

The constable, who had been reclining on his bed bare-bodied

and with only a dhoti, scrambled up hastily and stood at
attention. ‘Here Sir,’ he stuttered.
 ‘Has anything happened? Has the money been paid? Speak up,
man, and don’t stand there staring at me like an ‘oolu’ (owl).’

‘Nothing whatever has happened, Sir,’ answered the surprised

constable.

The Commissioner was relieved. Thank God it had only been a

hoax and not a reality. If the money was to be paid that night
right under his very nose and in spite of all his precautions, he
would be the laughing stock of the entire Police Force throughout
the length and breadth of India. He would probably be compelled,
through shame, to volunteer for retirement from active service
although he had a couple of years left before that time came.

Just then a nondescript black mongrel entered by the front door

behind the Commissioner. The girl, Laxmi, who had been standing
at the other doorway at the rear, and wondering what all the
confusion was about, spotted the dog and ran to him with
outstretched hands.

‘Tiger; you naughty dog! Where have you been all day?’ she
greeted affectionately.

The animal stopped and gazed up at her with loving eyes, his
awkward black tail wagging vigorously and causing his
hindquarters to wag along with it.

‘And what have you got tied to your collar?’ asked Laxmi,
indicating what appeared to be a six-inch long black cylinder
neatly fixed to the collar at both its ends.

Regardless of the risk he ran of being bitten, the Commissioner

grabbed the dog by its collar and tried to wrench off the black
cylinder.

But it had been wired on firmly at both ends.

 ‘Take the damned collar off’, he shouted at Dass, irritably.

A couple of minutes later the cylinder lay on the table. It was of

thin tin, painted black. In his excitement the Commissioner
wrenched off the top with his bare hands.

Inside were thirty new one-hundred rupee currency notes, and a

short message written in pencil in Hindi, on a piece of cigarette
paper. It read, ‘Rajah Man Singh Rathore always keeps his
promise’.

Dass looked at the money. Then his eyes closed, and in spite of
the near presence of his senior most officer his lips were heard to
mutter the words, ‘Ram, ram; Rajah Man Singh Sahib.’

Within hardly two months time his daughter was married. And
she procured a respectable husband, too. The dowry of three
thousand rupees offered with her made sure of that.

And Police Constable Dass kept none of it for himself; for above
everything else he certainly did not want to die.
 4

The Invasion of the Ravine Kingdom

HE Old Man is creating hell and something has got to be done

‘T about it.’
The District Superintendent of Police (D.S.P.) was speaking, and
there was an air of finality in his voice.

The ‘Old Man’ to whom he was referring was by no means really

old. And the term had by no means been applied in a disrespectful
sense. Rather, there was a hint of apprehension and awe in its use.

For the D.S.P. was referring to his immediate superior, the

Deputy Inspector General, who had summoned him just the
Tuesday before. That officer’s words were as fresh in his memory
as if they had only been uttered the moment before.

‘It is a damned disgrace, Chandra,’ he had thundered, banging

the office desk before him with the palms of both his hands
simultaneously. ‘One single man out there in the blue, leading a
handful of nondescript ruffians; and nearly two thousand
policemen after him for almost three years! And yet they cannot
catch him.

‘Come, man, do you realise it?’ he asked, warming to his

subject. ‘The whole of India is laughing at us. Every bloody
policeman, in every bloody police force, in every bloody state in
this peninsular is asking, ‘What the hell are two thousand
policemen, from four states, about? They cannot catch one hairy
brigand!
 ‘Our name stinks to high heaven. The governments of these four
states write me D. Os. practically every ruddy week, asking me for
a full report on what progress we have made. Progress, my left
foot! These bastards at headquarters appear to have no other work
to do. They just sit on their fannies at their desks and dictate silly
letters to some little bit of fluff they call their stenographer.

‘But let us face the fact, Chandra my boy. We have absolutely

no progress to report to them. Every week I pass the buck and
write the same reply, but in different words: “Investigations are
proceeding satisfactorily and we expect to be able to raid Man
Singh’s headquarters very shortly.”

‘But no raid takes place. Because it can’t; for the childish reason
that we don’t know where the bugger’s headquarters are.’

The D.I.G. was working himself up to a fine pitch of rage. His

name was Sen Gupta, and he was a Bengali. One of the smartest
officers in the Calcutta Police, he had been assigned to the special
task of eliminating Man Singh and his dacoit bands, with 1700
policemen and officers under his command to achieve this result.

That result, however, had not materialised.

Sen Gupta was an intelligent man, and he was an officer who

expected—and got—ruction from his subordinates. He drove them
and lashed them with his tongue, till they did something about it.

His rather large head was covered with short, stiff hair, with no
signs of grey in it despite his fifty years of age. It was the sort of
hair that always refused to be combed or brushed, and so he left it
alone. A close-clipped, black toothbrush moustache sat above his
upper lip and added to his stern appearance. Grey-green eyes
glittered from almost hairless eyebrows. A longish nose; thin,
selfish lips; and a square, slightly protruding chin, combined with
the moustache and bristly hair to give him decidedly formidable
aspect.
 Slightly above average height—he was exactly 5 foot 10½ inches
—he was a heavily-built man who touched the scales at 200
pounds.

Above all, he was decidedly short-tempered, and when he

became angry he would snort like a bull, breathe in gasps, and
hammer his unfortunate desk or whatever article of furniture
came within reach with the palms of his hands; and he would go
on hammering, harder and harder.

He was doing that just now.

Almost idly, Chandra wondered as to which of the two were

suffering more—the D.I.G’s hands or the D.I.G’s table.

Sen Gupta stopped gasping suddenly, and went on in a dry

voice, selecting his words.

‘Do you know, Chandra, when I was at school in Calcutta, my

second language was Latin. God knows why they taught it and
why I learnt it. I have forgotten the whole ruddy subject except for
one phrase which stuck in my head. And for that one phrase I
shall be always grateful to the language of the Caesars.

‘The phrase is, “Faeces taurus sapientum sedit”. And it means,

“Bullshit baffles brains”.

‘And that is exactly what I have been doing in my reports all

these weeks, Chandra my boy. Baffling the brains of these
blighters at headquarters; that is, if they have any brains at all,
which I doubt—with my bullshitting reports.

‘But the game is played out and cannot go on any longer. Even
the dimwits there have woken up to the fact that my weekly
letters are just parrot-like repetitions and don’t mean a damned
thing.
 ‘The people in New Delhi consider us the choicest set of
nincompoops out of all the policemen in India. I don’t know what
the outside world thinks. But, if they have heard of what is going
on, I, as the head of these operations, must be considered to be on
a level of intelligence comparable with Donald Duck.’

Throughout the tirade, Chandra had not said a word. He had

been through several of the sort before, and knew that if he dared
to interrupt the Old Man would probably explode altogether, and
burst a blood vessel and die.

So he wisely kept silent.

Sen Gupta went on and on in the same strain for a while.

Chandra was thinking: What the hell! This fat bastard keeps
yapping by the mile. Why doesn’t the bugger get off his bottom
and do something himself, instead of crying on my shoulder.

Chandra was a tall, lean man, and very dark. He came from the
city of Madras, in southern India. Comparatively young—he was
35 years old—to hold the rank of a District Superintendent, he had
put in meritorious service in his earlier years with the Madras
Police among the criminal tribes of that State; and had also spent
some time pursuing dacoits in the area around Bastar State and
the central parts of the Godavari River where outlaws, although of
a minor character, had operated for generations on end.

In fact, any police officer or policeman who had had some

knowledge or experience in the pursuit of dacoits, or outlaws of
any description, major or minor, throughout India, had been
drafted into the special force that had been organised, and placed
under Sen Gupta to liquidate Man Singh and his notorious
followers.

Eventually the D.I.G. was silent. Having given vent to his

emotions, he began to feel somewhat less pent-up. Just then,
Chandra was saying, ‘All you state is true, Sir. But what do you
suggest be done?’ It was a tactless question, put too soon after his
recent outburst.

Sen Gupta bristled afresh.

‘A damned silly question to ask, Chandra,’ he said, shortly.

‘Damned silly, indeed! That is exactly what I am asking you, man.
So what the hell is the good of asking the same question back to
me? Why, do something of course. You have a hell of a lot of men
under you. Cross the Chambal River and comb out every ravine on
the other side systematically. Rather simple when you come to
think of it after all, what?’

Chandra grew angry beneath his dark skin, and his face took on
a somewhat ashen hue. What the hell, he thought again; as if Man
Singh and his gang will be sitting tamely on the other side, just
waiting for us to come and catch him.

‘I will have a shot at that, Sir,’ was all he commented.

The Old Man had not even bothered to look up at his junior
officer. He was staring at the new sheet of blotting paper on the
pad before him.

Then he took up the pen on his desk, dipped it in ink, and drew
a face roughly on the blotter. It was a face with an absurdly-long,
twirling moustache and a huge beard.

Although he had drawn it himself, the face seemed to leer up at

him, mockingly.

Sen Gupta jabbed the point of the nib at the drawing. The
‘Relief’ nib struck the paper and the point bent backwards. But
the caricature appeared to smirk as much as before.

The D.I.G. flung the pen across his desk and yelled, ‘Orderly!
Idher haow! (Come here).’
 A police constable marched into the office at a terrific rate;
jerked himself to such an abrupt halt that his body leaned forward
on its own two feet with the impetus of the speed he had been
walking at, and saluted vigorously, the fingers of his right hand
vibrating in the region of his temple.

‘Bring ‘cha,’ ordered the D.I.G.; and then to Chandra, ‘won’t

you have a cup of tea?’ he invited.

‘No thank you, Sir,’ Chandra answered rather stiffly; and then,
hesitatingly, ‘if that is all, I will get back to my people and see
what can be done.’

The D.I.G. nodded, absent-mindedly.

And thus the interview had ended. Chandra had clicked his
heels and saluted before turning about and walking out of the
D.I.G.’s large and airy office.

Sen Gupta had merely nodded again.

Now it was Saturday, and Chandra was sitting at another desk.

This one belonged to the Inspector of Police stationed in the town
of Bhind. The Inspector’s office itself was an annex to the Police
Station. Overhead the punkah (long fan made of plaited tatty or
cuscus roots) swayed to and fro at a regular rhythm, pulled by
means of a rope passing through a hole in the front wall and over a
pulley. The ‘operator’ squatted on the verandah outside. He was
an almost naked cooly.

As a token of deference towards his senior officer, the Inspector

had surrendered his own chair to Chandra, who now sat on it at
the Inspector’s table. The latter sat on another wooden-bottomed
chair opposite the D.S.P. at the other end of the table. Chandra
had been telling him of the interview he had had with the D.I.G.,
and had closed his account with the assertion that really
something had got to be done about it.
 The Inspector was anxious to appear cooperative and efficient.
But he had been in the district longer than Chandra and longer
than the D.I.G., and knew the problems involved. He was a Rajput
named Gulab Singh, who had served in the Army and been
transferred to the Police, subsequently. Some 45 years of age,
wizened in look and wearing the usual Rajput whiskers and beard,
he was as tough as nails. Many a time previous to the advent of his
two present officers, he had accompanied punitive expeditions of
police across the Chambal to try to search the ravines. From every
one of those sorties they had returned empty-handed, and from
not a few with less policemen than had set out. Some of these
policemen had been shot by snipers hiding behind boulders or in
caves or among the cliffs with which the ravines abounded. At
other times the whole, party had been ambushed and many killed
before they were even aware of danger. So, the D.S.P.’s anxiety for
action and the D.I.G.’s impatient annoyance did not succeed in
arousing much enthusiasm in Gulab Singh, the Inspector.

‘Huzoor,’ he told Chandra in Hindi, ‘there is a proverb which

says, “The foolish clamour for deeds and sometimes wise men
suffer thereby”. To enter among the ravines with a large number of
men by day is quite futile. If the police force is big, the dacoits just
vanish. If it is small, we will be fired upon and some of us killed. I
have seen it happen over and over again, many times.’

Chandra did not reply. He was thinking deeply. What the

Inspector had just said was quite true, and he had to admit it in
spite of the D.I.G’s impatience. To take a body of policemen across
the Chambal in broad daylight would produce no result whatever.
Either they would see nobody all that day, or they would be shot
at, unexpectedly.

Nevertheless, something just had to be done.

So the D.S.P. continued to think, and the Inspector continued to

regard him stonily, lost in his own meditation.
 Suddenly Chandra stiffened involuntarily. An idea had come to
him. A good idea. The more he thought about it, the more he liked
it. A slight smile played about the corners of his mouth.

‘Inspector Sahib,’ he spoke with deliberation. ‘You have said

that it was futile to take a force across the river and into the
ravines at daytime as the outlaws would see us coming?’

‘That is so, huzoor,’ replied Gulab Singh, patiently.

‘Then what if we take them across secretly at the dead of night

and hide the other side during the day?’ The Inspector’s eyes
opened a little wider in astonishment. What silly scheme is this,
he wondered. ‘Man Singh’s spies are everywhere, Sir. The river is
watched at night. They would see us crossing.’

‘Not necessarily, Inspector, not necessary,’ continued Chandra,

indulgently. ‘We would choose a dark night for the undertaking;
and a time when nearly all men are asleep, including the sentries
of friend and foe alike.’ Here Chandra smiled very confidingly, as
if to indicate to his subordinate that he knew all about the
vagaries of sentries all the world over.

Gulab Singh did not reply.

‘Please hand me that wall calendar, Gulab Singh,’ continued

Chandra after a while, ‘and please fetch the large map of the area
that has been issued to all police stations and chowkies and should
be hanging on the wall. Where is it?’

‘Here Sahib,’ said the Rajput, rising from his chair and walking
across the room to an ancient wooden almirah standing in the
corner. He unhooked the front latch and the door of the almirah
swung crazily open. Chandra heard the hinges squeak, even at
that distance.
 Reaching his hand up, Gulab Singh felt along the topmost shelf
and brought down a roll of paper, almost a yard long.

He took it to the desk, removed the pen-rack and ink bottle that
stood there, placing them on the window sill, and put the roll of
paper before Chandra. It was the map.

Chandra unrolled it.

The edges began to curl up again. The Inspector noticed this. He

walked back to the window and returned with the pen-rack and
ink bottle, placing the former on top of the left-hand edge, and the
ink bottle on the right edge of the map. The two bottom corners he
prevented from rolling themselves up by the simple expedient of
opening the desk top slightly, pushing the bottom edge of the map
inside, and then reclosing the top.

For there was no paperweight in his office.

The Inspector then walked across the room, removed the large
calendar hanging by a nail on the wall opposite to his desk, and
placed it on the map before the D.S.P.

Chandra studied the calendar in silence, while Gulab Singh sat

down again on the wooden chair opposite him and relapsed into
thought.

It was the 10th of the month. The new moon would be on the
15th.

‘How many policemen have we stationed near the river who

could be moved under cover of darkness, quickly?’ he asked.

The Inspector considered the question for a few seconds.

‘There are twenty-four armed constables, two sergeants, and a

Sub-Inspector at Raoti,’ he answered, ‘and it is four and a half
miles from the river.’

‘Hmmm,’ mused Chandra. And then, ‘That’s all?’

Before Gulab Singh could answer, he continued, ‘Not much; but

still, not too few. They will have to do the job. To march more
men, either in the daytime or at night, would give the whole show
away. People would know something is afoot and that the police
were making a move of some kind. Man Singh would be informed.

‘And what arms have these twenty-seven men got?’ he next

inquired.

‘As you know, huzoor, all the police squads in this area are
specially trained men. They are either of ex-army stock, or come
from the Armed Reserve. And every detachment is accompanied
by an automatic weapon unit, with two tommy guns. The rest of
the men will have service rifles; and of course the Sub-Inspector
will have his revolver.

Chandra could not help smiling at the meticulous reply

furnished by his subordinate.

‘And can we get boats to cross the river without telling the
owners in advance, or asking their permission? That is most
important, Inspector Sahib. As you know, this badmash (bad
man) has his agents everywhere; I have no doubt even among the
boatmen. They would inform him if they had the slightest hint as
to our movements.’

Gulab Singh thought again. Then he said, ‘There will be two or

three small boats always tied up at a place called Kenchen. It is a
point half-a-mile upstream. The river takes a bend there and
becomes narrower. You will see it if you look at the map, Sir.’

Chandra began to study the map on the desk before him.

 Then the Inspector added, ‘But they are small boats, huzoor,
and might hold ten men at the most—certainly not twenty-seven.’

‘How many boats are kept there normally?’ asked Chandra.

‘Maybe two or three,’ said the Inspector. ‘I can find out exactly,
if your honour wishes.’

‘Tch!—don’t do that,’ Chandra replied, testily. ‘Your inquiries

would probably excite suspicion. We will have to chance our luck.
If there are less than three boats, we will have to come back for
the men who are left behind. And there won’t be only twenty-
seven men, Gulab Singh,’ he continued, meaningly, ‘there will be
twenty-nine. For you and I are going on this little jaunt. I intend
to see this thing through, myself.’

There was another silence as Chandra looked alternately at the

map and at the calendar.

‘Today is Saturday, the 10th,’ he mused aloud. ‘We have five

days to go before the new moon which will be on Thursday, the
15th, according to the calendar. So we must act on the 12th, 13th
or 14th, eh. The Old Man wants action soon. In fact, the sooner
the better.

‘Suppose we fix Monday the 12th?’ he queried, looking up at his

subordinate as if expecting a reply.

‘What is in your mind, Sir?’ asked the Inspector, innocently.

A look of annoyance flitted across Chandra’s countenance

momentarily. Then he remembered he had been thinking and
talking to himself and not to Gulab Singh. So he started to
elaborate on his plan aloud.

‘Now listen attentively, Inspector. Nobody should be told in

advance about this move, do you understand? Not even the Sub-
Inspector and the policemen who are to accompany us. Their
tongues might wag and the information leak out. If that happens,
the expedition is doomed to failure. Worse still, we might be
ambushed,’ and he looked up meaningly. ‘Therefore, only you and
I, and no other living soul, knows about this.’

‘Now tomorrow, which is Sunday the 11th, you and I will start
on a tour of inspection of all out posts in this area. It will be just a
regular inspection and nothing else. But we will call it a ‘surprise
check’. We shall arrange to reach Raoti somewhat late on the
afternoon of Monday the 12th. There, we will carry out a rather
thorough inspection. We will check the men, their equipment,
their camp, their uniforms, and even inquire into the quality of
the rations they are being given to eat.

‘We will do all this leisurely. I will be exceptionally strict and

ask a dozen questions. You do the same. Between us, we will make
it too late to push on to the next outpost that evening.

‘So I shall call the Sub-Inspector, berate him for the several
faults I have managed to unearth, and blame him for being the
cause of detaining us. I shall say to him something like this, ‘Sub-
Inspector, because of all these things that I have found, it has
become too late for the Inspector and me to move on tonight. Due
to you, and you alone, we must stay here till morning. So, pitch a
tent which the Inspector and I will share tonight. And prepare
dinner, for we are hungry. And don’t forget to wake us up at crack
of dawn tomorrow. We must be on our way before sunrise.

‘Having said all this to discomfort that unfortunate officer, we

will have dinner and retire early.

‘But not to sleep, Inspector.

‘At exactly midnight, I shall call you. You, in turn, will awaken
the S.I. and bring him to our tent. Then, and only then, shall I
acquaint him with what is to happen.
 ‘By two o’clock we should have the men ready, with arms and
ammunition, and prepare to move.

‘The problem of preparing and taking food with us for the next
three days is decidedly ticklish, Gulab Singh. I mean the three
days for which I plan the expedition to last. We dare not tell the
camp cook overnight to prepare chappatties. His activities would
excite suspicion and he may talk. We could chance it that there
might be something in the eating-line ready in the kitchen. But it
would be quite insufficient for one thing; and knowing these cooks
as I do, I doubt there would be any eatables on hand. You must
bear in mind that the men will have to hide in the ravines all the
next day and move again at night. And continue doing this for the
following two days.

‘Yes, this question of food is one hell of a problem, Inspector.

Does any solution occur to you?’

Gulab Singh racked his brain. After some minutes, he said,

‘There appears but one way out, Sir. We shall have to get the
police cooks here, at Bhind, to start preparing chappatties right
away—hundreds of them. Sufficient for twenty-nine men for three
days. These chappatties we will have to take along with us in the
back of the jeep when we set out tomorrow. We shall have to keep
them hidden in the jeep till the last moment and then distribute
them among the men to put into their haversacks before we
actually set forth to cross the river.

‘The chappatties will become stale, Sahib, and be as hard as

tinplates. The men will be mutinous and probably chuck them
away rather than eat what will seem like cardboard, after three
days.

‘You will surely turn into the most unpopular D.S.P. in the
whole of India after that.’ Gulab Singh could not restrain himself
from uttering this last sentence with a mirthless laugh.
 ‘I know, Inspector Sahib,’ admitted Chandra, speaking
earnestly, ‘yours is an excellent suggestion and incidentally the
only solution to the problem, for which I am grateful.
Unfortunately, we Indians don’t like tinned rations.

‘But don’t worry,’ he went on to add, ‘I shall give the men a

short pep talk before we actually set out, explaining that it was
impossible to have done anything else if we wanted to observe
complete secrecy. I shall also promise double promotion to each
man, and the equal division of the reward of fifteen thousand
rupees which is going begging for the apprehension of this Man
Singh, among the twenty-eight of you people.’

Gulab Singh acknowledged the implication in his superior

officer’s last statement with a slight nod of his wizened head and a
flitting smile.

‘How many chappatties are the cooks to prepare, Sahib?’ he

asked, instead.

‘I intend to eat the same as the rest of you’, replied Chandra.

‘Let us do some mental arithmetic, then. Twenty-nine men, for
three days, at, say ten chappatties a day for all meals. What does
that work out to?’

He did some silent calculation.

‘Eight hundred and seventy chappatties; my God! Do you think

the cooks could prepare that much here in the short time left to
them? They will have to work like hell; and all night.’

‘Surely, Sahib; and the sooner we start them off, the better. Are
there any more instructions your honour wishes to give before I go
along and set the cooks to work?’

‘Let me think a minute,’ said Chandra, slowly. ‘The general

idea is to cross the Chambal that night; hide ourselves in the
ravines next day while keeping a sharp lookout for any of the
dacoits on the move; creep forward again the following night and
hide once more the next day; and repeat the same thing on the
third day.

‘By then, if our luck is any good, we may stumble upon

something or someone. Even if we do not succeed in finding their
headquarters, should we capture one of them we might be able to
bribe him—or, if necessary, force him to lead us to where this Man
Singh himself hides out.

‘But we won’t be able to stay for more than three days I suppose,
with those chappatties becoming drier each day, Oh,’ and he
looked up, remembering something, ‘don’t forget to make the men
fill their water bottles before we start. They will certainly be
needed. In fact, we may run short of water.’

Chandra stopped talking and mopped the perspiration that was

streaming down his face with his handkerchief.

‘Damned hellhole!’ he muttered darkly, ‘if it is like this now,

what must we have to endure when summer comes? I wish to God I
had never been sent to this bloody place.’

It was, indeed, oppressively hot.

Gulab Singh himself had suddenly found the room very sultry.
Then he noticed that the punkah above their heads had stopped
moving.

‘The punkah has stopped, huzoor,’ he explained, ‘the wretched

cooly must have fallen asleep.’

Both men walked out on to the verandah. The punkah-cooly,

dressed only in a loincloth about his waist, was curled up on the
bare stone floor, sound asleep.
 ‘Wake up, you swine!’ said Chandra, prodding the recumbent
figure with the toe of his boot. ‘Is this the way in which you do
your job?’

The man sat up and blinked his eyes against the glare of the sun
outside.

‘Balah,’ admonished Gulab Singh, ‘I have warned you many

times before not to sleep at your post. I shall fine you eight annas
for this.’

The cooly seized the end of the punkah rope in both his hands
and started pulling it for all he was worth. There was an
expression of injured innocence on his face. The pulley creaked
with the movement, and the punkah swayed jerkily.

* * *

The chappatties took till noon next day to complete. Gulab Singh
wrapped them in pages of newspaper, which in turn were packed
into tarpaulin groundsheets and then tied up.

It took three such small tarpaulin sheets to hold the lot, and
filled the rear seat of the jeep to capacity.

The D.S.P. and he then set out on their inspection tour. It was
nearly two o’clock by the time they left.

They inspected two outposts that evening, camped the night in

a Travellers’ Bungalow, and continued their inspection the
following morning, which was Monday, the 12th.

Three more units were checked. Then followed Monday’s

midday meal. It was 3.30 p.m. exactly when the jeep came to a
halt at Raoti.
 The Sub-Inspector in charge of the police unit turned out of his
tent, half-dressed, to greet his superior officers. The visit had been
entirely a surprise.

‘Good afternoon, Sub-Inspector,’ greeted Chandra in his most

official manner, ‘I have come on a surprise check. Get yourself
dressed, and the men. I shall give you ten minutes.’

‘But I received no intimation that your honour was coming,’

complained the S.I., indignation and apprehension vying each
other, plainly, in the expression on his face.

‘Exactly,’ answered Chandra curtly, ‘that is what I meant when

I said “surprise check” just now. So, hurry up.’

Gulab Singh turned aside to hide the smile that he could hardly
suppress. The Sub-Inspector’s obvious discomfiture at their sudden
visit, was almost pathetic.

Ten minutes later the men had fallen in in three ranks with
their rifles. The Sub-Inspector stood before them.

‘Squad, “shun!” he ordered.

The policemen sprang to attention.

Then, ‘Slope arms!’; and finally;

‘Present arms!’

The D.S.P. returned the salute and made the appropriate

approach by walking up to the paraded men; Inspector Gulab
Singh following in his rear.

The Sub-Inspector saluted, and Chandra returned the salute.

‘All right, Sub-Inspector’, he ordered, ‘I will now inspect the

men.’
 ‘Squad, slope arms!’

The men sloped arms, and Chandra began walking down the
front rank. Behind him followed Gulab Singh; and behind him
again, the Sub-Inspector.

Under such conditions, it was not difficult for a martinet to find

fault. And Chandra proved himself to be a real martinet, that day.

‘When did you last polish your buttons?’ he asked one constable.

‘Whose uniform are you wearing? It is much too big for you.’

‘Boots are meant to be polished. Do you ever do that?’

The rear ranks fared even worse.

When the parade had finally been dismissed, Chandra held an

armoury inspection, a kit inspection, a tent inspection, and
finally a ration check.

It was after five o’clock when he had at last got through. The
unfortunate Sub-Inspector had been wishing for the past hour or so
that the earth would open suddenly and swallow him up; or,
better still, that this bastard of a D.S.P, would drop dead.

But neither eventuality happened.

‘A very poor show; very poor, indeed,’ said Chandra, pursing his
lips and looking witheringly at the exhausted S.I. ‘That is why I
always conduct surprise checks. They show up faults that would
never otherwise come to light.’

The tired S.I. did not comment.

Chandra then looked at his watch and allowed his countenance

to register alarm. He shook his wrist and then held the watch to
his ear.
 ‘Great Heavens,’ he exclaimed, aghast, ‘my watch shows a
quarter-past five o’clock! Is that right, Inspector?’

Gulab Singh made a show of consulting his wristwatch in turn.

Then he said plainly, ‘That time is correct, huzoor. The inspection
has, indeed, taken very long.’

‘I should bloody well think it would,’ retorted Chandra,

quickly, ‘with everything wrong or improper in some form or the
other.’

Then he turned to the S.I., and glared at him.

‘Sub-Inspector Tulak Ram’, he spoke, acidly, ‘it has become too

late for me to move on tonight, because of all this delay; and you
are responsible for it, entirely.

‘Have a tent pitched. The Inspector and I will share it. And
prepare khana (food) for both of us. We will rest here and move on
tomorrow at dawn. Call me without fail at five o’clock.’

If the S.I. had looked disconsolate before, his face was now a
study in dismay.

My God, he was thinking, is this accursed man going to stay

here all tonight?

‘Well?’ Chandra’s question broke in, icily, upon his thoughts.

Tulak Ram struggled manfully to recover his composure.

At last he said, ‘There is no spare tent,’ adding hastily, ‘but you

will flatter me, Sir, if you and the Inspector would be pleased to
occupy mine. I will sleep with the sargeants tonight. And khana
shall certainly be prepared.’
 It took hardly ten minutes for the S.I. to remove his belongings
from his tent. Gulab Singh drove the jeep up and parked it near the
entrance so that nobody would nose around and wonder what the
tarpaulins at the rear might contain. Then he entered the tent,
after Chandra.

‘Poor devil,’ the latter was saying in an undertone, ‘he must be

hating me, like hell.’

‘I have no doubt he is wishing your honour was dead,’

commented Gulab Singh in a matter-of-fact voice.

And they both laughed.

Dinner was served in the tent punctually at eight o’clock.

Half-an-hour later, Tulak Ram dutifully presented himself at the

entrance.

‘A hot bath has been prepared and is ready for both of you, Sirs,’
he announced, ‘may I instruct my orderly to bring it to the
bathroom at the rear?’

‘Thank you,’ said Chandra gracefully, ‘that was thoughtful and

kind of you, Tulak Ram, but I hope the water in these parts is
clear.’

The S.I. did not acknowledge the thanks with even a smile;
while the look he gave the D.S.P. was distinctly hostile.

They both bathed, in succession.

Soon after nine o’clock, the S.I. came again and inquired if there
was anything more they wanted. Chandra said, ‘No, thanks.’

At 10 p.m. the police bugler sounded the ‘Last Post’ and the
camp fell into darkness.
 There was only a single camp cot—the Sub-Inspector’s—in the
tent, on which Chandra lay down. A rope charpoy borrowed from
one of the sergeants, had been provided for the Inspector.

‘Take a nap, Gulab Singh,’ Chandra whispered across to his

companion on the other charpoy. ‘I am not feeling sleepy. I shall
call you at midnight.’

The Inspector was tired and fell asleep almost at once. It seemed
to him hardly five minutes later when he felt a hand shaking him
by the shoulder.

He opened his eyes. It was pitch-dark. Then he remembered

where he was. Standing over him he could feel somebody shaking
him; gently but persistently.

It was Chandra, and he was saying, ‘Gulab Singh, wake up; it is

ten minutes to twelve o’clock.’

The Inspector sat up on the charpoy, yawned, and stretched

both arms above his head.

‘Now go to the other tent and fetch the S.I. And as you are
about it, you might as well call the two sergeants who are sleeping
with him. I will outline the plan to the three of them when they
get here.’

Gulab Singh got up from the charpoy. He slipped his feet into his
boots for fear of treading on a cobra or saw-scaled viper in the
darkness, but did not lace them. Then he left the tent.

He walked across the few yards that separated them from the
neighbouring tent occupied by the sergeants where he knew Tulak
Ram was sleeping, entered, took out his matchbox from the breast
pocket of his khaki tunic, and struck a match.
 He could make out a figure sleeping on a charpoy. Two others
lay on the floor.

The man on the charpoy appeared to be having a nightmare. He

was muttering incoherently in a high-pitched key. Gulab Singh
thought he recognised the S.I.’s voice.

Probably he was dreaming of some demon, with the face of the

D.S.P. hotly pursuing him. Gulab Singh smiled to himself at the
thought.

The match he held between his fingers commenced to burn him.

He threw it down, struck another, and approached the dreamer.

The flickering light revealed that he had been correct. It was

indeed Tulak Ram. And he was undoubtedly having a nightmare.

And then the second match went out.

Gulab Singh reached downwards and shook the S.I. gently. It

took some minutes to wake him up.

Then the Inspector struck a third match and whispered to the

astonished Tulak Ram that the D.S.P. wanted him and the two
sergeants to come to his tent immediately.

The S.I. could contain his indignation no longer. He muttered

aloud, ‘What! In the middle of the night! Can’t the bugger even
sleep? This is unendurable. I shall tell this bugger tomorrow
morning that he can stick this job where the monkey stuck the
plum. I’m resigning; first thing in the morning.’

Gulab Singh chuckled aloud.

‘Okay; okay,’ he spoke soothingly; ‘but see what he wants, first.

Maybe you will change your mind after that.’
 ‘No bloody fears,’ retorted the S.I., now thoroughly exasperated,
‘this D.S.P. is the kind of feller I would like to meet on a dark night
on a lonely road. He won’t be fit after that, in a hurry, for any
more of his blasted surprise checks. Damn his bloody eyes!’

But he got up, and woke both the sergeants, one after the other.

The four of them trooped across to the D.S.P.’s tent in a bunch.

The lantern had been lighted and was burning dimly.

They found Chandra seated on the edge of the camp cot

awaiting them. Tulak Ram made a mental note of the fact that
the wooden rod of his camp cot, upon which the D.S.P. was
sitting, was actually bending under his weight and in momentary
danger of breaking in two. Would this pig pay for it if it snapped?
Assuredly not. Beneath his breath he cursed the officer afresh.

He also saluted, half-heartedly.

‘Be seated, boys,’ Chandra spoke affably, ‘you may smoke if you
wish while I let you into a little secret.’

Look at this blighter, Tulak Ram was thinking to himself. He

sends the Inspector in the middle of the night to wake and call me,
and then has the nerve to tell us to smoke if we want. Who the
hell thought of bringing cigarettes, anyhow?

As if he was able to divine the hostile thoughts that flowed from

his subordinate, Chandra stuck his hand into the pocket of his
bush-coat and fished out a packet of Gold Flake cigarettes,
followed by a round, nickel-plated army lighter, and offered them
to his subordinates in turn.

They each took a cigarette. Chandra helped himself also. Then

the lighter was passed from hand to hand, and within a minute
the narrow confines of the tent was filled with the haze of tobacco
smoke.
 The secret is just this. My visit of inspection last afternoon was
no inspection at all. It was only done to provide an excuse for my
coming here late in the afternoon, and for remaining overnight
with you.

‘Particularly to you. Sub Inspector Tulak Ram, do I owe an

apology for my churlish behaviour all afternoon. But I had to
make it appear that everything was wrong in the camp in order to
delay my inspection to the point that it grew too late to depart
and I would be forced to spend the night here. Actually, Tulak
Ram, you have a fine show here and have organised matters very
creditably. I shall make a report to this effect just as soon as I get
back to headquarters.

‘The D.I.G. is raising hell about this Man Singh feller because he
is still at large and we cannot catch him.

‘So, as soon as I am through outlining details of the plan to you

now, we will silently awaken the men, issue arms and
ammunition, and start off on an expedition which is to last for
three days.

‘We will go down to the Chambal River and cross it in boats

which, the Inspector tells me, will be moored at the point where
the river takes a bend—Kenchen, is it not, Gulab Singh?’

The Inspector nodded his head in the dim light and Chandra
went on.

‘We will cross very silently and penetrate as far as possible into
the ravines. But at the first indication of dawn we shall hide
ourselves in some ravine or cave. Before that, we will post a
couple of men to watch carefully during the hours of daylight that
follow.

‘Without being seen themselves, they should keep a careful

lookout for bands of dacoits moving in any direction or towards
any particular place.

‘Our whole purpose is to try to discover the lair where this Man
Singh character hides out, make a lightning raid on it, and capture
or kill him.

‘If nothing happens that first day, we will advance again a little
farther in among the ravines the second night and hide once more
when daylight comes. And so also for the third night and day.

‘If we have seen no one, or captured nobody during those three

days, we will return on the fourth night. Secrecy won’t much
matter then. When we reach the river we will have to swim two or
three of our men across to return with the boats.

‘That is the scheme, in general.

‘There are some details which we must now go into.

‘The first is this. After we have all crossed tonight, two or three
men must go back with the boats. It will not do for the owners,
next morning to find that their boats have mysteriously crossed
the river during the night. They will raise an alarm which might
get to Man Singh’s ears, and he will be astute enough to know a
police party had effected a crossing.

‘This is a point we completely overlooked hitherto, Inspector,’

added Chandra, addressing Gulab Singh. ‘Since you said a boat
would not hold more than ten men, we shall need three boats, and
that will require three men to bring them back to the mooring
place. And we cannot afford to delay on the further bank waiting
for the three men to swim back to us. So our party won’t be
twenty-nine strong as we thought originally, but will only have
twenty-six men.

Turning to the Sub-Inspector, he continued. ‘It was not

advisable, for reasons of security, to inform you in advance, Tulak
Ram. The same holds good as regards the preparation and taking
of food with us. So the Inspector and I have brought 870
chappaties, prepared by the police cooks at Bhind, along with us
which you will find stored at the back of the jeep. This is the
ration for the full three days and was to be divided among the
twenty-nine of us. Now that there will be only twenty-six, we will
have a couple more of them to go round.

‘I know that they will be very stale and very dry, by the third
day. But that cannot be helped.

‘However; I can assure you of this, Sub-Inspector. If we succeed

in capturing or killing Man Singh within the next three days,
every man jack of us will receive a double promotion. Also, I will
see to it that the reward of Rs. 15,000 that stands for the arrest of
Man Singh or the surrender of his dead body, is evenly distributed
among the twenty-eight of you.

‘Now, Tulak Ram. You must first pick out the three men who
are to bring back the boats tonight. And also ensure that there are
three good swimmers amongst the other twenty-three, for those
three men will have to swim across to fetch the boats to us for our
return journey.

‘Distribute arms, and at least 100 rounds of ammunition each,

to the men who are to cross, including the tommy gun unit who
must have ample reserves. Inspector Gulab Singh will give you the
chappaties, which should be issued thirty-three to a man. And
everybody should carry a full water bottle. That is very, very
important.

‘No noise is to be made in waking the men—no talking—no

explanations—no lights—and the least possible delay.

‘It is now past 12.30 a.m.,’ Chandra said, consulting the dial of
his wristwatch. The men must fall in and be ready to march, fully
equipped, by two o’clock. The three men who bring back the boats
will come back to the camp and assist the permanent chowkidar
to look after the things that are here till the expedition returns.

‘I will address the men briefly for a few minutes and explain
what is afoot before we start off,’ Chandra added, ‘by 2.05 a.m.,
on the dot, we must move, Sub-Inspector. So go to it at once; and
you, Gulab Singh, please help him.’

It was past 2.10 a.m., however, before the D.S.P., had finished
addressing the assembled constables in an undertone and
explaining the whole plan to them.

They moved off after that in single file, to minimise making a

noise, each man walking close behind the one in front of him.

The Sub-Inspector led, as he knew the way. Then followed the

D.S.P., the Inspector, and the two tommy gunners with one of the
sergeants. After that the twenty-two constables were strung out,
including the three men who were to return with the empty boats.
The remaining sergeants brought up the rear.

They moved diagonally cross-country in the direction of their

embarking point at Kenchen, rather than make directly for the
river.

After about an hour’s walking, they came to a footpath that,

Tulak Ram whispered, led from the village of Raoti, some five
miles away, to the very point of crossing, at Kenchen, for which
they were making. Progress was a bit easier after that, and more
silent.

Not twenty minutes later the S.I. halted them, and then crept
forward himself silently to the landing stage, to ascertain how
many boats were actually moored there, and if anyone was
watching them.
 Ten minutes after that he was back with the good news that five
small boats, in all, were moored to the bank, and that not a soul
was with them. A glowing tribute, indeed, to the absolute trust
and regard that existed between the owners and Man Singh and
his followers.

Chandra congratulated himself on the extreme precautions he

had taken to keep the whole expedition a secret—down to the
ridiculous point of preparing 870 chappaties in advance and
having to cart them along with him from Bhind.

What chance would there have been otherwise, when such

feelings of good-fellowship existed between the local folk and this
crafty gangster? They would assuredly have conveyed to him every
single move made by the police party if they had come to know of
it. Small wonder previous expeditions had failed, or ended in
disaster! No doubt the officers who had planned them had not
attended to such small details personally and as closely as he had.
Not taken such infinite pains to keep their movements a secret till
literally the very last moment.

The Old Man would be very pleased with him, Chandra

thought. And Chandra was very pleased with himself.

The party approached the moored boats.

All five of the craft were identical in construction and capacity.

Just ordinary river boats crudely made from cut planks put
together almost anyhow. And they certainly would not hold more
than ten men in each.

Three of the boats were untied and pushed into the water, and
the three men who were to pole them back were assigned
accordingly, one to each boat.

Then the three police officers, one sergeant, the two tommy
gunners and three constables got into the craft which was to cross
first; nine constables got into the second boat; and the remaining
sergeant and seven men into the third boat.

In that order they commenced crossing the river, each boat

being poled along silently by means of the long bamboo with
which it was equipped. Less than ten yards separated the craft
from each other.

It was very very dark, and the water looked black and
forbidding.

They were within perhaps twenty yards of the opposite bank

when it happened, swiftly and all of a sudden without any
warning whatever.

As if from they very depths of the river itself, a giant octopus

seemed to reach up and seize each craft on its port side, with
many tentacles.

And that was the side from which the current was flowing.

At least, that is what it appeared was happening, as Chandra

watched for a split second while the boat he was in heeled over
dangerously to the left.

As the gunwale of the boat on that side was forced still closer to
the river’s surface, the mystery of the apparent octopus was
explained.

The tentacles that had come out of the water and had looked so
black were human arms. As the boat canted still closer to the
water human heads came into view, bobbing out of the river in a
line—about twenty of them to each boat, at least.

There were men in the water. And they were all pulling upon
the sides of each of the boats—and on the same side, to port. The
boats would capsize in a second or two.
 One word rang in the D.S.P.’s brain—it was ‘Dacoits’!

Hastily, Chandra grabbed his revolver from its holster and fired
at point-blank range at one of those heads. The head disappeared
beneath the surface of the river.

And simultaneously the boat he was in turned over and they

were thrown into the water.

Of what exactly happened after that, Chandra had little clear

recollection.

He heard yells of pain and curses of rage all around him. The
water churned and frothed with intense activity. He caught
glimpses of steel as knives flashed aloft and screams of agony
followed when they descended. There came the dull thud of blows
being administered and the sickening crack of human skulls.

Something heavy descended on his head with terrific force, and

he remembered no more.

It was broad daylight when Chandra regained consciousness.

There was an acute pain at the back of his skull. He tried to raise
his hands to discover what was wrong, but found he could not, for
both hands were tied behind him.

He was alone and there was no sign of any of his companions.

Chandra looked about him. He was lying under a glade of trees

beneath which tents had been pitched. Men were sitting in groups
beside them, talking. Around him, in a circle, appeared a
continuous ridge of rocky cliffs and boulder-strewn hillocks.

Then a voice rang out.

‘Look brothers; the policeman is awake.’

 A group of men surrounded him, and he at once knew them for
what they were.

Dacoits of Man Singh’s band.

As he gazed at them, their circle at one end broke and two men
strode forward.

The first was an outstanding figure. He was an old man with a

high forehead. He had a flowing beard, whiskers and huge
moustache.

Often enough had Chandra read that description of its owner

upon whom he was now gazing—and over and over again had he
studied and memorized it. He knew he was face to face with the
redoubtable Rajah Man Singh, himself.

The other man who walked behind the leader was carrying an
army-model tommy gun in the crook of his right arm. There was
nothing outstanding about this second man, beyond the fact that
he scowled fiercely down at the police officer.

‘Salaam, D.S.P. Sahib,’ greeted Man Singh in his musical voice.

‘You wanted so much to see me, and here I am.

‘Incidentally, Sahib, you are the second policeman to ever reach

my secret hiding place. I congratulate you both; you are brave
men.

‘The first died; shot, whether you care to believe me or not, by a

policeman himself and not by one of my men. Of course it was an
accident. But I came to like that man. His name was Katar Singh,
an Inspector in the C.I.D.

‘Now, you too must die, Sahib; and in your case you will have
to be shot by one of my followers. For it is forbidden for a
policeman to look upon my secret headquarters, and live.
 ‘But, because you are an officer and a brave man who did his
duty well, you shall not be tortured, Sahib. You will be killed
outright. After all, each one of us must die at some time or the
other, and my own turn will follow when it has been appointed to
take place. You merely go before me, Sahib; that is all.

‘Before you go, I will let you into a secret. Your plans were
perfect, and no doubt you must be wondering how we came to
learn of them in advance and were able to ambush you.’

Then Man Singh turned, and called aloud twice, ‘Balah! Balah!’

A little individual broke through the group of encircling men

and advanced timidly. He wore a dirty cotton waist cloth and was
bare-bodied.

Gazing down upon the D.S.P., he salaamed respectfully.

It was Balah, the punkah cooly, who had stopped pulling the
punkah because they thought he had fallen asleep.

As if to clarify any doubt, the almost naked small man said,

‘That’s why I couldn’t pull the punkah, Sahib; because I was at
the door, listening.’

Chandra mused—so, his spies are stationed at police Inspector’s

offices—perhaps there is one even near the D.I.G.!

But further cogitation was interrupted by a short burst of fire

from the tommy gun in the hands of the bodyguard who had
accompanied Man Singh.

And Chandra never knew the answer to his thoughts.

 5

The Rich Landlord and the Poor Maiden

ALITA was her name; and it is a beautiful name, no matter in

L what language it may be spoken. Lalita was a Hindu girl, and
she was as pretty as her name.

She was only sixteen years old. But girls mature early in India
due to the climate, often at the age of 11 years. (Their parents seek
a mate for them then, entering into protracted negotiations with
the father and mother of the prospective bridegroom. The boy and
girl concerned have themselves nothing whatever to do with it.
Their consent is not asked, or taken. They have only to obey their
respective parents’ behests in the matter of matrimony, and the
choice of a mate for them.

The boy who rebels against this custom is ignominiously turned

out of the home and becomes an outcaste from his family forever.
The girl who offers objection is in still worse plight. Frequently,
she is beaten into submission.)

Despite the apparent disadvantage of this system, it also brings

its own benefits. Flirtations and promiscuous love between boy
and girl is rarely known. The type of woman available to any man
for sex before his marriage, and even thereafter, if it should to
that, other than his legal wife, is the professional prostitute. And
this last type of women are very few in compared to the
population of women as a whole and the total population of the
land.

Secondly, it ensures that a husband has a virgin for a wife on his

wedding night. This is something that is often uncertain in other
lands. The Indian wife who, on her honeymoon night, is found to
be unchaste, is invariably turned out by her husband the
following morning.

Thirdly, the parents on both sides, in the interests of their

respective offspring, aim to procure the best possible partner for
their daughter—or son—available the circumstances as regards
social status, respectability financial background, personal
appearances, education general abilities.

Fourthly, the couple when married, realising the tremendous

amount of effort, search and negotiation that went into the
arrangements before their marriage become a ‘fait accompli’,
invariably make the best of circumstances, prompted by the fear
of offending parents and the remaining members of both the
families should they behave otherwise, and mutually strive to
make the marriage a success.

Separations and desertions are very rare, and divorces

practically unknown.

Unfortunately, in Western countries with their complete

freedom of individual thought and action, it is very different; and
broken homes are becoming an increasingly common feature.

Another factor that appears to act very powerfully keeping the

home together in India, is that the husband is accepted as
complete master of the household, and wife is subservient to his
wishes and command. The emancipation of women has not
become the menace it might well prove to be when they get over-
emancipated! Very rarely, indeed, is an Indian housewife to be
found who dares to act differently to her husband’s ideas and
injunctions.

No doubt Western readers, particularly of the fair sex, who may

scan these lines, will hold up their hands in horror and express
their unstinted disagreement with and disapproval of these Indian
customs. Please remember, fair ladies, I am just telling you about
things as they are in India, and am not entering into any
argument with you about the right or wrong, fairness or
otherwise, of these practices. So, please don’t quarrel with me
over it. You are entitled to your opinion and the Indians to theirs.
For the matter of that, so am I to mine. But you would not be
interested, anyhow, in the latter.

Let no one think that the negotiations undertaken by a girl’s—or

a boy’s—parents, in seeking a mate for their child, are simple and
easy. Very very far from it on the contrary. There are so many
things to be considered.

The girl’s parents have to prepare themselves to bestow a gift of

money, jewellery, or land in the form of a dowry, with their
daughter. It is not very hard for you to imagine that, the greater
the dowry the more eligible must the bridegroom, whose parents
are attracted by it, qualify himself to be. If the boy is in
Government service, it carries a very high degree of desirability to
procure him as a husband and son-in-law. For one thing, he will
draw a pension for his lifetime when he retires at the age of 55
years. For another, he cannot be sacked or retrenched. Dismissal
from Government service only arises under two contingencies. The
first of these is dishonesty. Under this heading may be clubbed
embezzlement, robbery, the acceptance of bribes and other
financial chicanery. The second is the commitment of physical
assault, with violence. For instance, a Government servant may
be sacked if he should hit the boss, or his co-worker, over the head
with the office stool. Even then the constitution of the country,
which seeks to protect the underdog from exploitation in any
form, provides an elaborate system of chargesheeting, and the
opportunity for explanation, and so forth. The offender, with
some astuteness, still has chances to go free if he can prove the
boss fell on the stool, and not the stool on the boss. So, a
Government servant for a bridegroom, is indeed a marvellous
‘catch’.
 But should such a prize not be readily available, the next best
substitute is sought in the person of the son of some rich man who
is in business, or owns houses or land.

Another all-important factor in selecting a suitable partner is

that of caste. Both husband and wife should invariably belong to
the same community and caste. This is a very practical outlook,
for a wife of higher caste would look down on her husband, and
vice versa.

Then comes the horoscope. The exact moment of the birth of

each Indian child, be it boy or girl, is very carefully and
accurately recorded. According to the time, day and month of
birth, professional experts cast a ‘horoscope’ in keeping with the
principles and precepts of Indian Astrology. The planets are said to
influence every moment of that child’s lifetime, from birth to
death. His or her lucky days are foretold; the whole future
carefully forecast and recorded. This practice is followed in the
case of every baby; boy or girl; of all except the very poorest
classes.

Now it is not difficult to realise that the horoscopes of the pair

to be married should agree, for it would never do to unite a couple
whose ‘bad’ and ‘good’ days were different. Indeed, it would be
absolutely disastrous for a wife’s stars to be in the ascendant at the
very time those of her spouse were on the wane, would it not? The
Indians are, indeed, a practical people!

On the boy’s side; apart from trying to procure a bride who

brings with her the maximum dowry in cash or kind his parents
try to find the qualities of education, fair complexion, good looks,
modesty housekeeping abilities, and all other virtues combined in
the girl of their choice. Every Indian girl is a good cook by training
from very young so that the culinary aspect presents no problem in
particular.
 Very naturally, all this takes some looking for—and finding—on
both sides.

I have taken you a long way from the main theme of my story
and pretty little Lalita, but it is necessary that those of you who
read these lines and have never lived in India should both
understand and realise the root cause of the trouble with the girl.

Lalita had everything it takes by Western standards to make an

attractive wife. She was a pretty girl, with unusually brilliant
grey-green eyes, enchanting eyelashes, and delightfully
provocative slightly thick pink lips. Her budding young breasts
strained rebelliously against the confinement imposed by her
cotton jacket, and appeared as if they would at any time burst
their bonds. Their softly rounded fleshy curves and the deep cleft
in between the jutting hillocks made passers-by stop and stare; the
young men with hope and anticipation, and the old with regret
that Father Time had been so exacting with them.

Each morning Lalita would carry her heavy brass water-pot to

the community well in the centre of the village, fill it and then
balance it gracefully against her hip. With a swaying, rhythmic
motion she would wend her way to the little hut she shared with
her mother and two younger sisters, empty the water-pot, and
then return to the well for a second supply. The youths would eye
her lustfully on such journeys and the women in envy of her
natural charm and grace.

Above all, Lalita had a vivacious and determined disposition.

But by Indian standards, at least so far as a ‘respectable’

marriage was concerned, Lalita was not so well off.

To begin with she was a Harijan, one of the ‘untouchable’ or

low-caste community who, up to quite recent years had been
considered social outcastes of the baser order, and who were not
allowed to marry above their own status.
 Secondly, she had two elder sisters, and in providing the
necessary dowries to get them married, her father had dissipated
his slender resources as a petty merchant in a tiny, box-booth
store.

Then he had died, leaving her mother in debt and herself and
her two younger sisters unprovided for, with no hopes of any
money to afford even the meagrest of dowries for any of them
when their turn came to get married.

Well did Lalita remember her mother weeping over the dead
body of her father, bemoaning his sudden demise, and loudly
expressing her wish that she had died instead, rather than be left
behind with three female children and the prospect of house rent
to be paid to the landlord each month with no money coming in.

Bukthi, the landlord was a rich man; yes, very very rich indeed.
Not only did he own over a quarter of the number of houses and
huts in the village of Alamgarh itself, but he also owned some
hundreds of acres of land surrounding it. He rented the houses,
and the lands, to the villagers, and was most exacting when it
came to the question of collecting rents from them. He would
accept no excuse for delay should the monsoon fail and the crops
die and the ryots be unable to pay him. Bukthi would just
summon the band of hired ruffians he called his servants and
instruct them to bodily throw the defaulter out on the road. The
question of the farmer and his family thereafter starving to death
was no concern of his.

The same principle applied to the tenants of the many houses

owned by him. No tolerance or mercy was ever extended. The
defaulter was put out on the street the very day after his rent
became due if he could not pay it. If he dared to complain,
Bukthi’s servants would beat him, half to death.
 When Lalita’s father, Mendhe, had died, the house rent had
become due. After paying for his ceremonial cremation her
mother, Sita, had just been able to clear it. Thereafter, she had
struggled hard to keep abreast of her debtors, but had slowly
succumbed to the unequal contest.

Last month, for the first time, the rent had fallen into arrears.
Bukthi had come to collect, and he now stood at the door.

He was a fat man too, yes very, very fat. His double chin gave
his small head the impression of being connected to his barrel-
shaped body directly, without the presence of necessity of a neck
at all. His huge belly overflowed the waist band of his dhoti and
covered it in folds of flabby flesh. His breasts, even bigger than a
woman’s, were two sagging appendages, black hair between them
and dank with a layer of perspiration, for the morning was warm
and Bukthi was angry at not having been paid his rent which was
due. A thin, muslin dhoti encased his elephantine thighs and was
wound in between. So fine was the cloth as to be almost
transparent in the bright sunlight. The darker shape of his gross
body could be shamelessly seen through the thin material, for it
was the only article of clothing he wore. He was bare-footed.
Horizontal caste marks across his forehead from temple to temple
proclaimed his superior lineage and social standing.

‘Oh, miserable woman, where art thou?’ he bawled, standing

outside the door of the little brick-and-mud hut, and shouting
lustily.

Sita heard and recognised the voice and her heart missed a beat
for fear. Was it not cruel enough to lose her husband without being
left penniless in addition? This fat monster would no doubt now
order her and her three daughters out on to the street. She
trembled and felt weak at the knees as she stooped her head under
the low lintel of the doorway and went outside.
 She was a frail woman of about fifty years of age; thin and with
hair liberally streaked with grey. But her longish finely-chiselled
features and grey-green eyes revealed the source from which Lalita
had inherited her beauty. A sari, that had once been blue but was
now faded to a dirty ashy colour could hardly detract from what
would have been a stately appearance had she been dressed better.

‘Why do you keep me waiting outside like a dog.’ Bukthi

thundered. ‘I have come to collect last month’s rent due by you.’

‘I came the first time you called. Sir,’ began Sita by way of
apology ‘but…’ and her voice trailed to a halt in despair.

‘There are no ‘buts’ with me,’ barked the fat man. ‘Either you
pay your rent, or out you get. I am not running a charitable
institution.’

Tears welled in the poor woman’s eyes, brimmed over to her

careworn cheeks and trickled down the furroughed skin. One fell,
as a drop of moisture, on to the ground where it was immediately
absorbed by the parched earth.

Unconsciously, the thought crossed her mind that even the soil
in this land is cruel. It grabs at my tears and asks for more. But
then, the earth was dry and in need of moisture. This fat man
before her had lakhs of rupees; yet demanded the paltry sum she
owed of twelve rupees.

‘Please. Sir, be kind to us and have mercy,’ she pleaded, the

tears running faster now. ‘When my husband, Mendhe, was alive
he paid you regularly every month and never once defaulted. I
have no source of income or support now. Please, please give me
another month’s time in which I and my daughter may seek for
work. Then we will pay you the rent for both months due’.

The scowl on Bukthi’s face grew deeper. It was clear he was in

no mood to have mercy, or even to listen to her.
 ‘Miserable wretch!’ he almost spat out the words. ‘What care I
for you or your troubles and woes. I want my rent that is due for
last month, and what is more, I want it now. NOW, do you
understand?’ His voice rose to a frenzied scream as his fat belly
vibrated with the vehemence of his words, and his double-jowls
set up a queer trembling that he himself could not control. Bukthi
would have appeared a comical sight, indeed, on a stage setting,
had only the circumstances connected with the whole affair been
less tragic than they were in reality.

Sita could find no answer to that outburst. She commenced to

cry unrestrainedly.

Lalita had taken her brass water-pot to the village well, and
having filled it was just that moment returning with the pot
balanced as usual on her shapely right hip. She had apparently
walked faster or perhaps filled the pot to the brim. Whatever it
was, some of the water had splashed upwards and wetted the thin
cloth of the white jacket, speckled with red dots, that she was
wearing. The sodden material clung even more tightly to her
jutting right breast and revealed its contours intimately.

Lalita had heard Bukthi’s raised voice and her mother’s

weeping, long before she drew level with them. She knew the fat
landlord, both by sight and reputation. She also knew that the
previous month’s rent for the hut that Bukthi called a house, had
not been paid. She guessed that he had ordered her mother to
vacate, and being of a decidedly determined and forceful
disposition, she made up her mind to tell this loathesome fat
creature just what she thought of him. They had nothing to lose in
any case, as he would undoubtedly turn them out that very
instant.

These thoughts passed rapidly through Lalita’s pretty head, and

by that time she had reached her mother. Very carefully and
deliberately she lowered the heavy brass vessel with its contents to
the ground, and then turned to face Bukthi with flaming eyes.

‘You fat bully,’ she hissed between clenched teeth without any
preliminaries, ‘if you have anything to say, say it to me. Cannot
you see my poor mother is exhausted enough, as it is, and sick,
too, that you have to shout at her, you fat lout.’

The virulence and unexpectedness of this quite unforeseen

counter-attack fairly took the wind out of Bukthi’s sails. For some
moments he was at a loss for words. His heavy jowl dropped and
his mouth hung open in the manner of a stranded fish, gasping for
air.

The sight tickled Lalita’s sense of humour. She began to giggle;

and then laughed openly.

Her mocking laughter stung Bukthi to violent fury. By now his

eyes fairly popped out of his head. ‘You little slut,’ he stuttered,
‘mind your business or I will lay my hands on you and break your
neck this moment.’

The laughter died in Lalita’s throat. In turn, her eyes flashed fire
and her under-lip trembled uncontrollably with a woman’s desire
to cry with anger, and her own determination not to give vent to
her feelings.

A crowd of villagers had been attracted by the altercation and

were by now surrounding the three participants in a wide and
interested circle. Among them were a good number of children
and these were laughing.

Bukthi lost control of himself entirely and went berserk.

Striding forward, he swung with open palm at the girl before

him. Being a woman and unaccustomed to actual fighting, Lalita
failed to dodge or parry the blow. It caught her a thudding welt
across her face. Her ears sang with the impact and for a moment
everything vanished before her, to be replaced by a reddish-white
mist.

Then she remembered what had happened. Sobbing with fury,

she reached up and tore with her sharp nails at the leering fat face
above her, scratching furroughs of red through Bukthi’s dusky fat
skin. With both hands she tore, and scratched, and mauled. The
blood began to trickle down his face. He backed in self-defence,
while Lalita pressed forward her plucky attack.

The onlookers howled with merriment and appreciation of what

was going on before them. Not one of them had any love for the
fat landlord, and this spectacle of him getting beaten up by a
sixteen-year-old girl was something that they were enjoying to the
maximum.

As she attacked, Lalita abused her opponent roundly. And not

only him, but in the usual Eastern fashion, all his ancestors that
had gone before him. ‘Bastard-fat son of a pig and descendant of a
family of swine,’ she screeched, ‘you would dare hit a woman! I
will show you what one of my sex can do. Take this-and this-and
this.’

The crowd were laughing even louder.

In desperation Bukthi grabbed at the furiously-attacking figure

of the girl before him. His hand clutched her right breast. He felt
the pulsating softness of the flesh beneath, barely restrained by
the thin wet cloth of her jacket. Meanwhile, his face burned from
the deep scratches she had inflicted with her long, sharp nails. In
retaliation he gripped the mound of her breast in his hand and
tugged at it with all his might.

Lalita screamed with pain, while the flimsy material of her

jacket tore asunder under the strain, to reveal a completely naked
breast, topped by the plum-coloured protrusion of her nipple
surrounded by its dark-brown areola.

‘What goes on here?’ demanded a voice of authority.’ And then

the Sub-Inspector of police, who had been passing by on his
bicycle and been attracted by the crowd and the hubbub, broke
through the circle of spectators.

Bukthi looked an ugly sight with the blood streaming down his
lacerated face. Tears of temper ran down his cheeks. Lalita was
also crying, her feelings a mixture of rage, pain and shame.

A dozen tongues started wagging simultaneously as the crowd

tried to acquaint the police officer with what was happening.

‘Hold your tongues,’ he commanded; and then, turning to

Bukthi whom he already knew and did not like, said, ‘Now Sait-
jee, what explanation have you to offer for this disgraceful scene?’

‘I was but asking for the rent that is due to me and has not been
paid,’ Bukthi pleaded meekly, ‘when this vixen attacked and
started scratching me.’

‘That is a lie,’ countered Lalita between her tears, ‘he hit me

first.’ A voice from the crowd spoke up. ‘That is true, police Sahib.
I myself saw Bukthi strike her first.’

The Sub-Inspector turned to the landlord. ‘It surprises me to see

a gentleman of your status engaged in a street brawl with a mere
girl. You had both better come with me to the police station,
where I will file a case against the pair of you for causing a
disturbance to the peace.’

Bukthi saw the further humiliation that lay ahead of him

should the police book a case. He would become a laughing stock
before the Magistrate when accused of brawling with a woman on
the street. Besides, he felt the Magistrate did not like him very
much, already. Twice he had prosecuted tenants who had owed
him money on lands they had rented from him. Instead of making
them pay, or punishing them, this Magistrate had shown leniency
towards the ryots by allowing them more time. If this case came to
court, Bukthi felt the Magistrate would really take a very dim
view of it.

Like all bullies, he suddenly went to pieces when thwarted.

‘Oh, please Sir,’ he begged of the Sub-Inspector, ‘kindly excuse

me and let me off. She is to blame and I am not at fault.’

The Sub-Inspector’s lip curled in contempt. ‘So, she is to blame,

eh?’ he mocked, ‘and you are quite innocent, I suppose?’

Then he looked at Lalita, who had stopped crying. In the

excitement of the moment she had quite forgotten about her right
breast which was still exposed. The police officer glanced at it
momentarily; then rivetted his attention upon it.

Appreciatively, he sucked in his breath.

‘Sir,’ Lalita said, ‘for the matter of that, we are both to blame
equally for fighting in public. He struck me and I struck him. So
take us both to the station and lock us both up.’

A glint of admiration displaced the dim film of lust that had

been coming into the Sub-Inspector’s eyes. ‘Well spoken, girl,’ he
commented. Then, turning to Bukthi, he said in tones of deepest
derision, ‘Truly, fat man, you should be thoroughly ashamed of
yourself. Not only do you strike a woman publicly, but you cringe
for mercy and try to lay the blame on her. She, at least, accepts
her part of it; but you have not even got the guts to do that. You…
bastard!’ he muttered under his breath, repeating the word with a
very bad epithet before it to qualify precisely the nature of
‘bastard’ Bukthi was.
 Then he resumed talking, ‘Either you will apologise in my
presence and in that of this crowd, to this girl, or you will come
with me to the police station. I will allow you exactly one minute
in which to make up your mind.’

Bukthi stared dumbfounded. How could he, the great and rich
landlord, possibly apologise to this little Harijan she-devil who
had so disparaged him? But then he thought of the Magistrate, and
what further disgrace lay in store at his hands.

‘Well, time’s up,’ broke in the Sub-Inspector, ‘come along with

me; both of you.’

Bukthi made up his mind quickly. ‘Just one minute, Sir; I will
apologise’. Then, turning to Lalita, he quickly mumbled the
words, ‘I apologise,’ ungracefully.

He looked at the police officer after that, who said crisply, ‘Get
out.’

Bukthi turned and walked rapidly away. Feelings of shame,

mortification, rage and frustration tore at him, and vied strongly
with each other for supremacy.

But through and above them all, he seemed to see a small,

protruding, plum-hued, erect object. It was the nipple on Lalita’s
right breast which had been laid bare when he had torn away her
jacket. There and then he made a resolution. He determined to
humble the owner; by possessing her!

* * *

Another month passed, and strange to say Bukthi had done

nothing more about his threat to evict Sita and her three
daughters. He had not even gone near the hut they occupied.
 Sita had tried hard to find employment for herself. Remarkably,
there seemed to be none in the whole village. That appeared to be
most unusual, as other women, older than herself secured jobs in
houses and places the occupants of whom had just told her they
had no vacancies. At last, she confided her concern to an old
woman friend.

‘Amlabee,’ she said one evening, ‘why is it that I am born so

unlucky? Why is it I cannot even get a job? Others go before me
and after me. They get work. But when I ask, it is always the same
answer, ‘Sorry; no vacancy.’

Amlabee, the old crone addressed, smiled darkly, ‘It is not your
bad luck that prevents you from being employed. It is that man,
Bukthi.’ Then she leaned across confidingly to Sita. ‘Only two
nights ago the grocer, Ramdass, was here talking to my husband. I
overheard him saying that Bukthi had openly circulated
instructions far and wide that neither Sita or her daughter, Lalita,
should be given work or financially helped in any way. I intended
to tell you this before, Sita, but refrained for fear I should hurt
your feelings. He is the one who is the cause of you being
boycotted and debarred from being given a job.’

This news appalled Sita. She pondered about it for some days,
and then decided to seize the bull by the horns and tackle Bukthi
about it directly, without telling Lalita.

Next morning, she hung around the main gateway of the

mansion of a house that was Bukthi’s personal residence. At about
ten o’clock, he came out of the gate clad in a tight-fitting tussore-
silk coat, buttoned high at the neck. He wore the usual thin
muslin dhoti, and a small black cap on his head.

Now or never argued Sita to herself. She accosted him, salaamed

respectfully and then came out with what was in her mind.
‘Huzoor, why is it that you have told so many people not to give
me or my daughter employment? Rather, if you would but help us
to get work, I will not only gladly pay your house rent, but the
arrears of money I already owe you in this respect.’

Bukthi halted in his tracks. For a moment it appeared as if he

would erupt into a towering rage. But his expression of anger
slowly became supplanted by one of cunning as if an idea had
suddenly come into his mind. With a sly look in his eyes and a
totally unusual smoothness of speech, he replied.

‘Don’t be so silly, sister,’ and then, glibly, ‘whoever told you

that? Why should I try to stop you from getting work? I realise that
only then will you be able to pay my rent.’

He paused awhile. Then went on ingratiatingly, ‘Look here. I

am sorry about that quarrel we had. I am afraid I lost my temper.
Most remiss of me, I am sure. But I will tell you what. To prove I
bear you no ill-will and am genuinely regretful about that
incident, I will not only wait some time more for the house rent
but I will also lend you one hundred rupees, interest free, to tide
you over your present difficulties. How will that suit you?’

To say the least of it, Sita was amazed. Could her ears be
deceiving her? Or was Bukthi mad, or drunk?

She looked into his face, earnestly trying hard to fathom what
was in his mind and lay behind those jet-black eyes. For once, her
woman’s instinct failed her. She saw nothing.

Perhaps it was because she had plenty of other misfortunes to

remember and think about. Not only had she failed to pay the
rent, but she was heavily in debt all over the village. Only the day
before she had tried to borrow the small sum of five rupees from
the local moneylender. But he had laughed at her when she asked
him.
 ‘Do you think I am mad to throw away money to a destitute
widow without a hope in hell of ever getting it back?’ he had
chided. ‘Go on, get out of here. If you really want the money bring
some security, such as a gold ring, nose ring, earring, or some
other trinket worth at least fifteen rupees.’

‘But I have nothing whatsoever left,’ she had wailed. ‘That’s

exactly as I thought,’ he had cut in, ‘so, get out; and stay out.’

And now Bukthi was offering her a loan of one hundred rupees,
without security and without interest, and further time to remain
on in his house.

It was unbelievable.

But the question was; should she accept, or not.

Indecision weighed heavily upon her. On the one side was the
prospect of sheer starvation both for herself, Lalita, and, the two
younger girls. On the other was a lurking doubt. Could this be
really true?

‘Well,’ queried Bukthi beningly, ‘do you want the money, or

not? You must tell me quickly. I have a business appointment in
another ten minutes or so.’

Faced with the temptation of immediate financial relief and a

square meal for herself and her three daughters that night, Sita
agreed.

‘Come on back with me to my house for a few minutes,’ Bukthi

invited, ‘and I will hand you the money.’ Obediently she followed
him, and waited silently in the verandah, while he went inside.

He was not long in returning, though. Within a few minutes he

was back, carrying some ten and five rupee notes in his left hand.
In his right hand he held some sort of printed form.
 ‘This is merely a formality,’ he told her, kindly. ‘Just sign here,’
and he indicated a place near the end of the form, ‘and I will fill in
the particulars that I have lent you the sum of one hundred rupees
today, free of interest, repayable shall we say,’ and here he again
smiled benevolently, ‘within two years. Will that be sufficiently
long?’

Once again, and for the last time, Sita hesitated. Bukthi
appeared to grow angry. ‘Please don’t waste my time,’ he
reminded her. ‘I am already late as it is and cannot delay a
moment longer. Do you want the money, or not?’

For fear he should change his mind at the last moment, Sita
hastily scrawled her signature at the spot indicated, using the
Parker 51 fountain pen he offered her for the purpose. Bukthi
carefully allowed the ink to dry for a moment, folded the form and
tucked it into the left hand breast pocket of his tussore-silk coat,
remarking that he would fill in the details himself later, as he was
in a hurry.

Then he counted out eight ten-rupee and four five-rupee notes,

which he handed to her.

Sita took the money gratefully, bowing low in a salaam of

thanks. And so she did not notice the gleam of satisfaction that
came into his eyes, above her lowered head.

Another two months passed, but still Sita and Lalita found it
very difficult to obtain steady employment. They did, each, get
one or two temporary jobs which lasted a few days. But then they
were out of employment again. Meanwhile the hundred rupees
which Sita had taken from Bukthi, and of which she had not
breathed a word to her daughter, were dwindling fast.

Yet another month passed, and the money was all gone.
 Once more, in sheer desperation, Sita approached Bukthi, and
this time, almost but not quite as readily, he volunteered to lend
her another fifty rupees on the same terms as on the first occasion.
And once again he contrived to make her sign a blank pro-note
form.

Still another two months passed and the fifty rupees were also
gone.

Steady employment eluded mother and daughter yet, while

misfortune appeared to dog their footsteps. And that was the time
when Bukthi chose to play his ace card.

He had come to learn of Lalita’s daily visits with her water-pot

to the communal well very early every morning and one day
instructed his servant to accost her there and tell her he wanted to
speak to her. The servant did as he was told and delivered the
message. Lalita who knew nothing about the loans her mother had
taken from Bukthi, promptly told the servant to tell him to go to
hell.

The servant duly delivered her reply.

Bukthi fumed within himself, muttering darkly, ‘You wait till I

get hold of you you little bitch. I will make you squeal for mercy
and I will show you none.’

A couple of mornings later, he waited for her himself, around

the corner of the street down which she would have to walk to
reach the hut she and her family lived in, at the lower end. Every
little while he peeped to see if she was coming.

At last he saw her, the brass pot balanced gracefully on the right
side of her swaying hips, walking towards him. He drew back in
the shelter of the wall till she had turned the corner and stood face
to face before him.
 ‘Well, my beautiful one, we meet again,’ he said banteringly. ‘I
have some words to say to you.’

‘Get away, you fat pig,’ Lalita muttered defiantly, before I

throw my pot, with its contents, in your face.’

Bukthi stepped backwards hastily. He had suffered a painful

experience once already at this vixen’s hands, and knew what she
could do at close quarters when aroused. He did not want to risk
another encounter.

Putting his hand in his breast pocket, he drew out two printed
forms.

‘Listen, girl,’ he grated harshly, ‘do you know what these are?’
And then, before she could answer, he went on quickly, ‘they are
caned ‘pro-notes’. One of them indicates that your mother has
borrowed one thousand rupees from me. The other shows she has
borrowed a further five hundred. Altogether, one thousand five
hundred rupees! She asked me not to tell you about these loans at
the time she took them. Look, if you don’t believe me. There is her
signature.’

Then, stepping a further pace backwards out of all possible

reach by this hell-cat, he held up the documents in his left hand,
indicating with his right forefinger Sita’s signature upon each of
them.

Despite the distance, Lalita could clearly recognise her mother’s

handwriting and signature. Her heart seemed to miss a beat.

‘Now, do you know what I am going to do?’ he queried, harshly,

‘I am going to hand over both these documents to court. Your
mother will be arrested and thrown into jail for not paying her
debts, beside her house rent which is now due for six months. I
will even pay for her upkeep in the debtor’s cell; but go to jail she
shall!’
 Bukthi waited a minute to let the full significance the threat he
had just uttered sink into this defiant girl.

Then he continued, ‘But there is one way of saving her. And

only one person can do it. That one way and one person, is you.’

Lalita still did not fully comprehend what he was driving at.
With mouth half-opened in astonishment and eyes that began to
fill with tears, she listened to him.

Enjoying every moment of his triumph, Bukthi continued with

evident relish, working up to the climax in the form of the
dramatic announcement he was about to make.

‘Spend one week with me. Let me enjoy your body fully and to
my satisfaction. Let me do everything I want to with it. At the end
of that time, and provided you have been very, very nice to me
and have done all I shall ask you to do, I promise you that I shall
not only destroy both these bonds before your very eyes and forget
about the six months’ rent your mother already owes me, but I
shall allow all of you to go on living, rent free, in my house for the
rest of your lives.’

Only then did the significance of his words and his threat sink
fully into Lalita’s consciousness.

Her eyes flashed fire, while the teardrops, like stars, twinkled in
the corners of each. Three words escaped her lips, ‘You
unutterable swine!’

Never had she seemed more beautiful or more desirable to

possess. Bukthi hugged himself in a paroxy of anticipatory delight.

‘I will allow you up till tomorrow evening to decide whether

you want to save your mother from jail, or to sacrifice her,’ he
continued. ‘After all, it is not much that I am asking of you, a
mere wisp of a Harijan girl, in return for such a large sum of
money and so many other benefits in addition. Don’t breathe a
word to your mother or anyone else. If you do so, she goes to jail.
Tell her you are going to the next village to seek a job and come to
my house tomorrow night at exactly eight o’clock. Come to the
back door and not to the front gate, as the neighbours should not
see you. I shall be expecting you. And remember, finally, that if
you do not come, the very next morning your mother goes to jail.
That is all I have to say, except to once again remind you of the
fact that you, and you alone, are the only person who can save
your mother from imprisonment.’

With these words, Bukthi turned abruptly to walk away, and in

doing so almost tripped over a crippled beggar who had appeared
as if from nowhere and squatted on the road behind him.

‘Alms for a poor cripple, your honour,’ he whined. ‘Pray give me

half-an-anna.’

‘Get out of my way, you idiot!’ barked Bukthi, irritably, ‘I

almost fell over you.’

So saying, he walked past the beggar without looking at him

again, and disappeared around the corner.

They were alone. The beggar and Lalita.

No sound was to be heard, except for her convulsive sobbing.

She was too simple a girl to consider whether it would be
altogether possible for Bukthi to carry out the threats he had
uttered.

‘Do not fear, lady,’ the cripple interrupted softly, ‘you will be
saved. I swear to you, on the word of Rajah Man Singh Rathore.
Do not mention a word of all this to your mother, or another soul.
And go to the back door of his house tomorrow night, at exactly
eight o’clock as he has asked you to do. Enter boldly. No harm
shall come to you. Once more I swear it, on the word of Rajah
Man Singh. Do not fail to go.’

With those words the beggar dragged himself laboriously across

the road and vanished from sight, without once looking back at
her.

Lalita felt an overwhelming relief.

Even she, humble Harijan girl that she was, had heard of the
countless instances of chivalry the great dacoit-king had shown
towards insignificant people like herself, in the past, at their hour
of greatest need, and how he had rescued so many from the jaws of
impending calamity.

That very instant she made her decision and she made it
irrevocably. She would not worry who the cripple was; from where
he had come; how, in that terribly-maimed condition he could
possibly contact the bandit leader in his hidden lair in the jungle
or among the ravines so many miles away; or how she would be
rescued from the clutches of the fat Bukthi the following night
before he could rape her.

But she would obey, implicitly, what she had been told to do.
She would, tell no one; and she would go to the back door of the
landlord’s house at exactly eight o’clock on the night he had told
her to come.

* * *

It was three minutes to eight the following night when Lalita

stood irresolutely outside the rear entrance to Bukthi’s residence.
It was a moonless night, but the stars overhead twinkled serenely
in a cloudless sky as if oblivious to the cruel fate that awaited her
behind those closed doors.
 Not a soul was in sight. The nearest street lamp shone bleakly
about a hundred yards away. The doorway was in darkness and
the door was shut, although a ray of light penetrated below it from
the interior.

The clock on the tower of the town hall, nearly a quarter of a

mile away, solemnly struck the hour of eight as Lalita timidly
knocked upon the door. Glancing down the street as she did so, she
noticed a solitary bullock cart turn the bend in the roadway, its
only light a dim lantern, and approach towards the house.

Evidently Bukthi had been certain she would come and was
awaiting her arrival, for within a few seconds of her knocking the
door opened and she saw his obese frame silhouetted against the
light from the room inside.

‘Good evening, Lalita, I was expecting you. It is nice of you to

have been so punctual. Do come in.’

His tone was suave and gentlemanly, and he stepped aside to

allow her to enter.

She went inside.

Bukthi closed the door behind her.

And then, in an instant, his manner changed. Gone was the

polished gentleman of a moment before. His features assumed a
strained expression—the expression of concentrated lust. The tip
of his tongue protruded from his mouth, and in anticipation wet
his upper and lower lips. His eyes bored into her sari and appeared
to undress her till she was stark naked before him. The
perspiration of pent-up passion poured from the pores of his
forehead, and made his face look greasy and glistening.

With both hands he grabbed for her breasts.

 At that instant, Lalita realised that she was all alone with a sex-
mad beast, and she screamed aloud.

As his hands touched her there came a loud knocking at the

door, and a muffled voice announced urgently, ‘Telegram.’

Bukthi stopped in mid-stride. He was breathing heavily and

trembling with unleashed passion.

‘Go away, damn you,’ he shouted, ‘bring it again in the

morning.’

‘Cannot,’ came the muffled reply. ‘Urgent telegram. You have

to receive it now.’

With a vile oath at being disturbed at such a time, Bukthi

pushed Lalita into a corner of the room and flung open the door.
Four men, instead of the one telegram messenger he had expected
to see, stood outside. Before he knew what had happened, they
were inside the room, and had closed the door behind them.

Bukthi opened his mouth to protest, when things happened fast.

The tallest of the four men, a veritable giant, leaped upon him,
pushing a handkerchief into his open mouth. His three
companions pinioned his hands behind his back and tied them
together with a cord they had apparently brought for the purpose.
Then they bound his legs also.

The giant quickly replaced the handkerchief he had forced into

Bukthi’s mouth with a cloth gag which was knotted fast behind
his head.

Unceremoniously he was thrown to the ground.

The four men looked around and the leader’s eyes alighted upon
a costly Persian carpet. This he took up from where it was lying on
the floor, and the men commenced to roll Bukthi into it.
 All this time they had been undisturbed. Evidently in
anticipation of an evening with Lalita completely at his mercy,
Bukthi had sent his servants home and was alone in the house.

When they had entirely wrapped the landlord in his Persian

carpet, the tall leader cautiously opened the door and peered
outside. Obviously he found the coast clear, for in a few seconds
he beckoned to his three companions. They staggered under the
tremendous weight of the fat man as they bore him outside, rolled
up inside his own carpet.

Then, for the first time, the leader appeared to notice Lalita and
spoke to her. ‘Come along, girl. I offer you security in the name of
Rajah Man Singh. Soon you will be returned safely to your home.
Have no fear whatever.’

Not for one moment did Lalita hesitate, so great was her trust in
the bandit king’s honour. She followed the three men, staggering
beneath their burden, outside. The giant came behind her and
closed the back door of the house as they left it.

Lalita was surprised to notice that a covered bullock cart stood

beside the kerb on the roadside. It was drawn by two bullocks.
Suspended to the wooden shaft that passed between them. A
dimly-lighted lantern flickered faintly. At the front of the cart
squatted the shrouded figure of the cartman.

Suddenly she remembered the cart she had seen approaching as

she had entered the house. Man Singh’s henchmen had timed their
arrival correctly to the split second.

By this time the three men had pushed the carpet, with its
human contents, into the cart. One of them got in with it. The tall
leader wordlessly motioned for Lalita to enter the cart, also. She
did so.
 With a faint click of his tongue the driver of the cart started the
bullocks and the cart creaked and rumbled down the roadway, the
tall man and his remaining two companions falling into step
behind.

To an onlooker, it was just an ordinary bullock cart, proceeding

on an innocent journey. Inside of it were some members of a party
of travellers. The rest of them walked behind. It had all been so
simply but efficiently arranged, and looked so very commonplace.

Lalita admired the ingenuity of Rajah Man Singh and his men.

In course of time they left the township far behind and

journeyed on and on. Despite the excitement she had been
through, Lalita began to feel sleepy. Her head lolled forward and
she dozed fitfully. Every hour or so the men would change about,
and one would take turns to ride in the cart while the other three
walked behind.

At about midnight they had heard muffled sounds coming from

the interior of the roll of carpet. They had stopped the cart and
unrolled it. Evidently, just in time. Bukthi was almost dead from
suffocation and his clothes were sodden with sweat, caused by the
terrific heat brought about through the carpet that was wrapped
around him.

So the leader had decided not to replace it, but kept Bukthi
bound and gagged on the floor of the cart.

Soon afterwards the road entered the forest and everything

became as black as pitch. Giant trees, growing in close array, were
interspersed with smaller ones, the whole joined and laced
together inextricably by vines and jungle creepers, presenting as it
were a solid and impenetrable fortress wall on either side of the
road, extending high up to the tops of the trees. Only directly
overhead, and following the contour of the road beneath, was a
ribbon of sky, clearly differentiated from the black phalanx of the
forest on either side by the myriads of stars that twinkled and
scintillated unceasingly, throwing off hues in their brilliance that
bore all the colours of the spectrum. Other twinkling lights flitted
about in the darkness of the foliage on either side of the road. But
they were living lights; the phosphorescent lamps of fireflies, as
they flashed their elfin glow now here, now there; now singly,
now synchronising in hundreds; momentarily illumining the
outline of the trees, only to plunge them again the very next
second into a deeper, more impenetrable, gloom.

The lantern suspended on the shaft to which the two bullocks

were yoked cast but a feeble light hardly two yards ahead of them.
The moving shadows, thrown by the legs of the oxen as they
strode patiently along, seemed living things, demons of the jungle
night that haunted them on their journey; steadily, inexorably, to
an impending doom. The three men, walking close together
behind the cart, appeared ghostlike phantoms forming a rearguard
against any attempt at escape by the inmates of the vehicle.

It was shortly after 3.30 a.m. when Lalita, who had been dozing
again, heard voices and felt the cart in which she was sitting come
to a sudden halt. Then she saw the three men who had been
walking behind, draw respectfully aside as other figures
approached.

‘Mohan, are they all here?’ a rather melodious voice inquired.

‘The fat man and the girl?’

‘They are here, Maharaj Sahib,’ replied the tallest of the three
men whom Lalita remembered as the one who had evidently been
in charge of the kidnapping assignment.

‘You have done excellently, Mohan. Thank you,’ said the owner
of the melodious voice. Then, turning to his other companions
who had not yet come into view due to the elliptical roof of the
cart coming in the way, the speaker said, ‘Carry the fat pig to the
camp.’

Addressing Lalita, he said, ‘Girl, you have nothing whatever to

be afraid of. Please get down and follow me.’

Normally, any adult woman would have been terrified under

the circumstances. She guessed that she was among the members
of a dacoit band. But Lalita felt no fear whatsoever. A strange
assurance of complete safety came over her, with mingled feelings
of gratitude and respect for the great leader who had saved her
from an awful fate.

Could this, indeed, be the redoubtable Rajah Man Singh?

Without a word, she eased herself off the hard wooden floor of
the cart and on to the ground.

Then the mysterious man who had been giving the orders led
the way motioning with his hand for Lalita to follow closely. She
did so. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed four men lift
Bukthi to their shoulders and start walking behind her. In the rear
of them were yet other men. They commenced to walk through
the jungle in single file, along some path evidently the leader
knew well, as did his companions. In a few seconds the dim
lantern from the bullock cart was lost to sight behind the stems of
the trees.

Now the darkness became intense. Strain her eyes as she might,
Lalita was unable to see the pathway at her feet. She stumbled.
The leader halted and turned around. In the gloom she felt his
hand groping for hers. She clasped it. He continued walking,
leading her by the hand.

She never knew what distance they had covered. But suddenly
the path took a turning and they converged on what was clearly a
glade in the forest. The dying embers of half-a-dozen camp fires
glowed around her.

The party came to a halt.

‘Oh comrades,’ spoke he of the pleasant voice, ‘pile wood on the

fires, for we are about to hold court. But first, let some ‘cha’ be
served to the newcomers.’

The four men laid Bukthi, still trussed and gagged, upon the
ground and squatted down around him. The leader said to Lalita,
‘Sit down, girl, and be comfortable till the cha is served.’ Then,
turning to one of his followers he added, ‘Bring a blanket for the
girl; she is sure to feel the cold.’

From somewhere a blanket was offered to her. Lalita draped it

around herself and brought the end over her head, for the night air
was decidedly crisp and her sari was already damp with the dew.

Then she sat down on the ground.

The dacoit leader followed suit.

By this time the fires around them had recommenced to blaze,

reinforced by the logs of dry wood that had just been piled on by
the members of the band.

In the flickering light, momentarily growing brighter, Lalita

turned to look at her benefactor.

He was an elderly man, light-complexioned and with a snowy

white beard, moustache and whiskers. He wore the usual dhoti
and bandi. She noticed that, despite his age, he sat erect and had
the bearing of a soldier with long years of military training. He
had a surprisingly broad forehead which was smeared with wide
chalk marks. A heavy string of amber beads hung around his neck.
 But what was the most impelling feature about him were his
eyes. They were steely-hard and piercing. Cruel as a Kestrel’s, they
yet seemed capable of turning as soft as any mother’s as she gazed
lovingly at her babe.

In a few minutes hot tea was served all around in enamel mugs,
Lalita receiving her share immediately after the chief. Bukthi got
his quota too, as soon as the gag had been removed from his mouth
and his arms and legs released.

When they had finished drinking, the old man began to speak.
And he smiled as he spoke. A curious smile. It appeared placating,
apologetic, and yet seeking to be understood. It gave the
impression of coming from a good-natured and kindly judge; yet
one who knew he had an unpleasant duty to perform and was
determined that justice should be served.

‘We all do wrong and sin at times,’ he said, ‘for to err is human.
It is bad if the sin we commit causes ruination to ourselves. But, if
that sin is planned, diabolically, to encompass the destruction of
another person, particularly if that other is innocent, then the sin
is very great indeed.

‘We shall now hold court to decide whether our brother here,
one Bukthi by name who stands accused, has committed such a
sin; and if he has, whether he should be punished or not; and what
form that punishment should take.

‘There are fifty-two of you here present excluding the girl, the
accused and myself. I will cast no vote in the matter. I want you to
judge fairly and before God, whether this man Bukthi is guilty or
not; whether he should be punished or acquitted; and if you feel
he is guilty, in what manner he should be punished.

‘I don’t want anyone here to try to please me by punishing him.

I tell you here and now that such punishment will not please me
in the least. Rather, it will grieve me. But if you honestly decide
that justice should be meted out; assuredly it will be done.

‘Now I will state the charges against the accused, one by one.
You, Bukthi, will be given every opportunity to explain yourself
and refute the accusation if you want. Only you must speak the
truth and nothing else. You will be given a patient hearing with
no interruptions.

‘Alright then; let me begin with the first question. Are you a
landlord owning several houses and a good number of acres of
land? Just answer “Yes” or “No” please.’

‘Yes,’ Bukthi’s voice was scarcely above a whisper.

‘Do you collect rents from your tenants?’

‘Yes,’ said the fat man again.

‘How much money do you collect a month in this way? Now,

before you answer, bear in mind that I already know. If you speak
the truth it will be in your favour. If you should tell a lie, a hot
ember shall be put on the sole of your foot.’

Bukthi commenced to tremble violently. Then stuttered, ‘A few

thousand.’

‘We know that already, fat man. But, how many thousand?’

‘About three thousand rupees,’ came the reply.

‘That is a lie, my friend. Altogether you get six thousand and

seventy rupees a month. Am I correct or not?’

The landlord looked startled. There was silence for nearly a

minute. Then he said, ‘Yes’. ‘Has this girl’s mother paid the rent
she is due you?’
 ‘No,’ Bukthi returned vehemently. Then he began to
passionately plead his case. ‘She has not paid for six months, your
honour.’

‘I am not “your honour”,’ said the old man, quietly; and then
continued. ‘And how much does she owe you, altogether? Now
remember to speak the truth, for we know the answer.’

‘Seventy-two rupees,’ claimed Bukthi hotly. ‘At twelve rupees a

month for the past six months, she owes me seventy-two rupees.’

‘I see; that happens to be correct, as I already know. Now, what

proportion is this twelve rupees to the six thousand and odd rupees
you get each month?’

‘I—I don’t know,’ stammered Bukthi.

‘You don’t know, eh. But it is quite a small proportion, is it not?’

No answer came from Bukthi.

‘Come, friend,’ said the old man impatiently. ‘If you won’t
answer a simple question, perhaps the fire will make you.’

‘I suppose so,’ admitted Bukthi, surly.

‘Used to be paid regularly before?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied the landowner, with alacrity.

‘Then, why did she stop paying you?’ came the next question.

‘How should I know?’ Bukthi was becoming increasingly

rebellious. ‘In any case,’ he continued, ‘who are you to ask all
these questions? I am not bound to answer them.’

‘My name is Man Singh,’ said the old man, ‘possibly you have
heard of me before.
 ‘It is also possible that you may have heard I have ways and
means of making people answer, if they refuse. I really don’t want
to employ them on you. So, I strongly advise you to reply; and
reply truthfully.

‘Now what was that last question? Oh yes; why did this girl’s
mother stop paying you suddenly?’

Bukthi decided to humour this devil. So he said, ‘Well, she said

her husband had died and left behind no money.’

‘Is that true?’

‘He died alright. But how am I to know he left her no money?’

‘Fair enough,’ said Man Singh, ‘you have a point there. She may
have been lying to avoid paying rent. Now let me ask the next
question.

‘Is it a fact that you instigated your friends not to give her, or
her daughter, employment, or work of any kind, when they sought
for it?’

No reply.

‘And is it true you were kind enough to loan her one hundred
rupees, and later another fifty rupees, free of interest?’

‘Of course,’ said Bukthi, spontaneously.

Then he realised his mistake; but it was too late.

Man Singh snapped his fingers to attract the attention of a

rather short man of particularly dark countenance and clean-
shaven, who stood among the crowd of onlookers, and then said to
him, ‘Please show me those bonds, Mustafa.’
 The short man addressed delved in the pocket of the black coat
he wore over his long shirt, and brought out two pieces of paper
which he handed over to the old dacoit.

Bukthi and Lalita recognised them simultaneously. They were

the two pro-notes bearing Sita’s signature with which he had
threatened her a couple of days before. It was evident that, after
the kidnapping of the fat landlord, quite another party of outlaws
must have been deputed to search his house for these documents.
Lalita admired Man Singh’s thoroughness, while Bukthi’s bloated
face drained to a pasty hue. His eyes bulged in fear.

Man Singh unfolded the documents and studied both the sheets
for a moment.

‘Since you admit you lent her a hundred rupees and then
another fifty rupees free of interest, how is it these bonds are for
one thousand rupees, and five hundred rupees, respectively?’

No answer.

‘I submit you are guilty of chicanery. I accuse you of lending

this woman one hundred rupees first, followed by fifty rupees, and
then adding a zero in each case and writing pro-notes for one
thousand rupees and for five hundred rupees, respectively, to get
this poor woman and her daughter hopelessly enmeshed in your
clutches. Are you guilty or not?’

Man Singh’s voice was flat and toneless. But it was

penetratingly clear and precise.

Bukthi did not answer.

‘And what did you say to this girl when you met her the day
before yesterday?’

Again no answer.
 ‘Surely you remember, great landlord? There was also a witness
to what you said. Do you recollect the cripple you stumbled over?
He heard you distinctly. And what is more my friend; I was that
cripple.’

Lalita could hardly believe her ears. The accused’s mouth hung
open foolishly.

Man Singh continued, ‘However, as I am not taking part in this

trial by offering testimony against you, let us hear what the girl
herself has to say.’

He turned to Lalita, ‘Girl, what exactly did he tell you?’

In a low, but clear voice, Lalita told them everything.

Once more, turning to the half-swooning fat man, Man Singh

continued inexorably.

‘When this girl came to your house last night, what did you do?’

‘N—n—nothing,’ stammered Bukthi.

‘Girl, is that true? You need not be ashamed to speak. We are

your friends here.’

Slowly, but clearly, Lalita said, ‘No sooner did I enter, than he
shut the door and began to molest me. In fact, had your men not
come in the nick of time, I am certain he would have raped me.’

A stony silence came over the assembly for some minutes.

Man Singh got to his feet. Lalita noticed he seemed taller than
he had first appeared to be. Addressing the squatting group of
men, he said.

‘Comrades, you have heard the charges. To each charge the

accused was afforded an opportunity to reply and defend himself.
Now, be very fair in your judgements. What say you? Is he
“Guilty” or “Not Guilty”.’

There was a unanimous murmur of ‘Guilty’ from fifty-two

throats.

‘Should he be punished, or not?’

‘He must be punished,’ they intoned.

‘What form should his punishment take?’

To this question there was lively difference of opinion.

‘Flay him to ribbons,’ advised one. ‘Cut his throat,’ suggested

another. ‘Bury him alive,’ said a third.

And then a short, rather thin man, stood up. Lalita noticed that
he had sharp features which gave him an intellectual appearance.

‘Maharaj,’ he began, ‘it is my opinion that we should not kill

him outright because he has not actually caused the death of
anyone as yet. Further, if we do so, nobody will know of his
misdeeds. Therefore, we should punish him in such a manner,
without killing him, as to be a lesson that will deter other
blackguards like him from doing such things in future. We should
also write a letter to the Commissioner of Police Sahib,
acquainting him with the charges and reasons for which we have
punished him.’

There was loud and continuous approval of this suggestion from

the throng.

‘And how should we so punish him, Ali?’ asked the dacoit

leader.
 ‘Maharaj Sahib; I have thought of that, also,’ replied the astute
Ali. ‘We should cut off the tip of his tongue as a deterrent against
telling such lies again; and we should burn the fingers of his right
hand, for holding the pen that wrote these false documents and
that later tried to molest this helpless girl.’

‘Bravo,’ shouted the dacoits in high glee, while a voice

somewhere at the back yelled, ‘Ali, you should have been a judge
and not a thief.’

There was loud and prolonged applause and laughter, at that.

Man Singh was silent and appeared thoughtful. He glanced at

Lalita; then at the cringing Bukthi; and finally at Ali.

The smile he had been wearing throughout the proceedings

suddenly faded from his face. His countenance became stern and
implacable. He turned to the accused.

‘I pronounce judgement,’ he said solemnly. ‘The tip of your

tongue shall be cut off, and the fingers of your right hand burned
in the fire. Ali, you shall supervise the sentence being carried out.
But take care that it is not more than just the tip of his tongue,
and only the fingers of his right hand.’

Turning to Bukthi, he added, ‘And for my part, you shall never

again demand rent from this girl or her mother, nor the return of
the money you have given them. And you will not harass them
anymore. Disobey me, and the next time you will die.’

‘Mercy, mercy; have mercy on me,’ wailed the unhappy

prisoner, grovelling on the ground. ‘I will never ask the woman for
any money, but spare me; please, please.’

‘Girl, come along with me,’ commanded the dacoit chieftain.

He held her arm firmly, but gently, as she got to her feet, and then
led her away into the darkness of the jungle.
 No words passed between them for the next fifteen minutes.

Lalita heard Bukthi’s screams die in his throat with a horrible,

gurgling sound.

Shortly later, there was another outbreak of incoherent moans

and the smell of something burning.

Then Man Singh said simply, ‘Justice must be done.’

He led her to another part of the clearing, where she was given
two blankets and told to sleep.

The next morning she saw no signs of Bukthi. Lalita was given
food and told to rest herself, and that she would be taken back
safely soon. Till then she was on no account to attempt to escape.
She remained a virtual prisoner for the next three days.

On the fourth night she was put in a bullock cart that took her
to the outskirts of the town in which she lived. She noticed that a
second cart was being driven in front of the one that carried her.

It was four o’clock in the morning when the two carts were
stopped about three miles out of town. She was told to get out and
walk home quickly. She commenced to do so.

Lalita observed another figure walking along the road before

her. It was the figure of a very fat man. But he appeared bent, as if
from old age or the effects of a serious illness.

Bukthi could not speak distinctly any longer. Nor could he use
his right hand to sign documents again.

And one more thing. He never asked Sita or Lalita to pay him
house rent or return him any money. In fact, he never spoke to
either of them after that.
 6

The Three Travellers and the American Journalist

HERE is, somewhere in the south of India, a large industrial

T concern which is expanding rapidly. It builds aircraft,
constructs railway coaches, and even makes buses to modern
design.

This organisation has branches in many parts of India, and not

long ago had opened a depot as far north as Srinagar, the capital of
Kashmir.

The episode I am about to relate to you came to pass through a

simple decision—the decisions by the parent organisation in the
south of India to send one of its buses to its newly-opened depot at
Srinagar—a journey by road of over 2500 miles.

A regular driver was assigned to drive the vehicle, and an officer

of the company was deputed to accompany it. Also two mechanics
were allotted to travel with the bus in the event of a breakdown,
and to be of general help.

This officer’s name was Othi. He was a North Indian, and came
from the Punjab. A man of genial disposition and good heart, he
felt the assignment would prove a tough one if undertaken alone.
So he decided to throw open the invitation of a free bus journey to
the enchanting land of Kashmir to two of his bosom friends, both
of them also officers serving in the same organisation.

Of course, since these two officers were not travelling on

company’s duty, they were obliged to apply for leave for the
occasion and obtained special permission to travel in the bus
going to Srinagar in their private and unofficial capacities.
 The younger of the two officers was an Indian Christian; a tall,
handsome youth whose name was Percy Rahu. The remaining
officer was a middle-aged and stocky orthodox South Indian
Brahmin, a person who came from a highly-placed and respected
family, and who made it very clear from the start that he was
fully prepared to share in the adventure wholeheartedly on one
strict proviso; namely, that he cooked his own meals or ate
exclusively at Brahmin restaurants. Absolutely cosmopolitan in
every other respect, he strictly clung to his orthodox Brahmin
custom of only eating food prepared by one of his own caste and
community, failing which he would prepare it himself. This man’s
name was Seshagiri.

The disposition of Othi, who was carefree and wanted to enjoy

life to the maximum, matched well with that of Rahu, the
handsome youth who had an eye for the ladies and felt that, as life
was lived but once, it should be enjoyed to the fullest extent.
Seshagiri sometimes had proved to be a brake on their exuberance
in the past, but at the same time, Othi and Rahu recognised that
their more sober companion would be a valuable asset to the
party, if only to keep them out of getting into too serious trouble
at times, and to remind them of the fact that they had to complete
the present assignment of delivering the bus at Srinagar on
schedule, and then return to their home station by air, and on
time.

We are not concerned with their adventures on the way, which

is another story; but one afternoon found the bus halted at the
ferry-crossing on the Chambal River. The time was 3.45 p.m., and
the ferry-boat, a flat-bottomed, raft-like affair, was away at the
opposite bank of the river, having just taken across a load.

There was nothing to it but wait till the ferry-boat returned.

The nearest road bridge across the river was over fifty miles
away. The party might have driven the bus that way and had the
benefit of crossing over by the bridge, but for the fact that all of
them were strangers to the roads and had never been to this part of
India before, road signs had been few and far between, and they
had been inquiring their way all along. Hence they had been
directed by short-cut routes and had finally come to a halt where
the road had terminated and the river rolled smoothly past before
them.

‘Now what do we do?’ asked Seshagiri, whom his friends called

‘Sesh’ for short, blankly. ‘How do we cross the river from here?’ By
nature he was always a bit of a pessimist.

‘Arre baba, don’t let that worry you,’ spoke up the optimistic
Othi, ‘there must be some way.’ And then, turning to Rahu, who
had been driving, he said, ‘Percy, hop out and try to find
somebody, and ask him how the hell we are to cross this river.’

Percy switched off the ignition, stuck out his long legs before
him, leaned back and stretched his arms. It took a lot to worry
Percy.

‘Nothing doing, Othi old boy,’ he replied at length, ‘I cannot

speak this lingo in any case. You come from this part of India or at
least from the north, so you do the finding, and talking—provided
there is somebody to talk to. I can’t see a soul anywhere.’

‘Arre baba,’ Othi complained again, as he heaved his great bulk

out of the second seat and descended to the ground. Then, ‘There
is nobody here,’ he announced, ‘I shall walk up yonder hillock, a
hundred yards away, and see if there is anyone in sight.’

‘Do so, laddie, do so,’ agreed Percy, ‘while Sesh and I take a nap.
I have been driving this cumbersome rattletrap for the last two
hundred miles and am feeling drowsy.’ With these words, he got
down from the driver’s seat, walked to the rear of the vehicle, got
in again and laid himself out on the bunk that ran along the full
length of the bus.
 The regular driver and the two mechanics got down also, sat by
the riverbank, and commenced smoking beedies.

Seshagiri remained alone in the front of the vehicle. Some

minutes later, he turned around and addressed the recumbent
Rahu.

‘I say, Percy, I don’t like this at all. Where has that fool, Othi,
gone to? Isn’t this the area we have been reading so often about in
the newspapers where dacoits abound controlled by somebody by
the name of Man Singh, who has been called the ‘king of dacoits’,
or some such name?’

But Percy had fallen asleep.

Seshagiri faced towards the driver and the two mechanics, all
three of them South Indians like himself, and called out in Tamil,
‘Do you know fellers, that this area is infested with dacoits who
raid at night and cut one’s throat from ear to ear?’

Nobody waited to answer that question. All three of them

scrambled to their feet and hastened back into the bus and
slammed the door behind them.

The noise of the slamming door awoke Percy.

‘Can’t you blighters allow a man to have forty winks, without

getting out and then scrambling in again, like blue-arsed flies.
Make up your minds for heaven’s sake. Stay in; or stay out.’

And with those words, Percy turned on his side and prepared to
fall asleep again.

But Sesh saw his chance and put his question afresh, ‘Wake up,
Percy,’ he called from his seat in front, ‘do you know we are in the
area where Man Singh and his dacoits hang out?’
 ‘Wasser that?’ mumbled Percy sleepily, without moving.

‘Wake up, you lazy bugger,’ said Seshagiri once more, ‘I am

trying to tell you, for the third time, that this is the area where
Man Singh and his cut-throat ruffians, hang out.’

Rahu sat up and ran a hand through his tousled hair. ‘Do you
mean the Man Singh we read so much about in the papers?’ he
queried, incredulously.

‘I certainly do,’ replied Sesh emphatically, ‘him, and nobody

else.’

‘Oh boy, what luck!’ exclaimed Percy, now thoroughly awake.

‘I do wish I could meet the blighter. It would be an interesting
experience. I believe he has many wives.’

‘Who would cut your throat,’ finished Sesh, sarcastically.

‘From here—to there,’ put in Percy, not to be outdone.

Their further conversation was interrupted by the return of

Othi, who was accompanied by a tall, old man. He was a
commanding figure, with high forehead, long beard and whiskers,
and a most truculent-looking moustache. He wore trousers that
were tight-fitting below the knees and baggy above. A faded
brown cotton coat covered his dirty shirt. And he had a piercing
pair of steel-grey eyes.

‘I found this feller sitting on the other side of the hillock,’

announced Othi with triumph. ‘He says he is a Sikh, and that a
‘ferry boat will take the whole bus across. He told me it has gone
to the other side, and will return in half-an-hour.’

Then, addressing the old Sikh, he asked in Punjabi, ‘What did

you say your name was Singh-ji?’
 ‘Ranjit Singh,’ replied the old man.

His voice was melodious and strangely firm for his age.

‘Get in, Ranjit Singh-ji,’ invited Othi hospitably, ‘Would you

care for some tea? We have a little left in the thermos flask.’ The
old man politely refused the tea, but got into the bus.

Othi went on to explain to him in Punjabi, ‘All my friends are

from southern India and hence cannot understand this language.’

‘Then we shall speak in Hindustani,’ volunteered the ancient,

graciously, ‘do they understand that?’

‘Certainly,’ broke in Percy. ‘In the part of India from which we

come, we speak Tamil and Kanarese generally; and of course,
English. But we all understand Hindustani.’

The old man smiled happily.

Then he queried, using Hindustani, ‘Tell me about yourselves

and how come you to be here? Obviously you are strangers to these
parts. Are you servants of the “sarkar” (government)?’

Othi thereupon launched into a sketchy account, and explained

the circumstances of their presence at the ferry.

As he finished his talk, Seshagiri spotted the ferry-boat returning

and said in obvious relief, speaking in English, ‘Thank goodness,
the ferry is returning.’

Hearing him, Percy explained to the Sikh, ‘My friend is most

anxious to continue our journey. He has heard stories about a
famous dacoit named Man Singh who inhabits these parts, and is
much afraid of meeting him.’
 Then he asked the old man, ‘Are these stories true? Have you
seen this Man Singh at any time?’

Into the Sikh’s eyes sprang a merry twinkle. But he never

answered the question. Instead, he asked another, addressing all
three of them conjointly.

‘Tell me, Sahibs, are stories of this rascally dacoit really

reaching as far as southern India?’

‘Oh yes,’ Seshagiri answered that one, ‘and to other parts of the
world also. We often read accounts in the newspapers about his
daring raids, and of how the police have been trying for years to
catch him, but failed.’

‘What do people think of him in your part of the country?’

pursued the old Sikh. He appeared to be very interested.

‘Well,’ broke in Percy Rahu with a chuckle, ‘that depends on the

people. Fellows like my friend there,’ he indicated Seshagiri with
a nod of his head, ‘consider him to be a bloodthirsty murderer who
kills on sight, and are mortally afraid. Personally, I should very
much like to meet and speak with him. I don’t know what my
other friend Othi here thinks, but you can ask him for yourself.’

‘Splendid fellow,’ put in Othi, jocularly, ‘a man after my own

heart. I wish I could join him. I really mean that, you know. I
would like to rob a few people.’

‘I wonder how sincere you are,’ mused the old fellow softly, in
an undertone. With all that the others heard him and speculated
in silence as to the reason for that remark.

In the meantime the ferry-boat had arrived.

They noticed that its construction was simple, consisting of a

platform made of bamboos about twenty-five feet long and half as
wide, super-imposed upon two ordinary river-boats, held parallel
to each other by the platform itself.

The ferry could not be brought close to the shore, but was halted
about twenty feet out in the river. The crew consisted of four men
and a leader. Two of these men stuck long bamboo poles into the
mud of the river bottom. The edge of the raft was allowed to come
to rest against the poles which prevented it from floating down the
river with the force of the current.

The leader jumped into the water and waded ashore. Then he
walked towards the bus.

Othi and Ranjit Singh had stepped outside again. Othi addressed
the leader of the raft’s crew, in Punjabi.

‘Friend, we are in a hurry and want to get to the other side as

soon as possible. What is the charge for taking this bus across?’

‘Ten rupees,’ replied the leader, briefly.

‘Okay,’ agreed Othi, ‘now, what is to be done?’

The man gazed at the bus with a professional look, as if to gauge

its bulk and weight. Then he said, ‘The ferry cannot be brought
closer to shore. The water is too shallow and the boats will ground
in the sand. You will have to drive your bus out into the river to
where the ferry is. Don’t be afraid; the water is barely two feet
deep.’

Meanwhile all the inmates of the bus had alighted and were
standing by the riverside, assessing the situation.

‘How will the wheels climb on to the platform on the ferry?’

asked Othi.
 ‘We have taken many buses and lorries across before,’ said the
leader, condescendingly. ‘I have two planks on board. We will
wedge one end of each of them in the sand at the river bottom,
and place the other end upon the raft. But do be careful to see all
four of your wheels keep on the planks and don’t go off.’

So saying, he shouted to the other two raftsmen who had been

squatting idly on board.

‘Oh fellers! bring the planks.’

Each of the men addressed stepped into one of the boats on

which the raft’s platform was fixed and drew out a plank of wood.
From where they were standing, they could see that each plank
was about eight feet long, but less than eighteen inches wide.

The leader of the raftsmen paced off with his feet, toe to heel,
the distance between the centres of the tyres on the front wheels
of the bus. Then he waded across the water, stepped on to the
platform on the raft, and carefully measured out the same
distance again, heel to tow, marking the spot from where he had
begun, and where he ended.

His assistants lifted the planks and shoved the ends into the
water, taking care that the middle of the eighteen or so inches,
representing the width of each plank, coincided with the places
marked. That done, they stood on the planks in turn, to ensure the
ends sank into the sand at the bottom of the river securely.

‘We are now ready’, announced the leader blandly, ‘the rest is
your responsibility.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Othi, let the regular driver do the driving,’
counselled Percy Rahu, wisely. Then if he throws the blamed thing
into the river, we won’t be responsible. If one of us handles it and
anything misfires the driver is sure to say in headquarters, just as
soon as he returns, that we didn’t let him do the driving. Then a
hundred-and-one questions will be asked.’

Othi agreed, and called to the driver, ‘Sattar, you are the regular
driver. So take charge of the vehicle and do your stuff.’

Sattar, the driver, looked at the bus and looked at the two
narrow planks. Then he scratched his chin, dubiously.

‘Come along, man,’ said Othi, ‘let’s get a move on. Don’t be
scared. It’s really quite simple. I could do it myself, in a jiffy.’

‘Then why don’t you, Sahib?’ asked the driver, pointedly.

‘Because you are the assigned driver, Sattar. Why should I take
the responsibility,’ answered Othi, with a touch of annoyance in
his voice.

Once again the driver studied the distance between the wheels
of the bus and the narrow planks of wood facing him, leading on
to the platform of the ferry.

Then he climbed into the driver’s seat.

He pressed the self-starter, allowed the engine to idle for a few

moments, and then raced it. Letting it run slowly again, he
depressed the clutch, engaged first gear, and revving the engine
slightly, removed his foot gently from the clutch pedal.

Slowly the bus moved into the river and finally the front wheels
reached the two planks. The spectators noticed the water was
abreast of the footboards on both sides.

Then the front wheels began to climb the gradient of the two
planks.
 But the driver had given insufficient acceleration to the engine,
which spluttered and came to a stop beneath the load. He
declutched, and the front wheels rolled slowly backwards down
the planks and into the water.

‘Accelerate more next time, Sattar,’ shouted Othi, ‘now try it

again.’

Once more the driver started the engine and engaged first gear.
Once again the front wheels climbed the plank. Then the engine
cut out. The driver pressed the foot brake and held the bus in
position.

‘Go on, race the engine. Don’t be afraid,’ advised Othi.

For the third time Sattar tried. But he was nervous and once
again bungled it. On this occasion, in removing his foot from the
brake pedal to the accelerator he wasted time. As he pressed the
self-starter the front wheels rolled backwards into the water. The
engine started, and stalled.

‘Damn it, man; what’s wrong with you?’ spluttered Othi. ‘Here,
let me show you.’

Regardless of his shoes and socks he waded through the water,

motioned to Sattar to move over, and climbed into the driver’s seat
in his place.

Othi then started the engine, depressed the clutch, engaged first
gear, raced the engine wickedly and let go the clutch.

The bus bounded forward with a jerk. The front wheels climbed
the planks and came on to the floor of the raft. The rear wheels
started to follow.

But in the various attempts that had been made, and with the
front wheels moving back and forth, the plank to the right had
gone askew. The right-hand rear wheel rolled off it and fell, with a
mighty splash, into the water, dragging the left rear-wheel with it,
which followed with a second splash.

The two front wheels of the bus now rested on the raft, while
the two rear wheels were in the water. The uneven weight caused
the nearer end of the raft to slightly submerge, while the further
end was lifted clear above the surface.

‘Now you’ve done it,’ said Percy, unnecessarily.

Othi tried to start the engine which had once again cut out. But
the end of the exhaust pipe was below the surface of the water,
and the back-pressure so caused prevented it from starting.

He got out of the driver’s seat, scrambled over the front

mudguard, and jumped on to the raft, from where he reviewed the
situation.

After a minute he said, ‘Let’s replace the planks, boys, and try to
push the damned bus up.’ They did that and pushed with might
and main. But the weight of the bus was too great, combined with
the gradient. They could not budge it an inch.

The time was exactly 5.30 p.m.

Othi spoke to the leader of the crew controlling the raft. ‘Is
there no village nearby? Cannot you get some more people to help?
I will pay you an extra ten rupees.’

That worthy smiled derisively. ‘The nearest village is seven

miles away, Sahib. Besides it is too late now, and we must be
getting home ourselves for nobody will stay out after dark in these
parts. It is a dangerous area. Man Singh stays near here.’

And he laughed mirthlessly.

 Percy thought he caught him exchanging glances with the old
Sikh.

Then he went on to add, ‘Sahib, we will be back tomorrow

morning and will bring some men with us. But it will cost you one
hundred rupees to get your bus out of the river and not just ten
rupees. And you must do it soon. Otherwise, it will cost you more;
for you have immobilised our raft and we shall be losing business.
Keep your one hundred rupees ready—that is, if you are all still
here and alive in the morning and the money is still with you.’

At these words he, and his four companions, laughed

meaningly.

Then they commenced wading through the water to the shore.

‘Come back you blackguards,’ called Othi after them, ‘let us try
once again to push the bus on to the raft.’

‘There are not enough of us and it will require another dozen

people to do that,’ returned the leader, ‘besides, as I have just told
you, it will be dark soon and we dare not be abroad at that time.
Keep a careful watch during the night, Sahibs,’ he added,
addressing all of them, ‘and take my advice—stay awake! That is
most essential.’

Once again the whole company of them tittered and then

commenced walking away. Only old Ranjit Singh, the Sikh,
remained.

The six men who had come in the bus looked at each other
blankly.

‘I do not advise you to remain in the bus at night, Sahibs.’

It was the voice of the old Sikh speaking.

 ‘There are many dangers. For one thing, the river may rise
suddenly and you will be drowned. Apart from that, there are
other dangers, too.’ His voice trailed to an end.

‘What dangers?’ queried Othi, deliberately.

Ranjit Singh just smiled an enigmatic smile, but did not answer.

‘Are you referring to Man Singh and his bandits?’ asked

Seshagiri, nervously.

‘Maybe to his bandits,’ answered the old man, vaguely. Then he

chuckled aloud.

What the devil is he driving at, mused Seshagiri, in an

abstracted fashion.

‘If you will be gracious enough to accept the shelter of my poor

hut for this one night, Sahibs, and such food as my miserable
hospitality is able to bestow, you will at least be safe. Tomorrow
will see you on your way. It is but one mile from here,’ he added
apologetically.

‘Percy! Othi!’ interrupted the frightened Seshagiri, in English,

‘for God’s sake let us accept. It is far too dangerous to spend the
night in the open in this awful place.’

So they wrapped up their bedrolls, and each of the six of them,

carrying his own suitcase, bedding and such other things as were
left in the bus, started following the old man, who led the way
walking downstream along the bank.

At least he was fairly correct as far as his estimate of distance

was concerned, for they had gone just a mile when they saw a
neem tree growing about two hundred yards from the water’s
edge. Under the tree was a grass hut.
 As they came closer, a man came out of the hut, which proved
to be larger than they had first thought by looking at it from a
distance. This individual was much younger, had piercing black
eyes, rather a long, oval face and a medium-sized beard. He was
tall and strappingly built, wore a turban like the Sikh and a
similar type of trousers; but no coat. A long shirt hung outside his
pants, reaching almost to his knees.

‘That is my servant,’ said Ranjit Singh by way of explanation.

Then, addressing the man, he said, ‘Ganga, prepare some cha for
the sahib and their attendants.’

‘It is already prepared, huzoor,’ answered the servant, promptly.

The hut was a rectangular affair, the roof of grass supported by a

long bamboo held at either end by forked sticks, some ten feet
high, planted in the ground. The roof itself sloped downwards on
both sides. It appeared to be empty, except for a small steel trunk
and some clothes bundled on top of the trunk, the lot being stored
in a corner at the further end.

The newcomers also noticed that a smaller hut stood at the

back. This had not been visible behind the larger construction up
to now. From this second hut came the delicious smell of food
being cooked.

‘Keep your samaans (belongings) in that further corner, inside,’

invited the ancient. ‘Then you may go down to the river and
wash; or bathe if you like. It is quite safe; there are no ‘mugger’
(crocodile) in this part of the river. After that, khana (food) will
be served. It is but poor fare, Sahibs,’ he apologised, ‘but such food
as I have you are most welcome to share.’

‘Thank you very much, Singh-ji,’ returned Othi, ‘it is most kind
of you. I really fear that we are putting you to a great deal of
inconvenience, besides eating up your reserve store of food. Pray
don’t bother. We have some tinned provisions with us that will
serve the occasion and which we beg you to share.’

Percy and Sesh joined in with their thanks.

‘It is very good of you, Sahibs,’ said their new friend, ‘but as
long as you are the guests of Ranjit Singh, you must not refuse his
hospitality.’

They could see that, if they persisted, it would cause the old
man hurt, if not open offence. So they accepted with renewed
thanks.

Just then the servant, Ganga, appeared from the hut at the rear,
bearing a large kettle of tea and seven enamel mugs. He served his
master first; then Othi, Seshagiri and Rahu; and lastly the bus
driver and the two mechanics.

Greatly refreshed by the tea, the six of them took soap and
towels and walked down to the river for a bath. Within half an
hour they were back, and now another pleasant surprise awaited
them.

A clean mat had been spread in front of the main hut. As it was
rapidly growing dark, a lantern had been lighted and stood in the
centre of this mat. Upon a large aluminium platter, to one side,
had been heaped a pile of freshly-made chappatties—there must
have been at last fifty of them; and beside the platter stood a large
degchie (a deep aluminium utensil), containing something else.
For a moment they did not know what it was, as the degchie was
covered.

‘Please be seated, Sahibs,’ Ranjit Singh invited; and then, to his

servant, ‘Ganga, spread another mat over there for the
gentlemen’s attendants.’
 The old man uncovered the degchie to reveal its contents—
delicious looking, and delicious smelling, cauliflower and home-
made cheese, made into a curry.

‘Here are plates,’ he offered, ‘but I am afraid you will have to

eat with your hands. I have no spoons except the one large ladle
for dishing out the curry. And, please take as many chappatties as
you want, sahibs. There are plenty more in the kitchen, at the
back.’

The curry was delicious and the chappatties soft and fried to
perfection. Nobody spoke for the next ten minutes, as they were
too busy with the food spread before them. In spite of Seshagiri’s
oft-repeated assertions that he would not eat anything that had
not been prepared by a Brahmin like himself, he was so hungry
that he ate heartily with the rest of his companions.

Meanwhile the servant, Ganga, served the driver and the two
mechanics who had seated themselves upon the second mat he
had spread for them.

Now and again the Sikh looked up and smiled a half-smile of

contentment as he regarded with satisfaction the obvious relish
with which his guests were consuming the curry and chappatties.

Fifteen minutes or so, later, they slowed down their eating.

Almost all the curry was gone; and the chappatties, too. They had
more than done justice to the meal.

Finally, with a bucket of water held in his hand a few feet

away, Ganga beckoned to them. One by one they washed their
hands as he sloshed the water over them.

Now that his stomach was full, Percy had been thinking, and
the course of his thoughts apparently worned him a bit. Once or
twice he made as if to speak to Ranjit Singh, but hesitated at the
last moment. At last he came out with what was on his mind.
 ‘Tell me, Singh-ji,’ he asked innocently, speaking in Hindustani
and addressing the old man, ‘how comes it that you appear to
have so much food—and cha, too—ready on hand to serve, when
there is just yourself and your servant here? Do you often have
guests or people like us dropping in?’

Just for a fleeting instant his habitual half-smile died from the
old Sikh’s face. But only for an instant. Then it was back again, as
benign and as pleasant, as before.

‘No, Sahib; very rarely guests like yourselves. But frequently

many buses and convoys of lorries pass this way and are held up
because of the ferry. The drivers are hungry and come here to eat
my food. Of course, I make a business of it then, by selling.’

Percy remembered that at the crossing-point the number of

vehicle tracks showing in the soft sand had been comparatively
few. Also the ferry crew had clearly said that remaining out after
dark in this region was considered a highly dangerous undertaking
and never done. Was their host deliberately lying? The traffic at
the ferry-point was scarce; they had not seen a vehicle of any kind
for the last hour.

‘I see, Ranjit-ji,’ broke in Othi, ‘then you must really permit us

to pay you for the excellent fare you put before us and that we
have enjoyed so heartily.’

The old man held up his hand in protest. ‘No, Sahib. This time
you are my guests,’ he explained, ‘but perhaps if you pass this way
again I might charge you with a little interest thrown in,’ and he
laughed softly at what he considered a good joke.

After they had washed their hands, they sat down for some more
tea.

Then from the steel trunk inside the hut the old man took a
straight and much-blackened clay pipe, together with a small
cloth bag filled with powdered tobacco. He loaded his pipe, lit it,
and drew on it contentedly, exhaling a stream of blue smoke from
his nostrils and lips.

He said to them, ‘Tell me some more about yourselves, Sahibs.

Do you not work for the Government? Are you not the servants of
the sarkar?’

Othi began speaking in Punjabi and told the old man all over
again that they were employees of a private industrial
organisation in the south of India, and had been entrusted to drive
the bus to the new branch opened by the company at Srinagar.

Ranjit Singh seemed very interested in all Othi told him, and
asked a great many questions as to what sort of work the company
to which they belonged was doing in the south, what work they
were doing, what was their pay and positions, and so forth. Othi
answered his questions fully and was pleased that the Sikh was
such an attentive listener.

Then the old man said, ‘A little while ago, while seated, in the
bus by the riverside, you mentioned that this sahib,’ here
indicating Seshagiri with the stem of his clay pipe, ‘was very
afraid of the bandit, Man Singh. Why is that so? What rumours are
circulating about him in southern India?’

Was it their imagination, or did his voice hold an aggrieved

tone?

Percy heard the question and again began to ponder.

Othi answered with a laugh, slapping Sesh good-humouredly on

his knee. ‘You see, Singh-ji, this friend of mine has never left his
part of the country before. He is a voracious reader of the
newspapers, which make out that this Man Singh is a cruel and
bloodthirsty outlaw who murders everyone he sees for money.
Naturally, when our bus fell in the river, he was afraid that this
brigand might come at night and slit all our throats,’ and he
chuckled.

But Ranjit Singh seemed far from amused. His smile faded and
his face grew serious. There was a noticeably peculiar expression
on it now. It was a look of resentment, mixed with sorrow; an
aspect of apology, as of one striving greatly to be understood; a
manifestation of hurt, struggling to give vent to its own excuses
and wanting to offer its own explanations.

Seeing these changing expositions in the ancient’s eyes and face,

Percy commenced to ponder more deeply than ever before.

Whatever thoughts came to his mind did not appear to be very

satisfactory or comforting, though. For Percy glanced around him,
and noticed the utter blackness of the night that had set in by now
and began just outside the narrow circle of light cast by the feeble
and flickering glow of the lantern on the mat.

Some minutes later, Seshagiri said, ‘It’s half-past nine and I am

feeling sleepy. Do you mind if I turn in? But you chaps can
continue talking. It won’t disturb me.’

Although he had so far given no indication of being able to

understand or speak English, Ranjit Singh evidently guessed what
had just been said. For he broke in, ‘If this gentleman, or all of you
are tired, let us go to bed then.’

‘I think it is an excellent idea,’ said Othi, climbing to his feet.

They all got up. In the meantime, having finished their dinner,
the bus driver and the two mechanics had curled themselves up on
the other mat and were already fast asleep.

‘Sahibs, you must all sleep inside the hut. Yes, and your
servants, too. I will sleep across the entrance and keep the lantern
burning dimly outside.’
 Othi hesitated for a second. Then he said, ‘Singh-ji, I am afraid
it will be frightfully hot inside at this time of the year. I think, if
you don’t mind, I should prefer to sleep out here on this very mat.
It will be cooler.’

The Sikh turned on him, rather impatiently it seemed. ‘Please

do as I ask, Sahib; it is not safe for you to sleep outside. No, nor
your servants either. They must also sleep inside the hut, along
with the three of you. There is enough room.’

Momentarily, Othi felt like contesting the point. He did not

want to be cooped up in the confines of a hut with five other
human beings on a hot summer night like this one. But the old
Sikh had already turned away apparently taking it for granted
that he would be obeyed. He walked across to the three men
sleeping on the other mat, and awoke each in turn by gently
shaking his shoulder. As the three of them ‘sat up drowsily, he
pointed with his right hand towards the large grass hut and said in
Hindustani, ‘Un-dher chalo’ (get inside).

Obediently the three of them got up and came to the grass hut.

In the meanwhile Percy closed his hand over Othi’s left elbow
and whispered into his ear, in English, ‘We have got to listen to
him and sleep inside. I think I can guess the reason, but there is no
time to tell you now. God knows if the old devil understands
English or not.’

By this time Ranjit Singh was walking back. He laid down the
mat on which they had just dined to one side of the rectangular
hut, and indicated that the three of them should sleep upon it,
their heads to the centre and feet towards the outside.

Then he told the bus driver to fetch the other mat on which they
had just been sleeping. The driver obeyed him. Ranjit Singh said
that it should be spread along the opposite side of the rectangular
hut and instructed the three of them to sleep upon it, their head
also towards the centre and feet to the outside.

In a very few minutes the six men had laid out their respective
bedrolls on the two mats. They then lay down upon them in the
positions the old man had pointed out. Percy was nearest the
entrance to the hut, Seshagiri next to him, and Othi furthest
away.

Meanwhile Ranjit Singh had spread his own simple bed across
the entrance. Before lying down himself he lowered the wick of
the lantern to a dim glow and placed it just outside the hut within
his reach. As he settled down for the night he told them to sleep
soundly without fear.

Percy was dog-tired and wanted, badly, to sleep. But he

struggled against the feeling and strove to keep himself awake.
Within a few minutes Othi, on the distant side, began to snore—a
loud, gurgling sound with the exhalation of each breath; followed
by a deep, rasping intake.

Sesh was breathing evenly, indicating that he, too, had fallen
asleep.

One of the mechanics began to mutter in his slumber. No sound

came from the other two men, or from Ranjit Singh at the
doorway.

Percy began to think that he was grateful to Othi for the loud
noise he was making. It would help to keep him awake. Because,
at all costs, he at least should remain so. It would give him a
chance to warn the other two when danger eventually threatened.

For he was convinced above everything else that the six of them
were in very real danger.
 But tired Nature invariably asserts herself. At least she did so
that night. After a vain struggle lasting for perhaps half an hour,
Percy himself fell fast asleep.

He had no means of telling how long after that he suddenly

woke up, or why. But he did; abruptly and very completely.

The lantern, which had been burning dimly at the entrance,

had gone out and they were in Stygian darkness. Percy sensed
there was somebody standing in the hut.

Then came a faint scratching sound and a match was struck. He

closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, but contrived to keep
the eyelids of his left eye ever so slightly apart to see what was
going on.

And he saw the face of Ranjit Singh, with match held aloft
above his head, peering at each of them in turn. Then the match
went out.

This time, Percy made a better job of it at keeping awake, and

remained so. There was no other sound from the Sikh. But he
momentarily expected to feel the sharp blade of a knife stick into
his chest, or perhaps its edge run across his throat. Involuntarily,
he drew his chin inwards.

Quite some time after that, he did not know how long, Percy
heard the deep, booming ‘Who—o—o’ of a homed owl calling
some distance away. It hooted thrice and was silent.

Immediately it was answered by another owl. But this bird must

have been very very close to the hut, mused young Rahu. Perhaps
it was even seated on the top. Twice it hooted weirdly, dismally in
reply, like a lost soul answering its mate. Then it was silent.

The minutes dragged by and Percy grew more and more nervous.
A sixth sense kept pounding into his brain the message that they
were in very great danger. He thought of awakening Seshagiri first,
and then Othi; but considered that the noise they might make in
getting up would surely give them all away.

Then he heard the faint whisper of voices speaking in a hushed

undertone. It appeared to come from just outside the hut.

Percy turned his head ever so slowly, opened his eyes and
strained to see out into the darkness. But he could make out
nothing more than the faint outline of the entrance.

Two or three men were talking in whispers. He could hear their

words. They were speaking in some language that he did not
know. Punjabi perhaps; or maybe some other dialect. Of the six of
them, Othi would be the only one who might understand what
was being said.

But he was sleeping on the other side of Seshagiri, and he was

snoring again.

Percy wondered what he should do. Then an idea came to him.

Sitting up, on hands and knees he gently crossed over the
slumbering Sesh and crouched down beside Othi.

Now came the problem of awakening him without causing him

to make any sound.

Leaning forward on his right elbow, Percy blew air through

pursed lips, gently but persistently, into Othi’s face.

The rhythm of Othi’s steady snore was broken. He gurgled and

groaned. Then he turned on his right side, away from that
annoying draught, and continued snoring.

Percy propped himself up on his knees, lent over the stout figure,
and continued to blow air gently, but steadily, on the sleeper’s
face. The snoring stopped; then started again. Othi gurgled and
grumbled in his sleep.

Would this fat fool never wake up, Percy began to wonder,
anxiously? Was he going to snore all night?

So he blew harder than ever before.

The snoring stopped abruptly.

Percy knew that Othi was awake at last.

Leaning over still further, Percy whispered very softly into his
ear, ‘Othi, Othi; wake up and listen. There are voices whispering
outside. What are they saying?’

‘Where? Who? Why is it so dark? Where are we?’ Although Othi

also spoke in a whisper, his voice seemed inordinately loud.
Clearly he was confused; and also afraid.

Re-assuringly, Percy pressed his arm; then whispered again,

‘Hush! Be very careful. Make no sound, whatever. Listen; what are
they saying?’

Othi sat upright, so as to be able to hear better.

The voices were murmuring in Punjabi, and he could

understand what was being said. He listened in silence for awhile.

Percy, who could not follow, was becoming increasingly

anxious and impatient. At last he whispered, ‘For God’s sake;
what are they saying?’

Othi whispered back, ‘Two men are questioning a third. They

say they saw our bus at the river and were about to set fire to it
because it looked to be a Government vehicle. Then they decided
to consult the old man and so came here.’
 ‘Where is the old man?’ inquired Percy.

‘It is he who is talking to them. Keep quiet now, and let me

listen.’

The whispering continued and Othi hearkened.

Then he breathed excitedly, ‘Percy, they are dacoits.

I just heard them say so. Wake up Sesh and our men. We must
escape from here while the going is good. Hurry.’ Rahu turned and
started blowing air against Seshagiri’s face to awaken him, as he
had done to Othi.

Sesh did not awaken immediately. Then, quite unexpectedly, he

said irritably and aloud, in English, ‘What the devil are you trying
to do? Let me sleep.’

The whispering outside stopped immediately, and they heard

approaching footsteps.

In a few seconds they made out the tall form of Ranjit Singh at
the doorway. This time he shone the beam of an electric torch in
their faces. He saw all three of them sitting up on the ground, and
noticed Percy was now in another place.

‘So you are awake, Sahibs?’ he queried, an amused jilt in his

voice, ‘and you have been listening no doubt, eh?’

They did not answer.

‘Sometimes it is very dangerous for one to hear things not

intended for him to hear,’ he continued, seriously; ‘but it doesn’t
matter this time. We will excuse you.’

Turning his head, he called out, ‘Oh, my brothers and children;

our guests are wide awake. Would you like to speak to them?’
 There was an unintelligible murmur from outside which they
could not make out.

Ranjit Singh addressed them again, ‘Alright, Sahibs; bring your

mat with you and come outside. It is cooler here and we shall
talk.’

Without thinking of disobeying they walked outside, Seshagiri

carrying the mat they had all been lying on.

The reflection from the stars, scintillating in myriads in the

clear sky above them, cast a diffused glow over the entire scene. In
that dim light they saw many figures standing around them.

‘Spread the mat and sit down, gentlemen,’ invited Ranjit Singh.

They complied.

‘Well sirs,’ he went on, ‘one of you, earlier this evening,

expressed fear of meeting the dacoits of this region. Another one of
you said he would very much like to meet them. In fact, two of
you said that. Those men’s wish has been granted. Around you,’
and here his voice assumed a dramatic touch, tinged with pride,
‘are all dacoits.’

‘And who are you?’ It was Sesh who blurted out the question.

‘I? Well, I am Man Singh, of course.’

There was a gasp of incredulous surprise from both Othi and

Sesh. But Percy murmured, ‘I thought so. I might have known it
all along.’

Man Singh addressed him seriously. ‘Young man, I had strong

doubts about you from the beginning. From your demeanour, I
know you suspected something. Then, when I came into the hut
after midnight and struck a match to see if you were all asleep, I
found you pretending to be so while peeping at me with one eye
half-opened. Death stood very close to you at that moment, Sahib.
I began to think you might be a police spy. Don’t do it again,
young man. You might not be so lucky the next time. Remember,
men do not sleep with one eye closed and one eye opened.

‘However, I have decided to spare your lives and let you go free,
as I think you are all harmless and innocent. Also, I want you to
do me a favour. I want you to take a personal message from me,
and when you go back I want you to tell as many people as you
can what I am now about to say to you. Tell it to the Government;
tell it to big people; tell it to the newspapers; tell it to the poor;
tell it to the rich; tell it far and wide.

‘In fact, give my message to the whole of India and to the whole
world.’

Man Singh’s voice rose in crescendo and vibrated with

earnestness.

‘Listen carefully, then. This is the message I am about to give

you.

‘Man Singh Rathore, the dacoit, sends his greetings and this
message to the Government and the people of India and to the
people of the world.

‘He was an honest, upright man, coming from an honest family,

till some wicked people besmirched his honour and disgraced his
family. The law was powerless to punish the evil individual who
had first accused this innocent man and dragged his family’s name
into the dust. So I, Man Singh, who was that innocent man,
punished that wrongdoer for the evil he had performed.

‘Because I destroyed him and his vagabond brood, the law calls
me a murderer. Why did it not punish him for what he did? Then it
would have been a just law. Now it is an unjust law; seeking only
to protect the rich and powerful against the poor and weak.

‘I, Man Singh, am here to oppose this unjust law. I seek to help
the poor and weak against the rich and powerful.

‘Was I such a bad man as people sometimes say, I could kill and
rob all of you right now. I know you each have money with you. I
could also burn your bus to ashes.

‘But I will not do it as you have harmed no one and I have no

quarrel with you.

‘Tell the people of India when you go away from here, Sahibs,
that Man Singh is a true son of India and brother of theirs. He
loves the country and is proud of being an Indian; and he loves
them, too. But he hates oppression and injustice in any form,
whatever.

‘Therefore, Man Singh will continue to fight such oppression

and injustice to the very end till he conquers them; or, maybe, till
they conquer him; who knows?

‘That is my message, Sahibs; and I entrust the three of you, on

your word of honour as gentlemen, to deliver it to India, and,
through India, to the rest of the world.

‘At dawn today, before the crew of the raft returns, my men will
put your bus on board. Rajah Man Singh Rathore, has spoken.’

And so it came to pass that, when the leader and the four
members of the crew of the raft, accompanied by many other men
from the village, turned up at about seven o’clock that morning,
expecting to make at least one hundred rupees from the stranded
strangers by pushing their bus on to the raft, they were petrified
with amazement to find the work already accomplished and the
bus safe and sound on board the raft, with all six of the men who
had travelled in it sitting unconcernedly inside, smoking
cigarettes.

Now would any of the six tell them how that miracle had been
accomplished.

And they only received ten rupees for themselves, which was
the normal fee for ferrying any bus or lorry across the river.

* * *

This incident, strange in itself, brought a still stranger sequel.

Othi and his two companions returned by air to their

headquarters in the south after leaving the bus at Srinagar; the
driver and the two mechanics travelling by the slower train route.

Once back, all six of them as might have been expected kept to
their promise and gave wide propaganda to their adventure, and
Man Singh’s personal message was repeated far and wide.

Most people did not believe them and felt their story was but an
ingenious improvement on the usual fisherman’s yarn. Could it be
possible that the notorious murderer Man Singh who had spent so
many years of his lifetime slitting people’s jugulars, had not only
spared them but had refrained from robbing them and well, in
addition to feeding them and putting their vehicle safely on the
ferry-boat? It was far too much to believe and should be taken
with more than the proverbial pinch of salt!

But here and there, few and far between, people did believe
them and the reputation for nobleness of Rajah Man Singh became
enhanced.
 And thus it came to pass that an American journalist, touring
India in his private capacity, came to hear the story.

He did not know whether to credit it or not. So like most Yanks,

he decided to do the common sense, plain thinking thing.

He made up his mind to first meet the men who had brought the
story, and judge for himself whether they appeared to be reliable
types of people or just obvious liars.

And he decided that, if he felt they were telling the truth, he

would visit Man Singh if possible himself, and get the message at
first hand from his lips to convey it himself to the people of the
United States of America.

Thus he made it his business to trace the story to its origin and
met Othi, Rahu and Seshagiri. All three of them assured him they
had been speaking the plain truth, and produced the bus driver,
Sattar, and the two mechanics who had been with them, as
further evidence.

The journalist was satisfied. He waited just long enough to find

out where all this had happened and what would be the shortest
route to the ferry-crossing where the bus had been held up.

Then he got there.

Let us hand it to this Yank for being a brave man. Bear in mind
he was a total stranger to India and could not speak a single word
of any dialect. Yet he proposed to call upon Man Singh at his own
headquarters in the midst of the Chambal ravines.

Now Johnny Carter, which was the American’s name, had

plenty of common sense and grit to make up for the handicaps of
not knowing the people, country or language. Also, like all Yanks,
he appeared to have a fair amount of money.
 He hired three interpreters who could speak English, and
through them came to learn all the current stories and rumours
about Man Singh that were afloat, in order to find out all he could
about the outlaw chief.

Thus it came to pass that, amongst other things, he found out

that the bandit leader was easily accessible through his hundreds
of spies, informers and secret agents, to all who sought him for
good and sufficient reasons.

Next, he told his three assistants to go into the marketplaces of

the towns in the area, and into the villages too, and spread his
message to the dacoit leader among all the people.

‘Tell Rajah Man Singh Rathore that an American journalist

craves audience with him. This American has heard and received
the message the Rajah gave to the six men who came by bus and
were stranded at the ferry, to give to the people of India. The
American Sahib would hear it himself from the Rajah’s own lips so
as to be able to deliver it with assurance to the millions of people
in his own country of America far beyond the seas. For this
purpose the American is prepared to entrust the Rajah with his life
and to come alone and unarmed to whatever place the Rajah may
bid him.’

Having sent out the message through his interpreters, John

Carter camped in a certain Travellers’ Bungalow to await results.

These came on the third day. One of his interpreters brought the
news.

He was highly excited. ‘Carter Sahib,’ he said, ‘last night there

came a tapping at the window of the room in which I was
sleeping. Wondering who it could be, I glanced at the clock. It
showed one o’clock in the morning. I opened the window but saw
nobody. Then from the darkness in front of me a voice said, ‘Tell
the American Sahib that the Rajah has received his message and
will gladly give him audience. If he is speaking the truth, not a
hair of his head shall be harmed. If this is a police trap or he is
lying, he will not see another sunrise. Tell him to start walking on
the main road which leads to the town of Bhind at midnight
tomorrow night. He is to tell nobody—not a single soul. The Rajah
will find his own means of contacting the American. And there is
one other thing. Should any ambush or trap be laid due to this
message, both the American and you will be killed. That is the
message of Rajah Man Singh Rathore.’

‘That is all, Carter Sahib. For God’s sake be careful and tell
nobody else what I have said. If you do, we shall surely both be
killed.’

Johnny smiled very happily. He would tell nobody. And he

would certainly keep the appointment.

At midnight the following day he left the gates of the friendly

Travellers’ Bungalow behind him. The road to Bhind passed
directly in front of the building and led to the west.

So Johnny turned in that direction and walked onwards.

He walked for more than an hour and did not know how far he
had come. As it was, the darkness was so intense that he had
difficulty in keeping to the road itself. Had it not been for the trees
growing on both sides he would have definitely strayed off it.

Suddenly things happened!

Without a sound or warning of any kind, John felt himself

grabbed by two pairs of powerful arms, while a black cloth
descended over his head.

This is it, he thought; and offered no resistance whatever.

 More pairs of hands roped his arms behind him and his feet
together. Then he was bodily lifted up and carried some distance.

Through the cloth over his head he thought he heard the neigh
of a horse. He was right, for shortly afterwards the men who were
carrying him lowered him to the ground and his feet were untied.

Then again they lifted him, but only long enough to guide his
foot over the saddle of a horse. He felt the presence of a rider
behind him. Strong arms encircled him from the back and took the
reins. The horse started trotting at a slow canter. He could hear
the hooves of other horses accompanying them, one on either side.

They rode for hours on end. Then the three horses were brought
to a halt. John Carter was let down and led over the threshold of a
building. Once inside, his arms were untied and the thin black bag
removed from over his head.

He blinked his eyes and was surprised to find it was daylight.

Two men, armed with double-barrelled shotguns stood at the door
through which he had just entered.

Food was offered to him, and hot tea. Then a mat was brought,
and he was motioned to lie down upon it and rest.

Despite the discomfort he had suffered for so long with the bag
over his head and the ropes that had hurt his arms, John was well
satisfied. His hopes were materializing. He fell asleep with that
thought.

When night fell again the journey was continued. But by this
time his captors had evidently come to believe that there was no
trick in it, and that their prisoner was alone and unfollowed. They
did not put the black bag over his head, but just blindfolded him
with a towel. Nor did they tie his hands behind him.
 Once again, with a man mounted behind him on the horse, John
rode forward into the unknown.

Later in the night the horses were halted and he was taken down
from the saddle. With hands holding his arms on either side to
guide him, John was led forward.

They seemed to walk for hours and hours. The going was very
rough and he tripped many times due to the cloth over his eyes,
and would have fallen had not the arms on either side supported
him. The terrain led continuously up and down. Carter began
feeling exhausted.

Suddenly, out of the stillness, rang a challenging voice. The

men around him answered something which of course Johnny
could not understand. Then he was led forward again. He felt the
chill of dawn and shivered a little.

At last that interminable walk came to an end. He heard the

sound of voices and the hands holding his arms released him. He
felt them fiddling at the knot of the cloth that had been used to
blindfold him. Finally it was whisked away.

Before him stood a tall old man with abnormally high forehead,
crowned with a tall turban. He had a flowing white beard,
whiskers and a huge moustache. He was wearing a tight-fitting
waistcoat of a maroon colour and white pants, made of silk, loose
above the knee and very close-fitting below.

The old man bowed slightly, and salaamed in the fashion of the
old days of regal India by raising his right hand and touching his
forehead with his fingertips, palm turned inwards.

John Carter returned the greeting with a modern Indian

‘namaste’, by joining his two hands together before his face,
palms and fingers touching each other, in the manner he had been
taught to do.
 ‘Welcome to the humble abode of Man Singh,’ said the old man,
in Hindustani.

But Johnny did not understand one word of what was being said.
Instead, he looked interestedly at his surroundings.

Obviously they were in a cave of some sort, as the place was

illumined by the light of four lanterns, suspended from the walls
at different points. Besides Man Singh and the two men who had
brought him, there were two others in the place. One of these
latter carried a tommy gun in the crook of his arm. The other was
a tall young man, unmistakably the old man’s son, as he had the
same high forehead and steely, boring eyes.

Man Singh noticed that the white man did not understand his
welcome, and then remembered that he was an American and
therefore unlikely to be conversant with any Indian language.

He turned to the young man beside him, and said, ‘Tehsildar,

my son, call Prithvi. He understands the white man’s tongue and
can speak to the American sahib.’

The young man so addressed went out of the cave. In about ten
minutes he was back again, accompanied by a short, very dark
wiry man of about 35 years of age, with a hooked nose and only
one eye. The left eye. He was clean shaven.

Man Singh addressed the newcomer and spoke for awhile. Then
Prithvi in turn addressed Johnny in quaintly-worded English.

‘Maharaj Sahib, he say he very glad you come. You welcome.

You eat something first; yes, no? Drink cha-tea? Then you tell
Maharaj Sahib what you want, eh? Yes, no?’

John Carter was glad he could at last converse with the famous
dacoit even if it was to be through an interpreter like the man who
was now doing the talking. He said to Prithvi, ‘Please tell the
Rajah Sahib I am mighty grateful he granted me an audience, and
I am glad to be here. Tell him that I heard the message he sent to
the people of India and to the world through those folk he helped
in the bus that got all bogged-up in the river. If he will be good
enough to give me that message directly, I shall be real proud and
happy to carry it to my own people in the U.S.A., thousands of
miles from here.’

Prithvi took some time to translate this message to his leader,

but at last finished talking.

The handsome old brigand was obviously greatly flattered and

pleased. And proud, too. ‘Tell the sahib,’ be said, ‘that today he
shall be my guest. Let him rest first and feast with me. I shall show
him my armoury and my treasure chest. Then tonight I shall
deliver my message and send him safely back to the outer world.
Also convey my apologies for the discomforts of the journey, but
he will realise that I was compelled to take precautions.’

Prithvi interpreted all this to John in his quaint way. The

American was touched. Spontaneously he held out his right hand
to the dacoit leader. The old man took it between both of his and
shook it warmly.

Then John was led through a passage in the wall of the cave
which he had to negotiate bent almost double to an adjoining
cave. Here food and water were served and he rested awhile on a
carpet and silken pillows that had been provided for him.

At midday, more food was served. Prithvi appeared with it and

said, ‘You come after eating to Rajah Sahib? He show you pretty
jewels; plenty, plenty. Also ‘bundooks’ (firearms); he got plenty
more.’ Then he ended with his characteristic, ‘Yes, no?’

John ate heartily of the dry fried meat that was served, along
with many thin, freshly-cooked delicious chappatties, dripping in
ghee. He was given a large tumbler of goat’s milk after that,
followed by a juicy watermelon. When he had finished eating and
washed his hands, he stood up and announced he was eager to
meet the dacoit-king again.

Prithvi led him along the same passage he had come by earlier
and into the same cave where he had first met Man Singh.

The old bandit was there, but Carter noticed the man with the
tommy gun had been changed. Also the son, Tehsildar, whom he
had met the last time, was not present. In his place was a taller
man, slightly older and having a pair of twinkling, jet-black eyes.
He wore a black beard and a high, saffron-yellow turban.

Man Singh stretched out both his hands to shake John Carter’s
right hand again. Then he introduced his companion, through
Prithvi. ‘This is my beloved second son, Subedar Singh,’ adding in
an undertone, ‘my eldest son, Jaswant Singh, was killed by the
police years ago.’

Subedar greeted John pleasantly, with a welcoming, sincere

handshake.

‘I will show the American sahib my armoury first,’ announced

Man Singh.

At a signal from him, his bodyguard stooped down and opened a

trap door that was concealed under a sheepskin laid on the floor of
the cave. Man Singh led the way; the bodyguard followed. Then
Subedar Singh invited John to go next. He came immediately
behind, with Prithvi bringing up the rear.

They descended six or seven steps cut in the earth, into a low,
dark room lit by two lanterns, both suspended from the ceiling.
John noticed that there were weapons all around him. Along the
further side of the room were lines of wooden rifle-racks. Neatly
arranged in them were rows of .393 army service rifles. Along the
next wall was another rack. This held a miscellaneous collection
of firearms of all description and vintage. There were some
modern big-game double-barrelled rifles among them, including a
Jeffries .470 cordite rifle and a .500 blackpowder express; many .12
bore shotguns, a couple of them made by such famous makers as
Holland & Holland, and three by Greener. And there were some
single-barrelled .12 bore and .16 shotguns, too. Along the third
wall were arranged the muzzle-loaders; some fairly modern and
others very ancient, flintlock weapons. In between these were
revolvers and pistols of all makes, shapes and sizes. The last wall
of the armoury boasted the cream of the collection. They were
British Army-issue Sten guns and tommy guns, mixed with
Japanese and Italian automatic weapons, obviously all relics of
World War II.

‘Still further underground,’ indicated Man Singh through the

interpreter, ‘are our hand-grenades, some bombs, and stores of
gunpowder. But it is unsafe to go there just now with lighted
lanterns.’

They reascended the earthern staircase to the cave above. Here

Man Singh led John to a medium-sized iron safe standing by itself
in a corner. He opened the door.

Against the back of the safe, bundled, tied and stacked closely
together, were piles of one-hundred-rupee notes. How many such
bundles there were he did not count.

In front of the stacks of notes stood a tin box.

Man Singh opened the box for John to gaze at its contents.
There he saw gold watch-chains, diamond rings, and necklaces of
gold set with emeralds, rubies and other, precious stones; women’s
golden nose rings and earrings; and trinkets of all descriptions,
large and small. Among the collection was a very valuable gold
watch of obviously old European make. Man Singh took it out and
held it up for John to see. Then he wound it and listened gleefully
as it chimed prettily, and struck the hour.

When Man Singh had closed the safe, he turned to the American
and said, through Prithvi, ‘Go back and rest now, sahib. Tonight
you shall have dinner with me and a few guests. After that I will
give you my message for your people and send you back, safely.’

That dinner was a memorable event. Man Singh sat John next to
him on his left on the floor of the cave while his armed bodyguard
stood behind. To the right of the chieftain sat Subedar Singh. To
John’s left was Tehsildar Singh. There were also five others present
whom Man Singh variously introduced as Nawab Singh his elder
brother; and four of his lieutenants, Charna, Roopa, Lakhan Singh
and Devi Singh. The last invitee to the banquet was the
interpreter, Prithvi.

The meal consisted of several courses of well-cooked food, all

entirely strange to the American journalist. To end the feast, a
bottle of Exshaw Brandy was opened; and finished by them. Only
Man Singh himself never touched a drop.

Finally came the closing enactment in the whole unusual

drama. Man Singh delivered his message for John Carter to convey
to the American people, to England and the world, and Prithvi
interpreted it in his comical way.

But it is far too great and wonderful a message to be spoilt by

repeating it in the way in which Prithvi said it, although he did
his best as interpreter with the poor knowledge of English at his
command. So, rather let us render it as Man Singh originally gave
it in his own mother tongue, the dialect of Rajasthan.

‘To the President and the people of the United States of

America; to the Sovereign and the People of England and the
British Empire; and to the People of all the World; I, Rajah Man
Singh Rathore, send by you, John Carter, my warmest greetings.
 ‘I am no thief or brigand by choice or by nature. Evil men made
me so.

‘As the people of all your countries fought, and still fight, for
that which is right, so do I fight now. I love my country, India; and
I am proud of being one of her sons. I would not exchange this
heritage for any other.

‘But I grieve over the evil that still happens here, just as it still
happens in your lands. Tell all your people to join me in fighting
against oppression of the poor in all its forms in all our lands,
wherever such wicked practices may exist.

‘Only then will my country and your countries become great—

and remain great—for all time!

‘Many of us will fall in this fight and lose our freedom and even
our lives, for the forces of evil are widespread and powerful. But
those who die for this cause shall live forever in the histories and
memories of the peoples of their lands. Is not that worthwhile? Is it
not the greatest reward a man could seek?

‘Speak this message aloud, John Carter. Write it in a book and

send it to all the countries of the world. For then you will be
serving a good cause, and a noble one. And may God be with you
always.

‘I, Rajah Man Singh Rathore, have spoken.’

From the third finger of his right hand, Man Singh removed a
gold ring, set with a single blood-red ruby. He handed it to John
Carter directly, saying to Prithvi,

‘Tell the American Sahib to please accept it as a personal gift

from me; to keep it and wear it, in remembrance of me. Tell him it
is my own ring; not stolen from anyone.’
 And the illustrious old man shook with laughter at his own
joke.

John Carter began the journey back later that night. He was not
bound this time, nor was the black bag put over his head. He was
merely blindfolded. And it was done with his consent and in his
own interest. For then he could truthfully answer the authorities
that he did not know the way to Man Singh’s secret cave.

What happened thereafter is not known in India. But we

sincerely hope John delivered the great message entrusted to him
that day.

Perhaps, as he gazes at that gold ring and that blood-red ruby,

his memory conjures up a picture of that grand old bewhiskered
warrior, imbued with the solemn and noble principles of the cause
for which he was prepared to lay down his life and become a
martyr—Man Singh, the gentleman dacoit.
 7

The History of Man Singh

AJASAHIB Man Singh Rathore, king of the Dacoits of India,

R did not earn his distinction easily or lightly. It was not just a
name, given to an ordinary man. He earned every letter that went
to make up that proud and extraordinary title. His is a history
beyond imagination that beggars description and is fascinating,
transcending words.

Just think of it. One single man, who was pursued by 1,700
policemen of four states for 15 years in an area of approximately
8000 square miles. He was the victor of over 80 encounters with
the police. And the cost of the operations, that eventually led to
his death, was one and a half crores of rupees. In figures, this reads
as Rs. 1,50,00,000. Or, if you should prefer to write it in another
way, Rs. Fifteen millions of rupees! About one and one-eighth
millions of pounds sterling spent on the elimination of just one
man!

For his arrest, or his dead body, many rewards were offered, the
highest being Rs. 15,000—well over pounds 1000 sterling!

Records and paperwork, dealing with his adventures his

depredations, and his pursuit, were estimated to weigh over a
tonne. He was directly responsible for more than 200 murders and
a thousand acts of dacoity, pillage, ransom and raid.

But all the loot he was accused of having taken, both proved
and unproved, did not amount to anywhere near half the sum of
money the Government spent in trying to catch him.
 And bear in mind always dear readers, this is not mere
romancing. These are plain, hard, true facts.

There was nothing petty, mean, ignoble or churlish about this

man. Everything was noble, brave, sporting and on a grand scale.
Justice was something he not only preached, but lived and
followed himself.

Read what the Bhind Morena Crime Inquiry Committee,

appointed by the Government of the State of Madhya Bharat in
1953, has to say about this most unique personality:

‘The case of Man Singh is representative of the peculiar

problems of this area. He is reported to be a man with no private
vices. Stories are told of him in hushed voices of admiration, of
how he helps good causes, kills informers and policemen only
when pursued, just lifts a few men who have money to spare,
respects Brahmins who give him blessings, and occasionally
coerces Zamindars to contribute to desirable objects like school
buildings.

‘His admirers often remark that he represents the high

watermark of dacoity, nobly practised. Officers of revenue,
customs and education departments could run into him without
fear. He could join marriage celebrations attended by thousands of
people. Now, however, he is on the run. His case represents how
the natural repulsion against heinous offences can be mellowed by
adopting ingenious methods. In the opinion of the Committee, the
public attitude towards crime is as serious a matter, if not more
serious, than the prevalence of crime itself.’

Remember, those words do not represent the ideas of any one

person or of the writer. Verbatim, they are the findings of a
Committee appointed by Government to inquire into the causes
and nature of such crimes.
 Man Singh was reported to be a strict teetotaller and vegetarian,
living a life of abject simplicity, close to nature. His morals were
unimpeachable. He robbed the rich, to help the poor.

He was deeply religious, and bathed in the river at break of

dawn, singing sacred songs in the water where he would offer
ablutions to the fiery ball of the rising sun as it peeped above the
line of distant hills. Fresh from his bath, he would walk straight to
the temple of the Goddess Kali and worship her devoutly. The
string of large, amber beads he wore around his neck served the
purpose of a rosary. He would count them while chanting his
prayers, and they never left his person night or day.

As part of his religious life, he built several temples, the money

for which came from the loot he obtained when robbing the rich.
Many a temple, to this day, boasts a big brass bell, donated by the
intrepid Rajah. You will find his name inscribed on them. It was
his sincere belief that every time the bell was rung it would sound
a prayer for him, if he was alive; or for his soul, if he was dead.

He donated schools, too, for the primary education of boys and

girls; and ‘chatrams’ (or free shelters) for the aged, the poor and
homeless, and the down-and-out.

There was one religious festival he would never omit to attend.

It was held once a year, on a feast day, at the Bateshwar Nath
Temple, and Man Singh never failed to be present on that day.
Eventually, the police came to hear of it, and on that occasion
they would surround the temple with a ring of uniformed men,
and closely interrogate the thousands of pilgrims that would
attend.

They knew that one among those thousands was the man for
whom they were looking.

They would talk to the pilgrims and cross-examine them. Year

after year, one of the men they might speak to, and question,
would be the man they were so desperately in search of, the
bandit leader, Rajah Man Singh. They knew it, but they did not
know which was the man. How could they? He was too well
disguised. And so, year by year and each year, he would literally
slip from their fingers, only to be back again the following year,
but with the same results.

Many an evening would he spend at a village, sitting in the

open of the ‘maidan’ (grassy space), or on the doorstep of a house,
smoking a clay pipe, the end of which he would hold to his lips
with cupped hands, and talk to the villagers, discuss their
problems, and help them with advice and money, when required.

The police knew this too, from information conveyed by their

agents. But by the time they reached the spot, Man Singh would
no longer be there. Evidently his spies—or more likely, his well-
wishers—were as efficient as those on the police side. Perhaps
more so. But he always just managed to elude their grasp.

A very human story is prevalent about him among the villagers

of Bhind.

One evening, as the smoke of the village fires curled

heavenward while cooking the evening meal of chappatties, Man
Singh sat on the step of the Patel’s (headman’s) house, talking to
the headman and several other villagers.

The Government, through the police, had engaged spies and

informers on monthly salaries and had liberally distributed these
persons in all the villages, far and wide over the area. One of these
individuals came to know of the dacoit’s presence and hastened to
inform the police. They surrounded the village and converged on
the Patel’s house. But, as was to be expected, Man Singh had
vanished into thin air.

To say the least of it, the Inspector in charge of the police party
was peeved. With scowling mien he confronted the Patel.
 ‘Fool, and son of five generations of idiots, why did you not
detain him, until we came?’

‘Because, your honour, the man who could detain Rajah Man
Singh has not yet been born.’ The Patel spoke quietly, but there
was an air of finality in his tone.

‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ almost screamed the police officer, sweat

running down his face from the heat, his exertions, and the rage
he was in. He began to speak in short gasps. ‘I can lock you up for
harbouring this murderer,’ he shouted, ‘don’t you know it is
against the law, to aid and abet criminals?’

‘I know that quite well, sir,’ flatly returned the Patel, ‘but I was
neither aiding him, nor abetting him. It was just that Man Singh
turned up at my house quite unexpectedly and spoke to me. What
could I possibly do, sir? Arrest him?’

Then the Patel continued in a quizzical tone. ‘You say that I

can be locked up, by law, for talking to the Rajah. Tell me, your
honour, suppose I had tried to detain Man Singh and had lost my
life in doing so. Would the law give me another life?’

The Inspector nearly exploded. Then, just in time, he

remembered he was nearing the age of retirement from service.
The police doctor had advised him to ‘take it easy’ for the few
months remaining before he would be relieved from duty. He was
suffering from high blood pressure as it was, and carried far more
weight than was good for him.

There was something, after all, in what the Patel had said, he
mused. Neither the Government, nor the law would provide him
with a second life. On the other hand, the former would swallow
up his pension if he were to kill himself before his time through
giving away to undue temper.
 With all that, he could not refrain from calling Man Singh a
very bad name.

Now, while all this was going on, the usual gaping crowd of
villagers had assembled to see and hear all they could. Among
them was a young widow whose name was Jaya. Very recently,
Man Singh had sent her some money through one of his
lieutenants to pay her eldest son’s examination fees, to enable him
to appear for the school final examination.

She heard the bad word, and she resented it. Hot-headedly, and
from the midst of the crowd, she spoke up, addressing the
Inspector.

‘You do not know him, sir, and hence you have no business to
call him that name. Why, he is a benefactor of the poor. Although
I had never seen him at any time, he generously sent me money to
pay my son’s examination fees when I did not have an anna in the
house. May God bless him; and protect him from the likes of you.’

Jaya said the words in a rush and then remained quiet, as she
realised the magnitude of her offence to this high-ranking police
officer. There was utter silence as the crowd waited to see what
would happen next.

The Inspector pushed the peak of his service cap upwards, tilting
the hat to the back of his head. He looked at the widow closely.

She was middle-aged and rather tall, and still had a comely
face. The determined set of her jaw well became her finely-
chiselled countenance, and she stood erect, displaying a figure
that indicated that, in her youth she must indeed have been a very
attractive-looking girl.

‘It is because of people like you,’ he stormed, ‘that we cannot

apprehend this scoundrel. Instead of informing us where to find
him, you assist him to escape from the clutches of the law?’
 ‘Police Officer,’ she said slowly and clearly, ‘to you he may be a
scoundrel; but to me he is a brother; a very, very dear brother.’

The Inspector wondered what he should do next. All around

him were grinning faces. They were laughing at his discomfiture.
It was quite evident to him that the whole population of this
village, from the Patel downwards, stood behind the bandit-leader
and would shelter and support him. They were openly exuberant
at the disconcertion of the police posse. He would dearly enjoy
beating every man jack of them. But, as that could not very well
be done, the next best thing seemed to be to withdraw as
gracefully as possible from the scene.

‘Squad, fall in!’ he ordered. The men fell in, in three ranks. ‘Left
turn; by the left, quick march.’ And the police went away.

A certain old man with a white beard, moustache and whiskers,

lying in a hayrick less than a hundred yards away, pulled the
wisps of straw from his beard and face, as he watched the
departing policemen benignly.

The widow lived in a hut not far away. It was the third turning
to the left, as you went along the main street of the village; and
her’s was the sixth hut, again to the left.

The following day was the celebration of the Diwali festival.

That night, there came a soft knocking on her door. Wondering
who the caller might be at such a late hour, she timidly opened
up, to see a tall and stately figure standing on her threshold, his
noble countenance partly hidden in a white beard, whiskers and
huge moustache.

‘I am Man Singh,’ he announced without hesitation. ‘Yesterday,

I heard you refer to me as your brother to that stout policeman. I
have come to thank you for what you said to him, and to tell you
that, indeed, I now look upon you as my sister. Please accept this
little gift as a token of my esteem and affection. Henceforth, till
the day of my death, no matter how far away I may be at the time,
I will visit you on Diwali night, my sister.’

With the words he thrust some folded paper into her hands.

Jaya looked down to unfold the paper and see what it was.

Man Singh had given her five one hundred rupee notes.

She looked up to thank him with tears brimming in her eyes.

But he had gone.

Thereafter, every Diwali night, till the year of his death, Man
Singh kept his promised tryst with Jaya the widow, who had called
him her brother. And each time he gave her five hundred rupees.

The villagers say, in hushed whispers, that after his death Man
Singh still visits Jaya on Diwali night. He comes as a spirit, but the
money he leaves is real.

Man Singh organised and ruled his gangs of followers well,

generously and justly. And there was always discipline amongst
them.

The men knew their leader’s noble disposition. They were afraid
to commit any act that would reflect against the Rajah’s, and
thereby the gang’s, own reputation.

Accounts were kept strictly, and all loot shared equitably.

In one skirmish with the police at a much later date, Tehsildar

Singh, the dacoit leader’s third son, was captured. On his person
was found a diary, which revealed that he served as the steward of
the gang, inasmuch as all the day-to-day expenses incurred by
them were noted in it. Reading through the items, the police were
amazed to find that the dacoits paid for all the food they ate, and
did not rob it. Each merchant had been reimbursed in cash for
what had been purchased by the band.

Is it any wonder then, that wherever this amazing character

went, he was greeted with the deepest respect and profound
salaams? Everyone helped him, and no villager would betray or
give information about his whereabouts or movements.

Some of the stories told about him may have been exaggerated.
Rumours are always that way. But never was he accused, even by
the police themselves, of a single act of rudeness to any poor man.
Veritably and truly, he was the friend and succourer of the down-
trodden.

Just like Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest fame in England, Man

Singh was of aristocratic birth. He was a Rajput (which people are
a martial clan of Hindus), and his birthplace was the village of
Rathore Khera not far from Agra. The year he was born, 1890.

From young, Man Singh loved Nature and everything connected

therewith. He revelled in the hard work of ploughing and sowing
his fields, and the harvest was a delight and a period of
thanksgiving to God, as he gathered in the golden grains of wheat.
It was the reward of his labour. He loved each inch of the soil. No
work was too hard for his rippling young muscles as he laboured
bare-bodied beneath the tropical sun. Every night he would lay
himself down to rest, sometimes still soiled with the grime of the
day to fall asleep at once; exhausted, but very very happy.

In his spare moments, which were few and far between, he

would stroll into the forest that skirted his fields. There he would
sit in solitude under a spreading fig tree and hearken with
harmony in his soul to the music of the birds of the wild; the
plaintive call of peafowl, the harrying and worrying notes of the
‘brain-fever’ bird, the cheery crow of the jungle-cock both
morning and evening, the peculiar sound made by nightjars at
dusk and the mysterious and frightening hoot of the great horned
owls at night. He asked nothing more from life than these things.
He was simple; he was contented; and he was happy.

Bihari Singh, his father, was the village headman or patel. He

was rich and lived comfortably with his two sons, Nawab Singh,
the elder, and Man Singh, the hard-working, peaceful farmer
youth.

As with most other Indian boys romance and marriage were

brought early into Man Singh’s simple life in the form of a
beautiful Rajput lass to whom he was married by his father while
still very young. Through her, he had four sons—Jaswant Singh,
Subedar Singh, Tehsildar Singh and Dhuman Singh; and one pretty
daughter, whom he named Rani.

When he was only 24 years of age, he was elected as the

Mukhiya of his village and made a member of the Agra District
Board. The British Government at that time benefitted by his
valuable help as a good and honourable citizen during the dark
days of World War I. He was always an honest man.

But nothing gave him greater joy than the cultivation of his
wide lands, and the income he derived from them more than
rewarded him for his hard work.

His outstandingly tall figure, his affable personality, and the

beard that he wore from young made him well-known and
respected everywhere; both as Mukhiya when he arbitrated over
village disputes, and as an active member of the District Board. He
had an outstandingly lofty forehead, and on his head he would
wear a large and high turban. These increased his physical height
and imbued him with a dignified bearing.

Then Fate decided, by one of her quirks that things were going
too well with this happy and contented family and started a chain
of circumstances that eventually made this upright son of India
into one of her most feared and dreaded brigands. Fate went even
further than that. It made this man write his history in a queer
mixture of chivalry and blood as the greatest dacoit of all time
that the country had ever known and at the same time most
benevolent.

Bihari Singh his father became engaged in litigation over some

land with a man named Talfi Ram, a cunning and plotting
Brahmin who was jealous of Bihari Singh’s wealth and of Man
Singh’s increasing popularity and position.

The elder brother, Nawab Singh, had already left the family and
was leading a peacefully nomad life in the jungles at this time.

Suddenly a dacoity occurred in the village. The word ‘dacoity’

signifies a raid accompanied by robbery and violence. In this case
a baniya’s (moneylender’s) house was attacked at night, the
baniya stabbed but not killed, and some money taken.

The malicious Talfi Ram falsely informed the police that the
nomad elder brother, Nawab Singh, had perpetrated the act, aided
and sheltered by the father, Bihari Singh, who did not like the
baniya because he was a friend of Talfi Ram. He also stated that
Nawab Singh’s brother, Man Singh, knew all about the raid and
had assisted actively in it.

The police, as police all over the world will do, called both
Bihari Singh and Man Singh to the station, closely interrogated
them about the missing Nawab Singh, and warned them to be of
good behaviour. Nothing more than that was done, because
nothing could be proved. There was absolutely no evidence.

But old Bihari Singh, because he was innocent of the charge,

took the incident greatly to heart as an irreparable insult to his
family’s honour and dignity. Young Man Singh supported his
father wholeheartedly. His hot Rajput blood was up, and he
determined to be avenged on the rascally Brahmin Talfi Ram and
his whole family.

It was the fateful year 1928 when matters came to a head and
the underlying feud burst into open conflict.

Man Singh went into the forest with his four sons, a relative
named Roopa, and a large number of friends and well-wishers.
There he joined his brother, Nawab Singh, who had been accused
by Talfi Ram of perpetrating the original dacoity.

One night the combined party raided Talfi Ram’s house. The
Brahmin had been anticipating the attack and had hired some
men, as mercenaries, to defend him. A bloody fight took place, in
which Man Singh and his party eventually emerged victorious.
Several of their opponents were killed and many wounded.

This single incident wiped out, for all time, Man Singh’s name
from its place of honour as a respectable, useful and law-abiding
citizen. Instead, it was now inscribed in letters of blood and
murder, as Man Singh the Dacoit, who was later to be hailed as
the king of all dacoits.

The police acted quickly and creditably after that, and Man
Singh and his whole party were arrested; only his brother, Nawab
Singh, his eldest son, Jaswant Singh, and a nephew, Darshan
Singh, escaping.

Man Singh was imprisoned for the first and last time in his
existence. He was brought on trial and convicted to
transportation for life.

As time passed and the tension died down, the three fugitives,
Nawab Singh, Jaswant Singh and Darshan Singh, occasionally and
secretly visited old Bihari Singh in his house. Talfi Ram came to
hear of these clandestine visits. He had sworn to be revenged after
his recent defeat and had unobstrusively regathered his forces and
friends to attain this purpose.

One day, while the three men were gathered in the house with
the old father, Talfi Ram and his band counter-attacked, and a gun
battle ensued. At the same time, very cleverly Talfi Ram sent word
to the police for help, saying that the three fugitives were in town
and trouble was afoot.

The police heard the shooting and concluding that the three
wanted men were the aggressors, arrived at the spot as an armed
posse. Meanwhile Talfi Ram and his followers had craftily faded
from the scene, leaving the three fugitives inside the house and
the police on the outside.

Foolishly, Nawab Singh and the other two men opened fire on
the armed police. But they were outnumbered and out-gunned.
Jaswant Singh, the eldest son, and Darshan Singh, the nephew,
were shot dead. Nawab Singh was arrested, brought to trial, and
also sentenced as a murderer to transportation for life.

Talfi Ram gloated over his revenge, which had been swift and
highly successful.

There had been a Judas among Man Singh’s relatives. A distant

cousin, named Khem Singh, had deserted and gone over to join the
Brahmin who had paid him for his betrayal. In fact, it was this
man who had told Talfi Ram that the three fugitives were in the
house with Bihari Singh, and had caused the counter-attack. He
had also been the one to summon the police.

Man Singh nursed his revenge in his heart for ten long years. His
home had been wrecked, the good name of his father, Bihari
Singh, and that of the whole family irretrievably besmirched. No
longer were they a household that was looked up to and respected.
They were but a family of brigands and murderers. Worst of all,
the old man, his father, was heartbroken.
 The wily Brahmin, Talfi Ram, was responsible for it all. For the
death of his son, Jaswant, and his nephew, Darshan Singh. And for
sending him, and his brother, Nawab Singh, to jail for years upon
end.

Yes; Talfi Ram was the cause of it all. Talfi Ram, and that other
traitorous dog, Khem Singh, doubly a traitor because he belonged
to old Bihari Singh’s family.

Man Singh made up his mind what he would do when he was

released.

At last came the year 1938. Ten long years had passed while he
had been in jail. During those ten years, Man Singh had been an
exemplary convict, and one of the best behaved. He lived for
revenge, and revenge only.

Because of his excellent conduct, he was released that year.

No sooner was he out of prison than he got entangled in disputes

and open quarrels with the families of Talfi Ram and Khem Singh.
Once more the police intervened. They warned him that he would
be thrown into jail again. He was bound over to be of good
behaviour for two years—up to May 1940. But Khem Singh was
excused and went scot-free.

This added insult to injury, and yet more did Man Singh fret and
fume. But he had now been taught the need for caution, and bided
his time, behaving as a reformed citizen, till May 1940, which
marked the expiry of the period for which he had been bound over
to be of good behaviour.

At last the sun set on that glad day of May 31st, 1940. Man Singh
was now a free person once more.

He waited just one short month to take his revenge.

 On the night of 4th July, 1940, assisted by his remaining three
sons, the faithful Roopa, and other relatives and friends, Man
Singh launched a sudden attack on the houses of his two enemies.

Except for two women, Talfi Ram and his family, or such of
them as were at home, were butchered; while Man Singh’s
youngest son, Dhuman Singh, personally cut off the heads of two
of Khem Singh’s close relations.

The die had been cast forever. There was now a barrier of blood
and guilt between Man Singh and his followers, on the one hand,
and law and society on the other—a barrier that could not be
forgotten, surmounted, or circumvented. Henceforth, they were
outlaws for ever and ever—and the feud that had started against
mankind could only be expiated by the death of everyone of the
outlaw band.

A person of lesser character would have quailed in the face of

this inexorable fate. Everybody’s hand was against him, thirsting
for his blood. He was feared by all and hated by all. The police of
four states were searching for him. He was a lost soul in a lost
body. Where should he go, where should he hide? How was he to
eat and live? Nowhere could he seek employment; nowhere earn
an honest living. His beloved fields, and his beloved home, father
and wife were lost to him, forever. He was an outcast; thief,
robber, murderer, dacoit!

Truly, most men would have succumbed through sheer fear,

desperation and helplessness, to a fate such as lay ahead of him.

But Man Singh never flinched for one moment. He was made of
sterner stuff than that. Indeed, he had guts and was veritably a
man.

He merely accepted the situation for what it was worth and

made the best out of it.
 And that best was a very, very great deal, indeed.

From an insignificant outcast, he became, in 15 years, the

greatest dacoit India has ever known. To emphasise that
achievement, he came to be called throughout the peninsular as
the King of Indian Dacoits. He started his career as an ordinary
outlaw; hated, feared, and despised by everybody. He ended it by
being respected, loved and even revered by millions throughout
the length and breadth of the land. He ran away, penniless; but
lived to donate money and temple bells, and to build schools and
temples themselves. He fled from the scene of his acts of futile
vengeance; but lived to save and help many others who,
themselves had become the victims of revenge. He had done and
still did, much harm; but he also lived to do very much good.

It is not for mortal and sinful men to judge Man Singh and his
misdeeds. That supreme judgement is given only to the all-wise
Creator who made Man Singh and knew why He had made him
and allowed him to sin. But the whole of India acclaims and
proclaims that Man Singh was, in veritable truth, a ‘man’ in every
sense of the word—a man with unbounded courage and
indomitable spirit.

Perhaps those who read his adventures may come to hold the
same opinion.

* * *

At the time, Man Singh embarked upon his career as a dacoit, four
states of India converged on an area watered by three rivers. The
states were Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and
Uttar Pradesh; and the rivers were the Chambal, the Kunwari and
the Jamuna.
 The country was extremely broken and the land eroded. In
between the ravines so formed flowed the three rivers named
above, and their tributaries; mostly dry nullahs in the summer,
but raging, impassable torrents of water when the rains came. It
was wild country; wooded with scrub and interlaced by
watercourses, furroughed ravines, and caves, covering an area of
well over 8000 square miles.

For purposes of cultivation, the land and the soil were

worthless. For purposes of sheltering a band of outlaws, who could
hide in the caves, creep along the ravines, strike at their victims,
and then vanish into thin air, the terrain was ideal.

Man Singh was a born general. He at once knew that among

that maze of ravines, caves, dried waterways and thorny scrub, he
and his followers would be safe from surprise attack. Paths were
few, and they were tortuous. High grass grew everywhere. Few
people, if any, came near the area. It seemed a land of the dead, fit
for nothing but ghosts and ghouls and the huge horned owls that
sailed soundlessly along the nullahs, seeking a rodent or a rabbit
at night for prey.

But Man Singh made it his kingdom; a wide kingdom, forbidding

and austere. Here he established his stronghold and headquarters,
from where he launched his bands of dacoits upon raid after raid
and in which it was very difficult for the police to ever dream of
catching up with him.

As his fame and authority spread, more and more outlaws and
vagrants were attracted to his banner. Dacoits who had hitherto
carried on operations on their own initiative, now decided to
throw in their lot with him. Some of them had already earned
reputations that caused people to tremble at the very mention of
their names. All of them were experienced. One by one, and in
groups, they rallied to the standard of this new leader; whom they
recognized as a man who possessed both the required strong
personality and the organisational capacity to hold such a motley
band of hard, cruel desperadoes, together.

Outstanding among his followers, we find the following names.

Subedar Singh, Tehsildar Singh, who later became known as ‘the
Terrible’, and Dhuman Singh, his remaining three sons; Charna,
‘the Ferocious’, who was to grow into his most able general, and
Shyama, both dacoits who had hitherto been operating in the
United Provinces; Prithvi, Shankar and Dhawan, brigands from
Rajasthan; Sultan, Lakhan Singh, ‘the Lion’, and Amrit Lal, from
Madhya Bharat; Pratap and Devi Singh, from Vindhya Pradesh;
and his old friend, distant relative and trusted follower, Roopa,
‘the Faithful’, who outlived him and still operates as a dacoit
today.

Just as Robin Hood of England gathered his merry men around

him in the fastnesses of Sherwood Forest, from where they would
launch their raids and then vanish back into the little-known
labyrinths; Man Singh of India gathered his band of outlaws,
making the Chambal ravines as they were known, as famous as
Sherwood Forest, because they came to shelter a man every bit as
brave, and chivalrous, as Robin Hood of undying fame.

His initial attacks were still in pursuit of the old vendetta that
had made him into a dacoit, and were directed against the
residual members of the families of Talfi Ram and Khem Singh,
which he started to systematically exterminate in cold blood. We
are told that Khem Singh’s relatives were finally completely wiped
out with the murder of the last remaining grandson. There is no
record as to whether the same fate befell the Brahmin’s kinsmen,
but the fact that they were never heard of again appears to
indicate that it was so. Or perhaps the few that were left fled the
area forever.

While this was happening, Man Singh’s band of followers and

desperadoes increased by leaps and bounds. And men cannot live
on revenge. They require food. And food costs money. So Man
Singh was forced to extend his raids merely to procure that
commodity, money, which meant food and hence life, for all of
them.

His initial plans were simple but intelligent. And back of them
was the full force of his brain—a brain that had once been clever
and devoted to constructive progress—now warped beyond repair,
to revel in lawless adventure, and daring, atrocious brigandage.

From the very beginning, Man Singh revealed himself as an

organiser of immense capacity and forethought, a strategist of
outstanding merit and ability.

He split his gang into groups. One lot were just spies and
informers. They would wander into villages and towns, noting
who were rich and well-to-do persons. Later, they would kidnap
them, or perhaps one of their sons or other beloved relative, and
hold him to ransom in the fastnesses of the ravine kingdom.

The kidnapped person, be the zamindar, businessman or

landlord, or the heir of such a person, would be compelled to write
a letter home to his relations, plainly stating he had been
kidnapped and that the gang demanded ransom money. In
addition he would have to say that, if the money was not paid
within a stipulated period, he would most certainly be done to
death.

Invariably the ransom was paid. People did not dare to report
the matter to the police, because in any case the police were
helpless, and could do nothing about it; while, if Man Singh came
to know the police had been told, there was the great danger that
the person held to ransom would be put to death at once.

Another group was formed to function as a striking force. The

leader of this advance corps was the brigand named Charna. He
earned the epithet of ‘the Ferocious’, and indeed he was the most
merciless of all Man Singh’s lieutenants. A fearless man, and an
inherent tactician, he selected as the men who were to serve
under him the most bloodthirsty and toughest members, whom he
trained in jungle warfare and the use of tommy guns and modern
equipment. He had been a soldier in his time and was given the
choice of the best equipment in the possession of the band, which
included hand-grenades, Sten guns, tommy guns, and .303 service
rifles, all procured illegally along with vast stores of ammunition.

The ‘spies’ would inform the ‘advance corps’ who very often did
the actual kidnapping.

Not only that, but Charna’s men served as a commando unit in

more senses than one. It was their duty to look out for police
movements, and to counter-attack, ambush and harass them, and
keep them engaged till the main body of dacoits could escape, or
wolf around to surround the police and tackle them from the rear.

Tehsildar Singh, the third son, was the marksman of the band.
He was an excellent sniper. Even in pitch darkness, he had taught
himself to fire at the author of the slightest sound. Invariably that
individual never made another sound in this life again.

Or Tehsildar would throw a stone near some police picket on a

pitch-black night. The sentry would challenge, or open fire.
Tehsildar would locate the spot where the challenge came from, or
watch the flash from the policeman’s rifle. The next second the
sentry would be dead.

Lakhan Singh, called ‘the Lion’, and Devi Singh were two others
among Man Singh’s lieutenants who earned for themselves the
reputation of being most ruthless, and daring beyond compare.

The great leader never went alone. Invariably he would be

accompanied by a bodyguard with a tommy gun, sworn to protect
and defend him at the cost of his own life.
 There was always a spirit of good comradery among the
members of the band; a spirit of honesty; faithfulness and loyalty;
a spirit of genuine love and sacrifice for their popular chieftain, to
safeguard whom, or at whose command, any member of the band
would willingly and gladly lay down his own life at a moment’s
notice. In fact implicit obedience was one of the main factors that
led to the gang being able to operate so successfully over such a
great length of time.

To replenish their stock of firearms and ammunition, frequent

raids were made by the band on police chowkies and outposts,
whose inmates were exterminated and their equipment stolen.
Other agents were employed solely to rob such weapons and
ammunition, wherever and whenever they could, from army and
police supplies and sources, or get them from deserters.

A trick often used, solely for the purpose of procuring firearms,

would be for Charna and his band to force an encounter with a
police patrol, when Charna would employ one or two dacoits only
to engage the enemy. Fire would be exchanged, and then one of
the dacoits would pretend to fall dead. The other, if there had
been a companion, would act as if he was running away. The
police patrol would advance upon the ‘dead’ man with the object
of seeing if they could find any incriminating evidence in the way
of documents or other information about the gang. upon his
person. When they were well in the open, the rest of Charna’s
advance corps would enfilade them from all points and wipe them
out. Then, of course, the rifles and other firearms they had been
carrying, together with all their ammunition and equipment,
would be robbed.

Man Singh and his men lived this self-chosen life of violence,
pillage and murder, in the ravines of the river Chambal and its
vicinity, camping in the open or hiding in caves, for years. But
never once in all this time did he harm a villager, a poor man, or
the petty merchants that kept him supplied with food. His prey
were the zamindars, the rich landlords, and the haughty, arrogant
moneylenders of the area. His avowed enemies were the police,
and all their agents and secret informers.

During the whole period of his regime, he and his followers

always behaved fairly and even generously with the working-class
folk and the humble, downtrodden farmers. Having been once a
farmer himself, he was particularly partial to the poor
agriculturists he encountered.

Thus it came to pass that he was looked upon as their best friend
and saviour. They loved, respected and obeyed him. They would
give no information that might betray his whereabouts. And
many a time, when the police made a surprise attack, they would
hide him and his followers in their own huts, inside their own
granaries, even down their own wells. It was almost a case of the
law and the police, on one side, versus the dacoits and the
villagers on the other. The murders he committed were translated
and glorified by the people into acts of commendable courage; and
his robberies, as a means of justice, to wrest money from the rich
and undeserving, with the purpose of feeding the poor and
helpless.

When India gained independence in 1947, many criminals and

convicts were released by the Government as an amnesty to
celebrate the occasion. One of these was Nawab Singh, Man
Singh’s elder brother. The first thing this man did, upon coming
out of jail, was to go to his old village, borrow a gun, kill the only
two remaining relations of Talfi Ram and then join his
redoubtable younger brother.

Not one soul now remained alive of the once large families of
the Brahmin, Talfi Ram, or of Man Singh’s own distant relative,
Khem Singh, who had once betrayed him.
 Man Singh and the members of his family that were with him
had indeed taken an awful revenge.

Not content with wiping out both families, they then proceeded
to mercilessly slaughter all who had been their adherents, their
witnesses, their informers, and even their sympathisers.

The lust for revenge seemed to imbue Man Singh for some time
after this. Not satisfied with having annihilated his personal
enemies and their followers, he even went on to embark upon a
campaign of retaliation on all who had stood witness against any
of his dacoit band at any one time or another. These included the
police, their secret agents, spies and informers, and the relatives of
these people. They were also killed.

Even the magistrates in the land received warnings that they

would be eliminated if they dared to institute any active measures
against the band or any members who had been arrested and
brought to trial.

The Military Take a Hand

Matters had now gone from bad to worse. With the latest policy of
indiscriminate revenge that had been adopted by Man Singh and
his men through systematically wiping out each and every police
spy or informer, their relatives, and even sometimes innocent
people suspected of having helped the police in some way or the
other, directly or indirectly, action by the civil authorities became
puerile and abortive. The regularly paid police agents either
resigned, reported sick or absconded from their posts. Their terror
became contagious and spread to the uniformed constables
stationed at distant and isolated police chowkies, who felt they
were beyond the pale of help from the authorities, who had
evidenced complete inability to support or protect them, anyhow.
 So they, in turn, deserted.

Conditions were growing chaotic.

Civil law and order had been brought to a standstill and became
a laughing stock.

At this stage, Government decided to call upon the military for

assistance, and small units of the regular army were stationed at
strategic points.

It did not take very long for the dacoits, who had become
increasingly self-confident, to clash with the military, and a
number of gun battles and skirmishes ensued, with the result of
many fatal casualties on both sides.

With all this, the power of Man Singh grew and grew, and the
villagers loved him more and more. They refused point-blank to
assist the military or the police in any way. The authorities found
themselves in greater difficulties than ever before.

Man Singh had attained such heights of fame that, apart from
the depredations committed directly by him and his henchmen,
numerous lesser bands of maurauders, raiders and dacoits
operating for hundreds of miles around became subservient to
him. In return for the protection afforded by his name and often
by members of his gang in person, they proudly proclaimed him
their suzerain and punctiliously paid him from 10% to 25% of the
loot and money they took in their raids. This payment was known
as a ‘nazrana’ (tribute money), and not only enormously
increased Man Singh’s exchequer, but his reputation soared to be
regarded as almost that of an emperor among thieves. It extended
over thousands upon thousands of square miles, in all the affected
areas of the four states converging in that region.

This last state of affairs stung the authorities to desperation,

and the four governments concerned decided to pool their
resources. They raised an army of policemen between them
numbering 1,700 selected men, and committed them as a full-time
job to wipe out the dreadful menace that had arisen. An
experienced Deputy Inspector-General of Police was placed in
charge of the whole operation, and hundreds of men from the
C.I.D. branches of the police forces of all the states throughout
India were distributed over the area, in villages big and small, to
glean information about the bandits and their movements;
particularly regarding their leader and his ravine stronghold.

This concerted effort did not take very long to gain its first
result.

A police spy came to know that Charna, the Ferocious, intended

to visit his wife in a certain village, upon a certain day.

The police laid a trap.

Unsuspectingly, Charna and some of his men entered the

village. The police did nothing till they had gone right inside the
house. Then about 60 of them surrounded it and tried to break the
door in.

Charna found he was trapped and determined to sell his life

dearly. From windows on the top storey of the building, the
dacoits opened fire and the police returned it. For 24 hours a
vigorous gun battle raged, but the 60 policemen were unable to
advance a step further.

Desperately they called for help.

More police answered the call, and 400 especially trained

policemen were sent to help the 60 policemen already there.

Inside the house were only 14 dacoits, and their chieftain,

Charna.
 Surrender was out of the question. The attackers fired volley
after volley and even used tear-gas shells.

But the bandits returned their fire and held their own.

So the 460 policemen, after besieging the 15 dacoits for 3 whole

days and nights, sent for military help.

An Army unit from the Dogra Regiment was sent to the spot,
and an artillery detachment.

Two cannon shots were fired at the house at point-blank range,

and the building collapsed. With a yell, the combined force of
soldiers and policemen charged into the debris.

There they found 14 dacoits, all dead. But not Charna.

Somehow, miraculously he had fled, while his loyal followers

had laid down their lives to a man to cover his escape.

Little wonder then, that when so few men could fight over 33
times their number of better-equipped and trained regular
policemen for 3 days, and only stopped fighting when they were
killed by cannon fire, entirely in devotion to a petty chieftain;
what must have been the loyalty, the respect, and the utter,
selfless love which the main band of dacoits had for their leader,
the matchless Rajah Man Singh Rathore, as he was now called.

This happened in 1951.

In 1953, Charna, once again at the head of the advance guard,

ambushed and wiped out a police patrol. Unfortunately for him,
that patrol had a portable wireless transmitter, and when the
attack was launched had sent out a desperate S.O.S. for help.
Police reinforcements from all directions, who had picked up the
message, rushed to the assistance of the beleagured party,
although they failed to arrive in time to save it.
 But Charna did not know about the transmitter.

When the first of the reinforcements came on the scene, they

were in time to see the dacoits relieving the dead bodies of the
police patrol of their arms, ammunition and equipment. They
opened fire, and the dacoits retaliated briskly.

More and more policemen arrived, and this time there was no
friendly building to shelter the dacoits as they fought. They had
ambushed the original police squad in the open; and now in turn
they found themselves in the open, but surrounded.

Once again a grim gun battle was fought, and this time lasted
for 10 hours. But the outlaws were at a disadvantage as they had
but little cover, while the many police units that had arrived upon
the scene poured in volley after volley upon the little band.

Ten hours later the sounds of gun and rifle fire subsided, and the
smoke of battle gradually drifted from the scene.

* * *

It revealed Charna and nine of his outlaw band stretched dead

upon the sward. Not one had escaped, this time.

The Fall of Man Singh

The death of Charna appeared to be a bad omen for Man Singh

and his followers, and the forerunner of many evils to come,
culminating with his own doom. Not only had the dacoit leader
lost a very staunch and brave supporter, but the advance guard
was now bereft of a chieftain who had been a strategist by natural
gift and knew exactly when, and where to attack, and when not
to. His successor had not these qualities and the advance unit soon
began to run into serious trouble itself. Rather than continue to
remain the most efficient striking force it had hitherto been under
the leadership of the late Charna, it became an additional
liability for Man Singh to look after.

In a skirmish shortly later several dacoits were seriously

wounded, and one of the C.I.D. agents brought in word that these
wounded men were to be moved at night from the caves where
they had been kept in hiding, across the river Chambal, to a place
called Etawah to be attended to by a doctor; and that Man Singh
himself was in hiding in a ravine beside the Bhua Kher.

Large numbers of police surrounded the area in a huge circle and

then slowly closed in upon the ravine where Man Singh was said
to be. By midday they received notice of the presence of the
dacoits when a solitary rifle shot broke the silence and a sergeant
fell dead. Then a voice shouted, ‘Come any closer, and your agent,
Kama, who is a prisoner with us, will be shot.’

In reply to this the police began to crawl forward cautiously.

Another single rifle shot broke the silence.

After that a sharp battle ensued. The outlaws employed hand-

grenades, Sten guns, tommy guns and rifles, and the police used
the same.

By weight of numbers the forces of law began to advance, and

the outlaws broke and ran for safety. Man Singh and Roopa, firing
tommy guns escaped down a connecting ravine. Others scrambled
over the sides and rocks for safety. Tehsildar Singh, the bandit
leader’s third son—he who bore the title of ‘the Terrible’—made a
dash for liberty on horseback, but he and his mount were
wounded. Later he was caught, and in his possession was a big-
game rifle—a .500 bore double-barrelled black powder Express.
 When the police searched the camp, they found their agent,
Kama. The outlaws had carried out their threat. ‘He had been
shot through the head. That was the second shot they had heard
after being warned not to advance closer.

A domestic tragedy overtook the dacoit leader about this time.

Lakhan Singh, who was called ‘the Lion’, had married Man
Singh’s daughter, Rani. But this girl proved unfaithful to her
husband, and took unto herself a lover from among the dacoit
band. This news infuriated Man Singh. It outraged his high ideals
and his strict sense of justice. In the very presence of Rani, his
daughter, he shot her paramour dead.

The old man had performed his duty as a father-in-law in

keeping with the strictest principles of justice. But the shame of
his daughter’s conduct lived with him to his last day. And that
same shame drove Lakhan Singh, her husband, who was also one
of Man Singh’s ablest lieutenants, to leave the band and go far
away to operate and die on his own.

With the loss of these three very competent supporters, Man

Singh suddenly grew tired and remorseful at the life he had been
leading—a life of bloodshed, a life where he had no home to call
his own, where he could never settle down and was always on the
run; the restless life he had loved so dearly for so long but was now
tired of following.

He wanted rest; he wanted peace; he wanted a home.

So he did a remarkable thing.

He offered the Government an amnesty.

He wrote a letter to the Government of India—unique in the

annals of this country and, for the matter of that, of any country
in the world. He began his letter by saying he was not a thief or
murderer by choice, but fate and circumstances had forced him to
be one. When he had not committed dacoity and was innocent, he
had been called a dacoit and accused of a crime he had never
done. He said the police had shamed and warned him without
cause. So he had been compelled to punish the liar Talfi Ram, who
had so blamed him. Now, however, he was willing to come back
home and live a respectable life once again. He also went on to
make what he termed a sporting offer to the Government. As a
measure of his earnest desire to become a good and useful citizen
of India, he stated that he and his band of dacoits would proceed
to Goa, and free that foreign pocket by throwing the Portuguese
out, and if necessary into the sea.

The Government of India did not reply. It could not negotiate

peace terms with a multi-murderer.

This disheartened Man Singh and demoralised his followers.

Unrelentingly the police pursued them from hideout to hideout.
One by one the outlaws were arrested, wounded or killed. Now
many started deserting, the zeal and fight knocked out of them.

Finally, only 18 remained. Among them were Nawab Singh, his

aged brother; Subedar Singh, his second son; and Roopa, the
Faithful.

By this time Nawab Singh had become an old man, and his
failing sight and physique often made him a burden to his
companions. He begged his brother to abandon him. But the Rajah
was not the sort of man to desert a friend, far less his own elder
brother. He kept Nawab Singh with him to the very end.

Although depleted in numbers, Man Singh resolved that the

reputation of his followers should never be sullied. He committed
dacoity after dacoity upon the rich, while his fame for generosity
and kindness towards the poor increased yet more.

The authorities were almost berserk. The 1,700 uniformed

policemen searching for him, and the horde of plain-clothed
C.I.D. detectives were stirred to greater efforts.

But Man Singh and his remaining 18 outlaws continued their

depredations.

On a day in November, 1954, the Home Minister of Madhya

Bharat, Mr. Dixit, undertook to resign from the State Cabinet if
Man Singh was not brought to book within a year from that day.
To accomplish this, he called upon those most famous fighting
men of India, the Gurkhas, to help him. He raised a special
company, comprised entirely of these hardy hill soldiers, to
eliminate Man Singh, who had become a curse to the four states in
which he had eluded all efforts to catch him.

Things became more and more hot for the quarry now, so that
Man Singh adopted a ruse. A cremation was held in an obscure
village with a corpse dressed up to resemble him and the rumour
was circulated that the old brigand had died of a sudden illness
and had been cremated, according to custom.

The authorities and the police were jubilant. The rich

zamindars and landlords and oppressors of the poor slept soundly
in relief. The humble and harassed wept bitter tears at the loss.
There was a lull in the pursuit.

After some time, Man Singh struck again. Indeed, he was alive
in right earnest and had fooled the authorities thoroughly.

Many who believed he had really died were now convinced he

had come to life again. This bestowed upon the Rajah a reputation
of being immortal.

The police took up the pursuit once more and the crack Gurkha
company went into action.

Man Singh was traced to a hideout in the Morena district which

the police besieged at dawn. Heavy firing continued all day till
nightfall, when the outlaws retreated, leaving a good quantity of
arms and ammunition, including Sten guns behind them. Man
Singh was supposed to have been wounded in this battle, but he
made good his escape.

The forces of authority followed harder than ever on his trail.

For seven months after that, from February to August, 1955, they
relentlessly hounded him from pillar to post. By the middle of
August they had him literally sealed up in the ravines of the
Chambal River. All outlets were guarded.

The Last Glorious Fight

Somehow this amazing man and his 18 followers got clean through
the police net. He escaped to the district of Bhind and tried to
cross the Kunwari River.

Here Fate played him a cruel trick. The Kunwari was in full
flood and totally unfordable. Man Singh and his band fled back to
the village of Bijapur, and the crack company of Gurkhas, under
the command of an officer named Chaihale, pursued him.

Man Singh fired the first shot; and the last battle of his brilliant,
but criminal career, was fought.

A platoon of the warlike Gurkhas, led by one of their own

countrymen, Jamadar Bhanwar Singh, attacked; and the fight was
fast and furious. Guns rifles, tommy guns, Sten guns and grenades
were freely used. Man Singh himself a crack shot, accounted for
many of his foes, and thousands of rounds were fired.

But his time had come and the Great Reaper, whom he had
eluded so often, claimed him at last. The most illustrious dacoit of
all time fell to earth, his body riddled with bullets.
 With a hurrah of victory, the sturdy little Gurkhas rushed
forward to take his corpse.

But there was yet an epic to be enacted in this great battle

before it was finally over.

The dacoits counter-attacked vigorously to prevent the earthly

remains of their beloved leader from falling into the hands of the
foe. The fight waged more furious than ever.

Then from the ranks of the outlaws rushed forth a stalwart

figure, red with his own lifeblood that streamed from many
wounds, while tears flowed unrestrainedly down his leathery dark
cheeks and on to his beard.

It was Subedar Singh, valiant second son of the stricken leader.

He rushed to cover his father’s body with his own so that it should
not receive any more bullets.

And he succeeded in his purpose.

Riddled himself with rifle, tommy gun and Sten gun bullets, he
fell dead over the corpse of his beloved father, to protect it in
death.

The battle was over. Roopa, the Faithful, badly wounded, was
able to get the aged Nawab Singh away, together with a handful
of those remaining alive.

But most lay dead on the field of that last and most glorious
fight.

Even the little Gurkhas, men of war and blood that they were,
stood mutely in respect before those huddled corpses. Then, one by
one, they saluted the dead with honour; the esteem of gallant men
for one another!
 The police were again jubilant. The public throughout India
rejoiced. The newspapers announced the victory, in leading
headlines.

Mr. Dixit, the Home Minister, had kept his pledge; and so he did
not have to resign. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; Home
Minister, Pant, of the Central Government; and the Congress
President, Mr. Dhebar, were informed by telegram, and were
relieved.

While the poor throughout the land, whom Man Singh had
loved and defended, and who loved him in return, wept bitterly.

Dr. Sampurnanand, Chief Minister of the United Provinces,

issued this announcement:

‘It is not a very happy thing to express joy over the death of a
person. Man Singh is dead, and the people who were awestricken
on account of the depredations of Man Singh and his gang, have
heaved a sigh of relief.’

But the sighs and the tears of widows and children, and the
incense and the prayers of the temple priests, and the chimes of
the bells that Man Singh had donated, went up to God for his soul,
throughout the land.

The Last Rites

The police brought the bullet-riddled bodies of the great leader

and his staunch son, under heavy armed guard, to the town of
Bhind. Their bodies were tied to charpoys (cots made of a wooden
frame, interlaced with rope), and exposed in a standing position
for the public to gaze upon. It is estimated that over 40,000 people
filed past the dead men. Some of these did so out of a morbid
curiosity; some out of joy and relief. But thousands who paid their
last homage cried openly and bitterly, like children.

From there, the corpses were taken to Gwalior City for

cremation. Man Singh’s widow petitioned the Government by
telegram that the bodies of her husband and son be given to her, as
a matter of justice, so that she could perform the last rites. From
jail, Tehsildar Singh, the third son, begged Government to allow
him to light his father’s funeral pyre and to put the ceremonial fire
in his mouth. This ceremony is called the ‘mukhagni’, and is the
final bounden duty enjoined upon a surviving son towards his
father at the latter’s death.

Both petitions were refused.

That last day another 60,000 people filed past the dead bodies at
Gwalior City to pay their final respects. The hushed silence was
broken by the hum and murmur of prayers for the departed spirits
of the brave father and son, and throbbed to the sound of sobbing.
Tears flowed freely, many of them to fall on the mute remains of
the beloved brigand. People bent low to salaam him. Ex-soldiers
and pensioners from all branches of the Services turned out in full
uniform, wearing their war medals. The red coats, supplied by the
British to their Indian soldiers before World War I were
conspicuous on these veterans of long ago. Many of them were
very old men, who had fought India’s wars valiantly in the dim
past. They knew what bravery and loyalty meant.

In the broiling sun, they joined the slowly-moving queue. When

finally they stood before the dead body of the great leader, those
frail and bent old backs were frail and bent no longer. They grew
upright, as if once again on parade. The old, stooping shoulders
squared. The medals, earned so long ago, flashed in the sunlight
once again as the aged feet clicked together, at attention. The
feeble right arms, trembling a little perhaps, went up to the salute
and remained there for a full minute. Tears they could not restrain
brought salt to their lips as they murmured, ‘Farewell, Maharajah
Sahib! May God rest your brave soul in peace.’

Then they shuffled on to the corpse of Subedar Singh. Once more

the stiffening of the aged limbs; once again the click of heels and
the salute; this time the words, ‘Salaam, Subedar Sahib! Loyal and
brave son of your father, we salute you!’

Under close armed police guard, both bodies were then

cremated, the guard remaining while the flames licked hungrily at
the piled wood surrounding the mortal remains of gallant father
and son; while they hissed and crackled; and while the smoke
went up in heavy yellow spirals; and even till such time as it died
down again, leaving only the glowing embers and the ashes to
mark the spot where two famous bodies, of two kindred souls, had
stood.

People said it looked as if the police feared that the terrible

father and his equally terrible son, might suddenly become alive
again and escape once more from their very midst.

And that was how the greatest bandit leader India has ever
known, came into being, and lived, and died.

He was a thief and murderer, no doubt; but also a gentleman to

his fingertips. His prey; the rich. His enemies; the police and
informers. He counted his friends by the thousands amongst the
very very poor of the land. Never once did he harm a woman or
child; never once did he owe any man an anna without repaying
the debt; never once did he rob a person who could not afford it.
And at the very end he, and his beloved son, Subedar, remained
united in gallantry; and died as they had lived, as heroes.

We do not condone the murders and brigandage he committed.

We condemn those actions. It was not for him to have taken the
law into his own hands. His revenge against, and murder of the
enemies of his family, was wrong. For his misdeeds he was rightly
punished by the loss of his life.

But as a living legend of India for all time; a very Robin Hood of
the East; for his chivalry, his generosity, the magnitude of his
nature, and his big-heartedness and bravery and sheer grit, in the
face of insuperable difficulties, hazards and dangers, and his
tenacity and determination, let us always respect him and never
forget him. Let us keep a corner also in our memories for that loyal
son who sought to shield the dead body of his father with his own
live body, and succeeded at the cost of his life.

Let us join with those little Gurkhas on the field of battle that
day; and with those ex-soldiers and pensioners who filed past in
Gwalior City; by saying, ‘Salaam, Rajah Sahib and Subedar Sahib!
Illustrious father and loyal son. We salute you both and shall
remember you.’
 Epilogue

VEN as the writing of these tales comes to a close, news is to

E hand that Roopa, the Faithful, staunch follower and a relative
of the Rajah, is still at liberty and operating his trade as a dacoit.

In the next paragraph is the copy of a Press Report, dated 1st

January, 1959.

DACOIT ROOPA KILLS 4

‘GWALIOR, Jan. 1, 1959. Roopa, notorious dacoit and chief

lieutenant of dacoit Man Singh, last night shot dead three persons
and fatally injured another in a village in Morena District,
according to a report reaching here this morning. The fourth
succumbed to his injuries after he had been removed to hospital.’
 Author

Kenneth Douglas Stewart Anderson

(8 March 1910 – 30 August 1974)

Kenneth Douglas Stewart Anderson was an Indian-born, British

writer and hunter who wrote books about his adventures in the
jungles of South India. Kenneth Anderson was born in Bolarum
and came from a British family that settled in India for six
generations. His father Aryan Stewart Anderson was
superintendent of the F.C.M.A. in Poona, Maharashtra and dealt
with the salaries paid to military personnel, having an honorary
rank of captain. His mother Lucy Ann née Taylor was the grand-
daughter of John Taylor who, for his services, had been gifted land
in Bangalore by Sir Mark Cubbon. Douglas like most British
soldiers took an interest in sport hunting and influenced
Anderson’s interest in the outdoors and hunting.

Anderson went to Bishop Cotton Boys’ School and also studied

at St Joseph’s College, Bangalore. He was sent to study law at
Edinburgh but he quit studies and returned to India. He worked for
fifteen years in the posts and telegraph department and later
worked at the British Aircraft Factory in Bangalore (later HAL) in
the rank of Factory Manager for Planning. He owned nearly 200
acres of land across Karnataka, Hyderabad and Tamil Nadu. In
1972 he was diagnosed with cancer from which he died in 1974. He
was buried at the Hosur road cemetery.